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.