CARICOM member states make donations to the Haiti earthquake relief effort: Repeating Islands has the details.

The Haitian Blogger gives an update on the story of American “missionaries” trying to take children out of Haiti without proper documentation: “A problem in Haiti which is heightened by the catastrophic earthquake is child trafficking. Thankfully, the 10 Missionaries who attempted to move 33 orphans into the Dominican Republic in order to establish an “‘orphanage' were apprehended. The Missionaries are now behind bars in Haiti. Haitian officials have indicated that they believe these Missionairies are kidnappers.”

Global Voices has sent a two-person team to Port-au-Prince in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, to help support citizen media activity. Georgia Popplewell and Alice Backer are also contributing firsthand reporting to our coverage of recovery efforts. Find out more about their assignment here.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI, 29 January, 2010

Grand Rue in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is one of the city's most disadvantaged neighbourhoods, but also home to a vibrant community of artists who create works of art out of the discarded materials they find in their environment. The area was host to the first Ghetto Biennale in December 2009.

This video highlights the impact of the January 12 earthquake on the artists' surroundings and their way of life. (A version with English subtitles is available at dotSUB.) It features an interview with Belle Williams, spokesperson for Ti Moun Rezistans, an arts programme for children of the Grand Rue area.

To offer direct support to the artists of Grand Rue, please donate to the Foundry Haiti Fund.

•••

Alice Backer has posted a video interview with Siméon Evans, another member of the Grand Rue creative community, in which he talks about a mural created for the 2009 Ghetto Biennale by British artist Bill Drummond. “Evans believes Bill Drummond's mural foresaw the earthquake. The mural contains the words ‘Imagine si demen pa gen mizik'. ('Imagine there is no music tomorrow'.)”

A number of international artists and journalists have posted texts, photographs, and video recording the Ghetto Biennale online. Photographer Emily Troutman shared video footage of a musical procession in the Grand Rue at YouTube. There are photosets posted at Flickr by PRI's The World and John T. Unger. Brooklyn-based writer Richard Fleming posted several reports at his blog, and wrote a piece for the Miami Herald. Artist Tracey Moberly's account of the Biennale appears at Dazed Digital.

Conversas já giram em torno da reconstrução do Haiti. Architecture for Humanity (Arquitetura para a Humanidade, en), uma empresa “não-lucrativa” de serviços de projetos que é especializada em reconstrução pós-desastres, lançou algumas notas gerais conceituais. Escrevendo no site da empresa, Cameron Sinclair, um arquiteto e o fundador do grupo, refere-se às controvérsias após o furacão Katrina nos Estados Unidos:

I remember vividly well-known news personalities standing on the rubble of homes in the lower ninth [New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood] proclaiming that ‘this time next year we will see families back home.’ Some well-meaning NGOs, who usually have little building experience, are even worse — ‘we’ll have 25,000 Haitians back home if you donate today.’ In reality, here is what it really looks like:

• Pré-avaliações de Planejamento e Análise de Danos (em andamento, terá a duração de um ano)
• Estabelecer o Centro Comunitário de Recursos e Reconstrução de Studio (6 semanas a 3 meses)
• Seleção de terrenos na propriedade e posse de construção (6 meses a 5 anos)
• Transição de Abrigos, Clínicas de Saúde da Comunidade e Estruturas (6 meses a 2 anos)
• Escolas, Hospitais e Estruturas Civis (9 meses a 3 anos)
• Residência permanente (1 a 5 anos)

Os primeiros relatórios sobre os danos apontaram principalmente para as normas de construção negligentes no Haiti. No blog State of the Planet [Estado do Planeta, en] do Earth Institute (Instituto da Terra), o foco estava na má construção:

Much of the rubble seen in the terrible videos we are now appallingly used to is composed of chunks of cement – and just cement. This is the style so typical of poorer parts of the world. Just cement is not enough; columns and walls should be built with high quality cement, with the right amount of sand, and sewn through with steel reinforcing bars – rebar. That’s what gives them strength. Next time you look at a video or a still image of damaged buildings in Haiti, look for rebar. I haven’t seen any yet.

Mas Adolphe Saint Louis, uma sobrevivente do tremor de 49 anos de idade entrevistada em Porto Príncipe pela New American Media [en], descreve algo mais complicado do que o concreto duvidoso. Sua casa foi construída como uma série de adições, – e com vergalhões, diz ela – para manter uma família sob o mesmo teto, e compartilhar os custos da construção em família. Tornar o edifício expansível serviu a uma função importante, mas que se revelou catastrófica quando a estrutura falhou.

Maybe your child marries and they need a place to be for them and their husband. You can build just a room on the roof of your house and put a tin roof on it. Then when you have more money you can add more rooms or finish the entire floor and create a new roof for the building. That is what we did at my house. We added some rooms and a new roof to our house. There was a place for my nephew to live in the front and a large room for my daughter and her husband in the back. The way we had done it, it was so pleasant. We put many plants and flowers in pots around the side of the staircase outside because my daughter loves nature very much. She was so happy when she saw the place that we made for her. But when the earthquake came, we lost everything….The floors of the houses fell, one on top of the other.

Ela afirmou que o sistema de expansão incluia um reforço:

In Haiti, when you want to add to your home, you build on top of the roof, which is concrete held up by pillars or strong walls on the floor below. A mason builds new walls of concrete blocks to make a room or to enclose the entire area to add a new floor to the house. Some blocks have holes to allow the air to circulate and if the mason is talented he will use the blocks to make a pretty pattern or type of decorative window. The weight-bearing blocks are always solid and they have metal rebar running through the middle to support the structure of the house. When the addition is finished, the mason will leave the rebar exposed so that another floor can be added later if it is needed.

Uma nutricionista canadense vivendo no Haiti, Ellen in Haiti [Ellen no Haiti, en], descreve sua entrada na casa de um amigo – identificado apenas como M – que acabara de comprar a casa construída com pedra em vez de concreto. O projeto antigo também falhara:

This house is made of rocks filled in with mud/clay and covered with something like cement or plaster, the way they were made before concrete blocks took hold in Haiti.  The rocks in one wall all tumbled out, leaving the house uninhabitable. The family is living in their cooking lean-to, which has never had the luxury of four walls.  Their possessions are all bundled up under the thatch roof, where they will be susceptible to rain and bad weather.

Global Voices has sent a two-person team to Port-au-Prince in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, to help support citizen media activity. Georgia Popplewell and Alice Backer are also contributing firsthand reporting to our coverage of recovery efforts. Find out more about their assignment here.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI, 30 January, 2010

Régine Zamor is a Haitian-American based in New Rochelle, New York, but raised in Brooklyn. Her Haitian family is from Martissant. She decided to come to Haiti after the 12 January earthquake and volunteer on her own, without signing up with a major NGO. She had contacts in Haiti and the Dominican Republic before arriving, having volunteered with Haitian indentured laborers in Batey Ocho, Barahona, in the Dominican Republic last summer. Her family and friends in the United States were supportive of her decision.

Régine is a film producer and writer who just finished a documentary film on street children in Cap Haïtien, titled Bagay Dwòl. She has been blogging about the film and about her first-response volunteering at her blog, Bagay Dwol Journal.

When she initially arrived in Haiti, a couple of days after the quake, she researched where her help was needed and wound up volunteering in food distribution, information sharing — both in person and through her blog — and in medical supplies distribution through various contacts at smaller NGOs such as SOIL, Wynn Farm, and COHEF.

Georgia Popplewell and I met with her at the Hotel Oloffson a couple of afternoons ago.

“I didn't want to wait”

When I told other Haitians living in the United States that I was traveling to Haiti with Global Voices, many who were on waiting lists with large well-known NGOs and US government agencies expressed dismay. For example, my friend Alex — who holds a masters degree in public health administration and has been working in the healthcare industry in the United States for years — was itching to be picked from a volunteer list. When Régine explained to Georgia and me how she made it to Haiti shortly after the quake, I immediately thought of Alex and all the others waiting in the U.S.

Régine decided not to wait, and in this video she explains how she connected with the work she wound up doing:

(A version of this video with French subtitles is also available on dotSUB.)

Régine and other first-responders took food distribution in their own hands and at their own cost

I have only spotted one UN-run food distribution line since my arrival here a week ago. It was near the National Palace, and proved so chaotic that either tear gas or pepper spray was allegedly used on the crowd. A handful of UN officers seemed to be handling a crowd of thousands. A system for the distribution of the global influx of aid by either the UN or the Haitian government has yet to materialize. But in speaking to Régine, it became clear that many Haitians and others willing to help took matters into their own hands during the first-response period.

Here Régine explains how she coordinated with an NGO contact in the Dominican Republic to buy food, have it sent to Port-au-Prince, and distribute it to Orphelinat l'Amour du Bon Berger.

Volunteering with the Parc Antoine Izméry Clinic in Delmas 33

When we met Régine at the Oloffson, an American buddy from her hometown of New Rochelle, NY, interrupted our meeting to introduce some doctors to her. Régine left Georgia and me to go and meet them, and eventually introduced us to one of them, an American doctor who has served Haitian patients in the Bahamas for the past 11 years. She turned to us and said: “He just agreed to come to the Sité Solèy Clinic with me tomorrow morning.”

That is precisely what Régine means by her role in “information sharing”. Via word of mouth and using all means available, she has connected tens of people to whatever service needs she has identified or become aware of.

Here Régine shares a bit about the work she has been doing at the medical clinic at Park Antoine Izméry in Delmas 33:

On her blog, she explains how she delivered needed medical supplies to Kenscoff.

Régine's journey is far from over. Like many of the Haitian-Americans I have met in Port-au-Prince, she is planning on installing herself permanently here in the next few weeks. Here are her “Helpful Resources for Volunteering in NYC.”

Global Voices' work in Haiti is supported by our general support donors and by a humanitarian information grant from Internews. Please visit the Global Voices Haiti Earthquake page for more coverage.