CCRP TO CREATE AND DISTRIBUTE MENTAL HEALTH GUIDE

CCRP volunteer extrodinare Leslie Schroeder is working overtime to write us a quick reference guide to mental health for the survivors of the earthquake. These guides will be translated into Creole and distributed throughout the camps of Port au Prince and other localities with large refugee populations.

Mental health awareness and care is greatly lacking if not almost non-existent in Haiti and with the undeniable impact of the death of 350 000 Haitians in less than 30 seconds the need for such information is inexpicable.

A trained crisis counselor and Winnipeg based social worker, Leslie has been spending all of her spare time consulting with Haitian diaspora, other professionals, reading books and World Health Organization guidelines and gathering cultural context to meet her self imposed deadline of July 5 and to produce a small concise and simple guide which can help raise awareness of the mental health challenges survivors face.

In a few weeks, she will be getting on a plane and flying down to Port au Prince to see first hand the challenges of the situation and to conduct a feasibility study into training small clusters of youth on basic mental health support so that they can share this expertise with community, family and friends.

It is physically and logistically impossible to address the mental health needs of literally MILLIONS of survivors and we hope that these guides can assist in promoting a culture of community self help and mutual support.

We are looking at total initial project costs of between 2000 and 3000 US dollars which will cover printing and distribution of thousands of copies of our mental health guide. Any help in rasisng these funds, or contributions would be greatly appreciated. Please contact us at ccrphaiti@gmail.com.

OUR FIRST COMMUNITY SCHOOL PROJECT IS OFF THE GROUND!

About 20 kilometers or one rough motorcycle ride into the hills from St Marc, we have contacted and assembled a community based collective to support in the building of their first community school. Approximately 90% of the kids in this area have not gone to school and have no locally based hope for education.

Just over a week ago, we held a community meeting at which were assembled approximately 50 community members (not including those who came late due to world cup). We explained to them the requirements for collaboration and the brilliant community building model set forth by Winnipeg based Haitian school teacher Alix Jean Paul. The community was immediately receptive and has set forth fulfilling their part of the agreed obligations.

They are forming themselves into a legal organization, assigning roles and creating a considerable volunteer base. They are working towards acquiring the land on which the school will be built. They are putting volunteers in place for acquiring and securitizing building materials. They are also organizing the structures and ways in which the teachers will be selected, hired and paid.

This community structure will allow them not only to build a sustainable educational institution but will also provide an experiential base on which they can grow and develop their community in the way that they, as community members see fit. This structure will also allow for a situation in which our school cannot be co-opted for the eventual profit of a few people, but rather can enrich the community for the forseeable future through education and community solidarity.

It is inevitable that the community will be able to fulfill their part of the deal and it is now incumbent of CCRP to fulfill our part. Through grant writing and direct outreach, we are seeking to raise between 35000 and 50000 USD dollars in order to obtain the building materials and expertise necessary to erect the school. Various CCRP members will be working full time filling out government, CIDA and various private foundation grants in order to provide the base resources upon which the school will be established. Any donations earmarked for this project will go 100% towards the building of this school and any help any Canadian community member can offer with fundraising, grants etc…. will be greatly appreciated.

In order to rebuild Haiti –comme il faut- it will be important that opportunities such as education are available outside of the capital region. This way young people will not have to leave their homes to crowd into dangerously built Port au Prince neighbourhoods. In many ways, this very migration was a key factor in the massive death toll of the Jan 12 earthquake. This school in St Marc is hopefully only the beginning of many projects which will help ensure a repeat of the catastrophic death toll does not occur.

Sister Mary update

We returned to visit sister Mary Zinnick at the Matthew 13 house in Port Au Prince. Her operation has expanded admirably. There are currently more than 1200 people living in a tent city in her back yard. She has established a community school with a playground, composting toilets and clean bathroom facilities. She has also made several small business loans and is helping members of her community to reestablish their own economic activity so to sustain themselves once again. A more impressive independent operation cannot be found in Port Au Prince.

There is however, a considerable downside. Many of the foreign organizations that were originally helping her fail to see the immediacy of her need and many are no longer forthcoming with their support. She tells us that World Vision showed up some weeks ago promising support but she had not heard from them since. She tells us that Catholic Relief Services have also withdrawn support, at least for the time being. Matthew 13 house is in dire need of material resource support. Sister Mary says that feeding the people living with her is a dicey proposition at best and she is unable to provide for them in the manner that is required. She needs money, she needs food and she needs other resources as well.

We are therefore taking up her cause and are responding two fold. First off, we are attempting to find her support here in Haiti. We will, as we are able to locate them (once again a dicey proposition) be approaching the various large organizations in an attempt to procure for her the material resources required to meet the immediate needs of her community. We are trying to find the Haiti headquarters of organizations such as the Red Cross and Oxfam, even, once again, World Vision to try and bring to bear some of the already existing resources that have been allocated for relief. In our eyes, she is doing so much that she should be entitled to such help. Secondly, we will be reaching out directly to North American communities for donations which we will be channeling directly, in whole, to Sister Mary. If you are able to help and wish to make a donation directly to Sister Mary please contact us by email at ccrphaiti@gmail.org. Next time we visit we will be compiling a list of needs for her organization and any help YOU can be in obtaining these resources will be greatly appreciated. This is NOT the same as Red Cross donations, here, your money and resources will have a direct, crucial impact in helping this community to recover from the devastation of the Jan 12 earthquake. Any donations will be brought to bear within less than two weeks of donation date.

Haitian Organization

There are many barriers to successfully working as a foreign NGO in Haiti, some of which are due to not having an obvious local organizational and legal infrastructure to conduct business in the country. There is also the future potential for problems in accessing funds that were raised in Canada, if the organizational structure and the majority of the board of the CCRP are not in country, as will temporarily be the case at the end of this year.

To overcome these barriers and to ensure that all work in Haiti is clearly Haitian-led, the CCRP is currently in the process of establishing a Haitian non-profit that will be responsible for all of the CCRP’s Haitian activities, and will be directed by a board constituted of a Haitian majority.

The creation of this organization will be a big step in our work in Haiti, as the mandate of the organization will then be recognized by the Haitian government, and the accountability of the organization will officially be in the hands of the Haitian people who are working with the CCRP.

Getting Around

Travelling in this country is like nothing we have ever experienced before. Slow and difficult does not even begin to explain it. Getting anywhere is a chore. There are numerous was of traveling about the city and countryside, all which are inconsistent and unreliable if you do not have your own means of transportation. You can hop on the back of a motor bike or an unmarked rundown van or car which are used as taxis. Public transit vehicles are called Tap-Taps, they are small Toyota pick-up trucks with benches built on to either side of the box that people rush to claim a spot in, cramming in and sitting on each other’s laps along busy streets. Some Tap-Taps are similarly appointed larger trucks which would otherwise be used for hauling. Tap-Taps do not run on any specific schedule, but follow a specific route (marked in paint on their doors) that would lead you to an area where you could access another after a bit of a walk. These vehicles are all rundown and creaky, threatening to fall apart as they navigate the numerous holes and cracks in the road, expelling black exhaust as they go. Getting around this way is highly time consuming. It took us six hours to get to a bank that was actually working, walking long distances down dirty streets in the blistering heat and hopping in various taxis and tap-taps.

To get across the country from one city to another you hop on one of these forms of transport making your way slowly across the city with long waits for the next vehicle to arrive, or walking long distances to the next route one travels. You make your way across the crowed rubble strewn city to the edges of places like Cite de Soleil where old school busses wait to transport you from one place to another. The busses wait there till they are full, with 3 people to a single bench seat. Cramped, hot and sweaty, you travel across the county with windows down so you can breathe, the bus zooming by slower vehicles constantly honking the horn to let other vehicles and pedestrians know they are barreling through. When it rains, you put up the window, unless of course the window is broken, in which case you sit and smile while rain whips you in the face. Entertainment is provided by onboard vendors, inevitably of personal grooming supplies and supplements, who banter ceaselessly in Creole, only sometimes gaining enough of passenger’s attentions to illicit a response. A day’s travel in country without a private vehicle is hard work.

Community School

The future of Haiti is dependent on the education that its children receive, so the CCRP has committed to raising funds for the building of a school in a community that is in need of a primary school.

We are working closely with a local man in St. Marc who has successfully worked with a rural community to help them build a school, and over the next few months we will be following his successful model of community-led school-building to find and work with one of the many communities that are in need of schools.

The model is entirely community-based led, as we will be seeking out a community that is in need of and wants to run a school for their children, and will then work with the leaders in that community to ascertain what the local capacity is to build the school then work help connect them to the resources that are not locally available to enable them to build a school that is owned and controlled by the collective community.

Art School

We returned to the Haitian College des Arts National (National Arts College). Thierry, our Director of Haitian operations arranged for us to meet with some of the most accomplished young artists in the country if not the world. We sat with them for a good period and have decided to assemble a touring exhibition of the first works to come out of this school after the earthquake.

In inspiration and execution, those works which have already been completed are second to none. They reflect directly the experiences and reflection of these artists who are facing the largest existential challenges a given artistic community can face.

We are assembling an exhibition of 60 to 80 pieces, some paintings, some sculpture and some tableaus which will illuminate for the future viewing public the experience of having survived the single largest mass death event in the history of the Americas. We consider ourselves lucky to have even seen these works let alone having the opportunity to potentially bring these works to the North America viewing public. These artists have so much to say that it is incumbent on us to do what we can to help their message reach a larger global community.

This community is doing well in comparison to how they were immediately after the earthquake. There are a number of tents of campus where students without places to go are living communally in the hopes of being able to continue their creative work, work which will be crucial to the cultural survival of Haitian CREATIVE (as opposed to tourist) art. At this point, materials are in short supply. Shortages of canvas, paints, hand tools etc….. means that production has slowed to a crawl. We are therefore reaching out to our own artistic communities up North to help supply these people with the materials required to complete the pieces that will comprise the touring exhibition. If you have access to any such supplies, or if you can assemble these sorts of materials for donations to the national art school, please contact us by email at ccrphaiti@gmail.com.

Arrival and Overview

The three of us arrived at the airport in Port au Prince in mid afternoon on Tuesday, May 25th. We were immediately confronted with the situation at hand as we were driven through the city to Carrfour. You first see people everywhere, trying to sell clothing, fruits, etc., anything to make some money to get by. Things do not seem to have improved much since the disaster. There is still rubble everywhere of countless collapsed buildings. You see five story buildings pancaked together, now the height of a one story building. There are many of these cases, in which they have been able to even remove the bodies from the mess. Many of the buildings that are still standing are structurally unsound with large cracks and must also be taken down and cleared away before reconstruction can begin. Roads are difficult to travel on as they are covered in rubble or have been damaged themselves from the earthquake. We have seen only a couple of trucks working to clear the rubble in the time since our arrival.

Mass camps scatter the hillsides of Port au Prince where large portions of the population remain until progress is made in rebuilding process. After talking with the people it became apparent that some remain in the camps even if their house was not destroyed. They saw what it could do and no longer feel safe in their homes. Mental health has become a huge problem among these people after watching everything crumble before their eyes and taking with it many if not all of their family members and friends. Garbage litters the camps, streets, and waterways. There are too many people with no infrastructure set up to deal with it. These people are faced with crowded, unsanitary, unsafe conditions. Conditions remain the same throughout most of the city, but some areas are worse off than others. People have been displaced, some of them forgotten about. Many do not have access to food or any form of health care.

People appear to want to move on, or at least try. But it is difficult in a country where nothing seems to work as it should and with such devastation weighing so heavily on the shoulders of the people. There is much work to be done in this area before life can even begin to return to something similar to normal for the Haitian people.

Preparations underway

We are currently preparing to leave for Port au Prince for what will initially be a three-month block of work in Haiti, and have identified some resources and technology that are still needed to assist us in our work there.

We are very proud of our past record of extremely low overhead as a non-profit, and our organizational goal is to continue that trend and be responsible and transparent with any money and resources that are entrusted to us. As we prepare for this trip, we are still seeking donations to cover our travel costs to and from Haiti, and also welcome any in-kind donations of services or goods that are able to fill the needs we have identified below.

Tents - There are still many people who are without even the most basic of temporary shelter as the rainy season approaches, and so the CCRP is currently exploring multiple partnerships within Canada to secure tents that can distributed to those most in need in Haiti.

Laptops - We are in need of two lightweight laptops/netbooks to aid us in our efforts on the ground in Haiti. With these resources and our background in radio and telecommunications, our teams will be able to share the reality of the devastation and rebuilding with Canadians and the rest of the world, to ensure that Haiti is not forgotten as the news cycle changes. They will also be essential to basic communication with our partners in Haiti, Canada, and the United States.

Digital SLR camera - As part of our commitment to accountability, and in answer to concerns from some Haitians regarding lack of transparency of some non-profits on the ground, we are in need of a digital SLR camera so that we can document the work of the CCRP on the ground.

Webcams - We are looking for a large quantity of webcams or similarly small digital video cameras, as we explore options for increasing security in the various internally displaced persons (IDP) camps.

Shipping services - With the collection of materials such as tents, we are also in need of shipping services from various points in Canada to our warehouse space in New York City.

As the CCRP is a registered charity in Canada, we can offer tax-deductible receipts for the value of all donations received.

The economic situation in Haiti is such that costs are much higher than typical in the region -- as a basic example of supply and demand affecting costs. Some basic needs (food, water, etc.) have been described as expensive to urban American standards, and as such, any financial and in-kind donations go a long way to helping us in our goal of assisting in the development of both short-term and permanent solutions to the problems facing Haitian communities today.

We have a fundraiser coming up this Sunday.

We have a fundraiser coming up this Sunday.

Mathias Kom and the Burning Hell, one of the best bands there is, will be playing alongside Wax Mannequin from Hamilton. The vampires from Winnipeg will set the stage. This is largely because of the efforts of one David Dobbs and the goodwill of Mathias. We are tickled pink.

http://www.myspace.com/mathiaskom
The Burning Hell is the best thing since sliced bread. Mathias has played with his band in our houses , written songs for us, and is one of the folks behind the ukeleles for peace. http://www.ukulelesforpeace.com/

http://www.waxmannequin.com/
Wax mannequin has a terrific voice and the people I know with good taste seem to like him a lot and so do a lot of critical music writer types.

http://www.myspace.com/vampireslikeyou
It's fuzzy rock and roll music which cant be bad, but this is really its own cup of tea.

It happens this Sunday, which is the 14th of March at the Lo pub, which is on Ellice Ave just east of the University of Winnipeg. It costs 8 bucks which is a steal for any one of those 3 bands. We are hopin' it will cover the end of the cost of the last trip and then we can get to work on what's next.

Medical Volunteers

Some days ago a group of a dozen medical students offered their services. The precise wording, in french was as follows "Mon frere Bonne nouvelle j ai trouver une dizaine d etudiants en medecine qui sont qui sont prets a etre volontaire dans notre organisation. Faites de ton mieux pour trouver desmedicaments......"

We plan to deploy these people in the following manner-

Firstly, we hope to have them write a guide to survival of the rainy season without adequate shelter. Since there are over a million homeless in the area and drainage and sanitation are precrious in many parts of Port Au Prince. It is important to ensure that people have access to the information necessary to be able to do what they can with what is available to them in order to avoid outbreaks of rainy season diseases such as Malaria and Typhoid.

Secondly, we are attempting a bottom up deployment of these medical students to the most vulnerable neighbourhoods in the affected area. Our Director of Haitian operations has found a guide and will shortly be entering the Cite-Soleil and Bel-Air neighbourhoods in order to better assess how these med students might be brought to bear. The reason for this approach is as follows:
Diseases often take hold in areas with poorer servicing thus those areas should be concentrated on, especially with a preventative approach, so to be able to avoid any disease becoming an outbreak.

We understand that an initial preventative approach in an area and time of increased need will necessitate the practice of some hands on medicine, and although we do not condone the practice of medicine by those not licensed to practice it, we would like to keep our near-doctors equipped to be able to help as they can and as they find need by applying the skills they have. Here is what a request list from our near-doctors looks like. It is in French, but if you are the sort of person who may be able to put us in contact with such equipment and medicines, you likely do not need the list translated.



Medications- anti hypertenseur,anti biotic,anti parasitaires,anti fongiques
cutanes, analgesiques, anti viraux, anti fongiques gynecologiques, anti angoreux, anti
ulcereux, anti cecretoires gastriques, anti acides, anti emetiques, anti diarrheiques, anti depresseurs,
anti epileptiques, anti asthmatique,anti tussifs,anti diabetiques oraux, vitamines, anti septques externes.....
Materiels- Stetoscopes, sphygmomanometrie, Oxymetre de pouls, thermometre, Pen light, otoscope

Introducing our first Haitian Staff

We are pleased to finally get around to announcing the first of our Haitian staff, the people who will be determining the nature and direction of CCRP activities in Haiti. Aside from the below, we have people helping in logistics, transportation, communications and outreach.

Thierry Cadet- Director of Haitian Operations. Thierry was a management student at Ecole Superior de Technologie before it was destroyed. He was our primary guide on our first trip to Haiti and provided us with everything and everybody we needed at all times. Since we left Haiti, he has been recruiting medical volunteers, finding land and houses for community use, distributing supplies/food and scouting out future activities on behalf of CCRP. He will likely assume a place on our board of directors next month.

Theodore (Lolo) Beaubrun- Networking co-ordinator. Lolo is a Port au Prince community leader and musician. He is a member of the band Boukman Eksperyans. From wikipedia- "The band was at the height of its popularity in 1991 when the presidency of Jean Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in a military coup d'etat. Like many other artists and performers, Boukman Eksperyans fled the country to live in exile. During their time abroad, the band performed and spoke out against the military dictatorship of Raoul Cédras. In 1994, after Aristide was restored to power, the band returned to Haiti, where they continued to play concerts, record albums, and perform at the Carnival celebrations".

RELIGION

Aside from the large relief organizations, there is significant missionary presence which has appeared in Port Au Prince since the earthquake. Some of the groups mean well and are doing good work, some are attempting what is clearly some sort of food for faith evangelizing mission. We saw them in the streets on our way into the city from a Port Au Prince bus terminal in the middle of the night.

We were able to identify a couple of these persons affiliations and have found them to relate closely to persons having made disparaging remarks about Haitian cultural and religious traditions. From our work in Haiti we have learned that these traditions may be observed in some way or other, by the majority of the Haitian population. As this became more apparent, so too did the value of these practices to the people who practice them.

As an organization, CCRP is not in accordance with any of these attacks in any way. This unfortunate vulgarity lays bare the motivations of far too many relief workers in Haiti. Any attempt tie aid to what is essentially an attack on local cultural traditions smacks of Machiavellian fraud. Now, it is not as though Haiti is being overrun by white missionaries, but food for faith has attached to it strings. These strings can reach into the economic, and legal realm in ways that can affect the lives of Haitians in a profoundly negative manner,

This underscores our assertion that a self-reliant, locally lead approach to rebuilding the parts of Haiti damaged or removed by January's earthquake is the only feasible manner in which to achieve meaningful, sustainable solutions to the challenges Haiti now faces following such a disaster.

Camp St Louis de Gonzague

A very serious and potentially dangerous situation has arisen in one of the largest refugee camps. 12000 people are living in a tent city called Camp St Louis de Gonzague which is about 2 square kilometers in size. The conditions in the camp are abhorrent. Endless rows of tents, donated by MSF sit inches from each other. Kids with nothing to do and only very basic necessities wander aimlessly around the camp, many of them without adequate clothing and seemingly more than half without shoes.

There is no proper drainage, and no sizable open spaces. Recently, the situation in the camp has degenerated because the director of the school where the land sits (the school is will not be functional within the next six months), along with the local mayor have demanded that the population leave the area within 8 days. They have not, however provided an alternate location, let alone a location with the basic services and infrastructure required to sustain the population. The mayor has not provided adequate explanation for their expulsion.

There are rumors that the area will be shared, and there are also rumours that the area will be given for use to non-Haitian organizations in part due to its proximity to the MSF installation. The community has organized itself but some of these organizers have come under threat. Their situation is dire and the Haitian population has been through so much that civil unrest could very well be the result of these mass expulsions.

For Haiti, by Haiti

CCRP has assumed a partnership with a civilian people’s assembly which aims to establish a movement of direct community level rebuilding and development. Community leaders from all classes and segments of Haitian society are involved in organizing to rebuild an equitable and functional Haiti. These meetings are open to everybody, including outsiders and, like everything else in Haiti are fully multilingual. This organization is likely one of the few in Haiti that will be capable of establishing a Haitian driven, autonomous and effective response to the greatest disaster in the history of the Americas. This organizations is Haitians helping Haitians rebuild Haiti.

The CCRP has placed itself at the service of this organization. We will help with fundraising, networking, communications, mobilization of resources and international media access.

The organization itself is undertaking development in education, health, housing and all possible other sectors in which it has professional expertise.

Arts & Education

Geoffrey and Liam visited the national college des arts where they met “Camelot” who is one of the country’s foremost artists. In the earthquake, he lost his fingers while holding a young child he saved from the rubble. Unable to obtain immediate care, he went for ten days with severed fingers and no treatment. Due to resulting gangrene and infections, they had to be removed. Now, Camelot stares at a pile of blank canvasses unsure precisely how he will continue his artistic endeavors. The students at the national art institute are trained in music, traditional art, sculpture, painting and acting. This is the only institute of art learning in the country.



The art school sits across the street from the national college of nursing which still retains one third of the nations nursing students in it collapsed structure. They smell. The debris pile is so large that it is not going to be removed anytime soon. This scene repeats itself in different scales all over the city. The implications for the future of Haiti are dire. 2/3 of the nations nursing schools lost their entire 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th year of students. There is no remedy for this situation.

In all places in Haiti, the students are the intellectual backbone of the society. They are the people who think about, talk about and try to resolve the many problems that Haiti faces. They are the pillars of Haitian society. Thousands of schools were destroyed along with more than 250 000 other structures.

Deaths in the earthquake resulted from falling buildings. The larger the building, the heavier it is, the more people that died. Educational institutions are all of the largest buildings in Port Au Prince. It has been impossible to remove the remains.

Geoffrey and Liam were taken to see Theirry’s school which was thick with the smell of rotting students. Remains had not been removed as much of the rubble was unstable. Leg sockets sat in the sun Our folks were taken to see the Faculte de Sciences Humains where the met with the director to pass along offers of assistance from the University of Winnipeg. This school did not lose as many students however it did lose several faculty and the director told us that every single member of the faculty lost immediate family.

Arrival

At the outset of their trip, Geoffrey and Liam arrived by bus to Port Au Prince where we were met by our guide and chief local collaborator Thierry, who is Haitis greatest guide.

The largest problem facing normal Haitians is the extreme economic distortions caused by the earthquake. To hire a car for the day is costing many times more than it did before the earthquake and rental vehicles are outright inaccessible. Bags of rice are selling for at least 75$ Canadian, but Haitian incomes have not expanded in the same manner. Much of the aid sent is being sold through stores for profit. Tents are costing upwards of 125 USD.

A nun, Sister Mary of Matthew 13 house who has been working in Haiti for over a decade told us that tents are no longer being sent to Haiti as they are considered to be barriers to economic development. We are unsure precisely what that means as are the Haitians who are living under blankets.

Near Thierrys house is a small tent city which is housing 2000 people in an area the size of a large Canadian yard. People are living under blankets propped up with sticks. This is particularly a problem when it rains. Thierry tells us “the people of Port Au Prince have not slept”.

Five years after formation for relief work in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina, the Canadian Communications and Relief Project has undertaken an information, networking and relief mission to Haiti in the wake of the disastrous earthquake which has killed over 200 000.
The goal of our mission is to collect the information, networks and partnering organizations necessary for the initiation of an ongoing long-term to permanent campaign of direct solidarity, support and assistance which aims to directly connect grassroots Canadian organizations to their Haitian counterparts.

Due to the quality and impact of our work in Hurricane Katrina, we were asked by New Orleanians to assist, if possible, with the transportation of religious figures from Haiti to New Orleans. Once we began this work we realized an opportunity for direct on-the-ground involvement had presented itself.

Due to a sense of apprehension caused by the less than effective response of official relief organizations to Hurricane Katrina (more than a million dollars per person affected of relief money and still no rebuilt city), several Canadians and their communities contacted CCRP to inquire as to what might be the most effective means of helping with the relief effort. Because of the lack of solid, reliable information coming out of Haiti, we decided it best to put feet on the ground and physically find the contacts necessary for the creation of the ongoing, meaningful support relationships that both Canadian and Haitian grassroots organizations seek. We have made our connections, found our contacts and will arrive in Port au Prince on the 16th of Feb.
Aside from community based requests, we have been asked by the University Of Winnipeg Haiti Task Force, which formed as a response to the earthquake, to assist in the location and screening of Haitian students for potential transfer of studies to the University of Winnipeg which is organizing housing and community support for more than 30 French speaking Haitian civics students.

Finally, through myriad contacts with, and connections to community, corporate and state media, not to mention web based outlets, we hope to help the situation in Haiti remain active within the media long past the end of usual media cycles. The rebuilding of so much of a country will require the ongoing attention and participation of supportive communities the world over.
CCRP sets itself apart from other relief organizations not only by our scale but also by our direct person to person approach. By making direct contact with and staying directly in affected communities rather than bases and hotels, we are able not only to collect direct information on the needs and situations of the communities themselves but also to acquire direct local guidance so that future work is locally driven rather than imposed from the outside. We strongly believe that the activation of inherent local capacities and their complementation with outside solidarity and, whenever possible, resources will be key to the rebuilding in a sustainable, culturally appropriate manner.

Upon the completion of our initial week long information gathering, we will return to Canada for 6 weeks of organizing and fundraising work, following which we intend to return to Haiti for a longer, larger and more impacting term in which we will be able to bring to bear directly the resources of supportive Canadian communities which will assist Haitian civil organizations in reestablishing in a way conducive to the organizational and community flourishing necessary to achieve a future in which these communities, which are of such immense historical significance, can flourish.

CCRP TO UNDERTAKE WORK IN HAITI

An opportunity has come forward for the Canadian Communications and Relief Project to send two folks to Haiti for an initial feasibility study and to do what we can in order to hopefully help alleviate even a small portion of the suffering experienced in the month since the earthquake hit.

Geoffrey Young and Liam O Doherty are hoping to arrive in Haiti on Sunday, Feb 14, 2010. As well as arranging for accommodations and various other logistical concerns, we have compiled a considerable list of grassroots organizations working on the ground in Haiti in disaster relief, recovery, rebuilding and development into the future. Our plans for our meagre 7-10 day trip is to make contact with as many of these organizations as possible, whether they be schools, old folks homes, clinics, community organizations, orphanages etc…. in order to discern their level of determination to rebuild as well as their needs in doing so. These organizations will then be put in contact with similar individuals and organizations in order to receive direct support.

So much of the relief dollar related to any given disaster goes to administration and organizational costs leaving surprisingly little impact for the often staggering amount of donations pledged to a given disaster. By building direct grassroots support networks we feel that this can be remedied. We feel strongly that local capacity, knowledge and experience needs to be at the root of rebuilding of Haiti if the reconstruction is to achieve a stable, sustainable outcome.

With security concerns being of such immediate priority in disaster situations, it is not surprising that the largest institutions such as governments, militaries and bilateral relief agencies can become alienated from the local population. Our research indicates this to be the case currently in Haiti. We hope to be able to help to improve, and in some cases, open lines of communication and support between the affected community and large relief organizations in order to help bring relief resources to bear more directly on populations in need.

Finally, we aim to try to counteract the diminutions of the media cyclerelated the Haiti earthquake. As time passes from the actual event itself, media attention has waned. Despite this the humanitarian situation remains dire. By accessing independent media outlets, and providing direct reportage and information to as many outlets as possible, we hope to be able to provide part of the beginning of an ongoing reconstruction narrative which will continue long into the future.

CCRP PERSONEL CHANGES

The CCRP is expanding and is undertaking earthquake relief work in Haiti. In doing so we have expanded personnel and taken on new partners.

David Eisbrenner – Acquisitions and Public Relations. David sits on the board of regents at the University of Winnipeg. He is the Vice President Advocate of the University of Winnipeg Students association as well as a long time community radio producer and journalist. David will be working on acquisitions and domestically based support for our initial work in Haiti as well as dealing with media inquiries.

Alexander Braun – Web design and communications support. Sasha is a master web designer and a pioneer in Internet development as well as an artist, designer, activist and much more. Having designed things ranging from the first commercial Internet radio station to one of the Dee Dee Ramones’ last album, Sasha is overseeing web presence related to CCRP.

Liam O’Doherty is accompanying Geoffrey Young in Haiti. Liam has a background in environmental and community organizing, theatrical improvisation and social technology. He is currently studying communication theory at the University of Toronto while working as online community animator with TakingITGlobal,an online youth network. He recently led an international youth delegation to the COP15 Climate Change negotiations in Copenhagen.

Sallie Ann Glassman is now serving as a logistics consultant to CCRP. From Wikipedia : author, artist and New Orleans, Louisiana personality who has appeared in numerous national newspapers and electronic media broadcasts. Glassman has lectured extensively and has received international television, radio and magazine coverage, including a front page article in the New York Times and a feature on World News Tonight. She has received mention in other publications including Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, National Geographic and the Washington Post. Born in Maine and of Jewish-Ukrainian heritage, Glassman has been practicing Vodou in New Orleans since 1977 and is one of few White Americans to have been ordained via the traditional Haitian initiation.

Canada Haiti Action Network- The Winnipeg chapter of CHAN has been active for years in providing solidarity support to the people of Haiti. Members and associates have been instrumental in providing the connection for the logistical arrangements necessary to undertake our work in Haiti. University of Winnipeg Haiti Task Force- was a body formed at and by the University of Winnipeg to respond, in some way to the recent Haitian Earthquake. It is comprised of University alumni, faculty, administration and students who are attempting to form an effective University driven response to the recent disaster.

CCRP New Orleans 2005 Hurricane Katrina blog.

http://ccrpinc.blogspot.com/2005/12/report-from-new-orleans.html