OUR (HONORARY) MAN IN HAITI
(HS) - By Maria Manner
Finland's Honorary Consul in Port-au-Prince Gregory Mevs has decided to put his ruined home country back on its feet
Some days after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Gregory Mevs showed former US President Bill Clinton his ruined hometown, Port-au-Prince.
”At the National Palace I asked Clinton if he could imagine the White House collapsing on its knees lik that. He had tears in his eyes”, Mevs says.
Mevs speaks about Clinton as if he were an old friend, and friends they are.
Mevs is one of the most influential businessmen in Haiti.
He puts deals together with the Soros Fund Management founded by billionaire investor George Soros. In addition, he is a personal friend of many bigwigs in the western hemisphere.
In his home country, almost everyone knows the name of the Mevs family.
It belongs to the six most powerful families in Haiti, who are traditionally said to control the major components of the Haitian economy.
At present, Gregory Mevs is sitting in the lobby of a 5-star hotel in Helsinki.
He also happens to be Finland’s Honorary Consul in Port-au-Prince.
He has flown up north in order to persuade Finnish companies to invest in the Republic of Haiti.
Seen from abroad, people like Mevs - who have money and contacts - have been regarded as crucial for Haiti’s future.
Mevs likes to speak about responsible measures businesses should take during reconstruction.
”Haitians need decent jobs”, Mevs says.
”Business cannot be done without empathy and solidarity”, he adds.
Solidarity is not a word that Haitians are used to linking with the nation's elite. In a country where a small group of rich people owns almost everything, while the poor do not own anything, many people feel that the rich population has made their fortune at their expense.
The split between rich and poor is further accentuated by the fact that the elite is often white and has a European background, while the majority of Haitians are descendants of black slaves originally been brought from Africa.
According to Mevs, things have changed since the years of dictatorship.
President François ”Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude ”Baby Doc” Duvalier governed the Republic of Haiti by effectively terrorising the population from 1957 to 1986.
”During the Duvalier dictatorship businessmen were seen as a political threat, which is why they were separated from politics. Today even wealthy people must assume a sense of social responsibility”, Mevs explains.
During the earthquake, Mevs was in a car in Port-au-Prince on his way from one meeting to another, as usual.
”I began to understand that a massive earthquake had occurred as I saw a collapsed church. The only things left from the church were an altar and a cross with a figure of Christ on it”, Mevs recalls.
Mevs’ family was saved, but just like everybody else, he also lost friends and relatives.
Rich people would have a possibility to join those more than four million Haitians who now live abroad. Haiti’s population is almost ten million.
Mevs has remained in Haiti, even though the Haitian elite has to live behind closed walls and under the threat of abductions.
”A French economist friend of mine asked once why I live in Haiti. I said that I could live in Paris, read Le Monde and his articles. But in my own country, I can see the world with my own eyes and can do something about it”, Mevs explained.
Mevs has been Finland’s Honorary Consul since 2004.
His armoured SUV has Finnish diplomatic licence plates.
Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs invites as Honorary Consuls people who are in significant positions in their home countries. They do not receive any salary for their tasks.
Recently, Mevs visited Finland with a representative of Haiti’s new Prime Minister.
They paid a visit to almost 30 companies, including for example Kemira, Vaisala, and builders Honkarakenne.
”Haitians are interested in Finland, as Finnish firms are efficient and are pathfinders in green technology”, Mevs says.
After the interview, Mevs was to meet representatives of Kristina Cruises.
He wants the shipping company’s cruise ships to visit Haiti during their Caribbean cruises. The country desperately needs tourists, and an increase in shipborne tourism would not be too bad for Mevs himself, either.
After all, Mevs owns Haiti’s most significant port operations.
FACTFILE: Finland’s Honorary Consul
Gregory Mevs is 53 years old.
Mevs is the CEO of the WIN Group, a Caribbean conglomerate.
He is Haiti’s commercial envoy and a member in the Presidential Advisory Council.
Mevs has studied in Miami in Florida.
He is married, with two children aged 12 and 14.
Finland does not have an embassy in Port-au-Prince, but the Finnish Ambassador in Mexico is also accredited in Haiti, Belize, and Cuba.
Showing posts with label Articles - People. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Articles - People. Show all posts
Friday, June 15, 2012
Sunday, June 3, 2012
ARTICLE - THE NATION IS NOT IMMORTAL
THE NATION IS NOT IMMORTAL, IT IS DYING SAYS MICHAELLE JEAN
(Haiti Libre) -
Statement of Michaëlle Jean:
"The situation is serious. The Nation is not immortal, it is dying. The country is short of breath, [...] The world attended, without illusions, to the sad spectacle of Haitian political impasses that are succeeded by partisan rivalries and strife, of inquisition on foolish issues such as dual citizenship, while Haiti needs the cooperation of all their sons and daughters, to see them answer to the appeal of the ancestors, so often sublimated, becoming a dead letter: 'Unity is strength!' Of the union we have nothing to do, we prefer the division and endless confrontations. [...] We have only for force that of sinking further our land and population into poverty, the abject poverty, misery, and confusion.
It happens for me, I confess, of being ashamed of this pathetic betrayal of our achievements and our conquests of yesteryear. A betrayal of our noblest aspirations to freedom, equality and fraternity. A betrayal of our highest dreams, to break all the chains.
I hurt in my Haitian of being challenged by them, smiling, pulling the line, and only ses in Haiti a country that is ruined, delinquent, without compass, without a State, without a future, a rotten trunk, a world of corruption, and some don't hesitate to describe it, as incapable.
Recently I attended a round table where the verdict on Haiti was ruthless, as the blocked situation in recent months is overwhelming. Seeing elected officials determined not to roll up their sleeves, but to sacrifice the interests of the whole in the hotel of the systematic obstruction, unrestrained, lawless, is unsustainable. The exercise continues, and it is a cruel irresponsibility. This disorder assassinates a country and plunges it in darkness, into a confusion where the nostalgic minds [...] regret the order of former dictatorships.
The violent movement of tectonic plates is nothing. One would think that this disaster, incommensurate, is able to recall reasoning and discipline.
It was hoped a surge of humanity, is a step towards an ethic of sharing. Hunting the natural, it returns quickly. The equipped is well relaunched into mediocrity. [...] We are poor [...] if we fail to achieve the necessary unity and put aside our selfishness and particular interests. We are poor, if we refuse the dialogue and the historic compromise beneficial to the common good, of the country to refounded, to create a new Haiti. We are poor, if we remain stuck in chronic indifference and the headlong rush that characterizes us before failure; who dying cruelly is eyed at every turn. Poor, in our lack of boldness, courage and consistency. Poor, in our complacency, our blind contentment, and our fatalism when it is urgently necessary, together, to redouble our efforts. Poor, facing youth in need of role models and opportunities for the present, and for the future.
Yet it could be otherwise. We could show what we can do, stop the rebirth of despair, to show vision, create with all our energy, all of our hearts and our voluntary brains, hope. It is also necessary that we want it. The collective will is failing us, it is still not at the rendezvous. Otherwise, we would invest all for a government that is quickly formed; a public service, regrouped, and competent; a universal access to health services throughout the country; of schools and quality programs with trained teachers; a state university back on track with a campus in the North to start, and others to build in each region of the country, a justice system accessible, effective, independent and reliable; a professional national police can ensure the safety of places, people and borders and participate in development; stronger communities that participate in a decentralized manner to the growth of local, regional and national organizations of civil society included in the movement and involved in finding solutions to the problems afflicting; a diversified economy for a recovery of the national production and job creation, levers and niches throughout; prioritized agriculture, fishing and marine trades organized; facilitated entrepreneurship; laws, rules, codes enacted for public safety and to end the chaos; [...] an energy policy and of innovative reforestation; cleanliness and safety for all our greatest pride, our integrity and our sense of dignity of citizens who we recognize the rights and freedoms, but also are aware of their duties.
Exactly one year ago, a democratically elected president passed the baton to another, also legitimately chosen by the ballot box. The new President of the Republic has not had the easy part of forming a government and consolidating it, as the ground is undermined. We must understand that preventing, retarding the formation of a government is pure sabotage, irresponsible and suicidal. The clock is ticking, every day, every month and the impasse is a blow dealt to the Nation. The world is watching, it is no longer sorry, but a disconcerted face that such a political quagmire is totally dishonorable. Without government, the country, already on the edge of a precipice, will not recover, and every effort will be swallowed up.
The country is us, each and every one of us. Its success also depends on us.
I say 'us', l'm not trying to extract myself from the fate of the land where I was born.
It is our full responsibility to show what we are really capable of doing." Michaëlle Jean
(Haiti Libre) -
Statement of Michaëlle Jean:
"The situation is serious. The Nation is not immortal, it is dying. The country is short of breath, [...] The world attended, without illusions, to the sad spectacle of Haitian political impasses that are succeeded by partisan rivalries and strife, of inquisition on foolish issues such as dual citizenship, while Haiti needs the cooperation of all their sons and daughters, to see them answer to the appeal of the ancestors, so often sublimated, becoming a dead letter: 'Unity is strength!' Of the union we have nothing to do, we prefer the division and endless confrontations. [...] We have only for force that of sinking further our land and population into poverty, the abject poverty, misery, and confusion.
It happens for me, I confess, of being ashamed of this pathetic betrayal of our achievements and our conquests of yesteryear. A betrayal of our noblest aspirations to freedom, equality and fraternity. A betrayal of our highest dreams, to break all the chains.
I hurt in my Haitian of being challenged by them, smiling, pulling the line, and only ses in Haiti a country that is ruined, delinquent, without compass, without a State, without a future, a rotten trunk, a world of corruption, and some don't hesitate to describe it, as incapable.
Recently I attended a round table where the verdict on Haiti was ruthless, as the blocked situation in recent months is overwhelming. Seeing elected officials determined not to roll up their sleeves, but to sacrifice the interests of the whole in the hotel of the systematic obstruction, unrestrained, lawless, is unsustainable. The exercise continues, and it is a cruel irresponsibility. This disorder assassinates a country and plunges it in darkness, into a confusion where the nostalgic minds [...] regret the order of former dictatorships.
The violent movement of tectonic plates is nothing. One would think that this disaster, incommensurate, is able to recall reasoning and discipline.
It was hoped a surge of humanity, is a step towards an ethic of sharing. Hunting the natural, it returns quickly. The equipped is well relaunched into mediocrity. [...] We are poor [...] if we fail to achieve the necessary unity and put aside our selfishness and particular interests. We are poor, if we refuse the dialogue and the historic compromise beneficial to the common good, of the country to refounded, to create a new Haiti. We are poor, if we remain stuck in chronic indifference and the headlong rush that characterizes us before failure; who dying cruelly is eyed at every turn. Poor, in our lack of boldness, courage and consistency. Poor, in our complacency, our blind contentment, and our fatalism when it is urgently necessary, together, to redouble our efforts. Poor, facing youth in need of role models and opportunities for the present, and for the future.
Yet it could be otherwise. We could show what we can do, stop the rebirth of despair, to show vision, create with all our energy, all of our hearts and our voluntary brains, hope. It is also necessary that we want it. The collective will is failing us, it is still not at the rendezvous. Otherwise, we would invest all for a government that is quickly formed; a public service, regrouped, and competent; a universal access to health services throughout the country; of schools and quality programs with trained teachers; a state university back on track with a campus in the North to start, and others to build in each region of the country, a justice system accessible, effective, independent and reliable; a professional national police can ensure the safety of places, people and borders and participate in development; stronger communities that participate in a decentralized manner to the growth of local, regional and national organizations of civil society included in the movement and involved in finding solutions to the problems afflicting; a diversified economy for a recovery of the national production and job creation, levers and niches throughout; prioritized agriculture, fishing and marine trades organized; facilitated entrepreneurship; laws, rules, codes enacted for public safety and to end the chaos; [...] an energy policy and of innovative reforestation; cleanliness and safety for all our greatest pride, our integrity and our sense of dignity of citizens who we recognize the rights and freedoms, but also are aware of their duties.
Exactly one year ago, a democratically elected president passed the baton to another, also legitimately chosen by the ballot box. The new President of the Republic has not had the easy part of forming a government and consolidating it, as the ground is undermined. We must understand that preventing, retarding the formation of a government is pure sabotage, irresponsible and suicidal. The clock is ticking, every day, every month and the impasse is a blow dealt to the Nation. The world is watching, it is no longer sorry, but a disconcerted face that such a political quagmire is totally dishonorable. Without government, the country, already on the edge of a precipice, will not recover, and every effort will be swallowed up.
The country is us, each and every one of us. Its success also depends on us.
I say 'us', l'm not trying to extract myself from the fate of the land where I was born.
It is our full responsibility to show what we are really capable of doing." Michaëlle Jean
Thursday, May 3, 2012
ARTICLE - HAITI AND THE CLOUDS IN THE DARK
HAITI AND THE CLOUDS IN THE DARK
(Caribbean Journal) - By Ilio Durandis
A country is yearning for development. A people that is so desperate for change. A whole world is watching, and yet, the darkness is filled with clouds. It may not be possible to see the clouds, but they are there. Some people are blind to them. Others find them to be a nuisance. And a few can harness its potential. The clouds in the dark are potentially powerful that they can develop where there is no development. They can make change happen where the status quo is deeply rooted. They can turn pessimists into optimists.
On the eve of Haiti’s declaration of independence, the former slaves probably stayed up all night to think about what they had just done. It probably didn’t sink in them at the time that they were mavericks in a new world; that they were defying an old adage, by replacing it with a new ideology. No longer could people say the Negroes would rather be slaves than to be free. Haiti, on Jan. 1, 1804 put to rest the axiom that the black race was inferior to any other race and that it was incapable to be self-governed. We had entered a new age, and the clouds were present in the dark.
The 208 tumultuous years that followed Haiti’s independence are a clear reminder of the extent of misery and sacrifice that a people is willing to suffer to be free. Not simply free nominally, but to be totally free. The Haitian misery and hard life that one witnesses everyday is a message from the Haitian people to the rest of the world that nothing else is worth having, but total freedom. Until it is achieved, the clouds in the dark might remain in obscurity to many.
Independence is not the act of expelling foreign invaders from one’s home, but rather it is the act that protects everyone’s rights in a fair and dignified way. The clouds in the dark are independent from the darkness, for when the sun rises the clouds can be seen by all with the sense of vision. Just as the clouds are independent from the darkness, the poor are independent from poverty and the oppressed are independent from oppression.
Haiti is often dubbed the poorest of its region, as if this poverty has a stronghold on the nation, which in turn enslaves the people to remain poor. Until we fully understand the potential and power of the darkness’ clouds, we might have a hard time understanding the Haitians’ struggle and the people’s obsession with total freedom.
Haiti is what it is today because Haiti refuses to be anything else but Haiti. This is a country that is much more than what the eyes can see, and what the imagination can think. Understanding Haiti requires a deep immersion in a subconscious realm that, more often than not, few of us are willing to enter. The clouds one sees during sunrise are not the same clouds that one cannot see in the dark.
Haiti is poor and wealthy, dirty and clean, unstable and peaceful. It is a nation of extreme misery, and extraordinary wealth. Politically, the vast majority is at the extremity of opposite sides. Judicially, it seems like a lawless land with an abundance of laws. Structurally, it is cohesively segregated and fragmentally united. And yet, there is a magnet that keeps on pulling the opposites towards its center. At the end, everything is seen as relatively normal. This Haiti has all the potential to be a giant among the giants.
When the clouds accumulate, people can sense a storm coming. Sometimes, the storm comes as torrential rains, other times it might turn into a tornado. When the clouds get dark, people must seek shelter. Otherwise, lives might be lost.
Haiti is not at a point of no return as many would like to believe. There is so much that can be done, and the people are so hungry to be the change. It will take courageous leadership and great foresight to right this ship, but nonetheless, it can be stirred in the right direction.
The time has arrived to disperse the thick clouds in the dark, in order to prepare for a shinny and bright morning. We are capable of attaining that bright morning, but we must rid ourselves of the vices that have thus far prevented us for taking off for good.
Haiti is not a lost cause, never has been and never will. The clouds have been over our heads for so long that the meteorologists have not bothered to update their models.
Haiti will come out victorious. The Haitian people deserve better and will ask for much better. The forecast might indicate that a storm is coming, but until the storm has reached our shore, we still have time to prepare and evacuate. It is up to us, this generation, to once and for all disperse and dispel the clouds in the dark.
Our work is much, but our collective heads and wills are greater. We are ready to make change happen, and prevent the clouds from turning into a fatal storm.
Ilio Durandis, a Caribbean Journal contributor, is the founder of Haiti 2015, a social movement for a just and prosperous Haiti. He is a columnist with The Haitian Times.
Follow Ilio Durandis on Twitter: @durandis
(Caribbean Journal) - By Ilio Durandis
A country is yearning for development. A people that is so desperate for change. A whole world is watching, and yet, the darkness is filled with clouds. It may not be possible to see the clouds, but they are there. Some people are blind to them. Others find them to be a nuisance. And a few can harness its potential. The clouds in the dark are potentially powerful that they can develop where there is no development. They can make change happen where the status quo is deeply rooted. They can turn pessimists into optimists.
On the eve of Haiti’s declaration of independence, the former slaves probably stayed up all night to think about what they had just done. It probably didn’t sink in them at the time that they were mavericks in a new world; that they were defying an old adage, by replacing it with a new ideology. No longer could people say the Negroes would rather be slaves than to be free. Haiti, on Jan. 1, 1804 put to rest the axiom that the black race was inferior to any other race and that it was incapable to be self-governed. We had entered a new age, and the clouds were present in the dark.
The 208 tumultuous years that followed Haiti’s independence are a clear reminder of the extent of misery and sacrifice that a people is willing to suffer to be free. Not simply free nominally, but to be totally free. The Haitian misery and hard life that one witnesses everyday is a message from the Haitian people to the rest of the world that nothing else is worth having, but total freedom. Until it is achieved, the clouds in the dark might remain in obscurity to many.
Independence is not the act of expelling foreign invaders from one’s home, but rather it is the act that protects everyone’s rights in a fair and dignified way. The clouds in the dark are independent from the darkness, for when the sun rises the clouds can be seen by all with the sense of vision. Just as the clouds are independent from the darkness, the poor are independent from poverty and the oppressed are independent from oppression.
Haiti is often dubbed the poorest of its region, as if this poverty has a stronghold on the nation, which in turn enslaves the people to remain poor. Until we fully understand the potential and power of the darkness’ clouds, we might have a hard time understanding the Haitians’ struggle and the people’s obsession with total freedom.
Haiti is what it is today because Haiti refuses to be anything else but Haiti. This is a country that is much more than what the eyes can see, and what the imagination can think. Understanding Haiti requires a deep immersion in a subconscious realm that, more often than not, few of us are willing to enter. The clouds one sees during sunrise are not the same clouds that one cannot see in the dark.
Haiti is poor and wealthy, dirty and clean, unstable and peaceful. It is a nation of extreme misery, and extraordinary wealth. Politically, the vast majority is at the extremity of opposite sides. Judicially, it seems like a lawless land with an abundance of laws. Structurally, it is cohesively segregated and fragmentally united. And yet, there is a magnet that keeps on pulling the opposites towards its center. At the end, everything is seen as relatively normal. This Haiti has all the potential to be a giant among the giants.
When the clouds accumulate, people can sense a storm coming. Sometimes, the storm comes as torrential rains, other times it might turn into a tornado. When the clouds get dark, people must seek shelter. Otherwise, lives might be lost.
Haiti is not at a point of no return as many would like to believe. There is so much that can be done, and the people are so hungry to be the change. It will take courageous leadership and great foresight to right this ship, but nonetheless, it can be stirred in the right direction.
The time has arrived to disperse the thick clouds in the dark, in order to prepare for a shinny and bright morning. We are capable of attaining that bright morning, but we must rid ourselves of the vices that have thus far prevented us for taking off for good.
Haiti is not a lost cause, never has been and never will. The clouds have been over our heads for so long that the meteorologists have not bothered to update their models.
Haiti will come out victorious. The Haitian people deserve better and will ask for much better. The forecast might indicate that a storm is coming, but until the storm has reached our shore, we still have time to prepare and evacuate. It is up to us, this generation, to once and for all disperse and dispel the clouds in the dark.
Our work is much, but our collective heads and wills are greater. We are ready to make change happen, and prevent the clouds from turning into a fatal storm.
Ilio Durandis, a Caribbean Journal contributor, is the founder of Haiti 2015, a social movement for a just and prosperous Haiti. He is a columnist with The Haitian Times.
Follow Ilio Durandis on Twitter: @durandis
Saturday, April 7, 2012
ARTICLE - ACCEPTING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
A BOOK TO BETTER UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN HAITI
(Haiti Libre) -
The international NGO "Project Hope", will announce at the occasion of World Health Day [this April 7, 2012], that it will launch an innovative book to educate communities, and promote the right of the disabled in Haiti. "This book, entitled 'Rehabilitation Medicine: Healing Body and Spirit" has for its' objective to continue to teach communities how to better understand and accept people with disabilities, explained Jason Friesen, Project HOPE’s Country Representative in Haiti.
The innovative bilingual, Creole and French, book was created by HOPE with the support of Johnson and Johnson and an array of local partners. The book is adapted to limited literacy in Haiti, using both an audio track and printed text. Colorfully illustrated and tells the story of Pauline, a woman who confronts a challenging rehabilitation journey after her leg was pinned under a car during the earthquake on January 12, 2010. The story, written by Paula Clermont Pean, tracks Pauline’s struggles with depression after her leg was amputated to save her life, and the difficult process of learning to function as a disabled person.
"We hope the character's journey from victim to a fully functioning, productive, disabled member of society will serve as an inspiration to disabled readers and hopefully prompt them to seek services for themselves and others, and to improve the public's understanding of disabilities in general," said Mr. Friesen. Friesen believes the book’s message, that rehabilitation can mend the body and the spirit and that all Haitians have the right to be productive and live free from discrimination, will resonate with many Haitians who are still struggling to build healthy, successful lives.
HOPE is working with Haiti's National Office for Persons with Disabilities and other NGOs to ensure wide distribution of the book, which is to be launched next month and distributed for free to over 5,000 people.
(Haiti Libre) -
The international NGO "Project Hope", will announce at the occasion of World Health Day [this April 7, 2012], that it will launch an innovative book to educate communities, and promote the right of the disabled in Haiti. "This book, entitled 'Rehabilitation Medicine: Healing Body and Spirit" has for its' objective to continue to teach communities how to better understand and accept people with disabilities, explained Jason Friesen, Project HOPE’s Country Representative in Haiti.
The innovative bilingual, Creole and French, book was created by HOPE with the support of Johnson and Johnson and an array of local partners. The book is adapted to limited literacy in Haiti, using both an audio track and printed text. Colorfully illustrated and tells the story of Pauline, a woman who confronts a challenging rehabilitation journey after her leg was pinned under a car during the earthquake on January 12, 2010. The story, written by Paula Clermont Pean, tracks Pauline’s struggles with depression after her leg was amputated to save her life, and the difficult process of learning to function as a disabled person.
"We hope the character's journey from victim to a fully functioning, productive, disabled member of society will serve as an inspiration to disabled readers and hopefully prompt them to seek services for themselves and others, and to improve the public's understanding of disabilities in general," said Mr. Friesen. Friesen believes the book’s message, that rehabilitation can mend the body and the spirit and that all Haitians have the right to be productive and live free from discrimination, will resonate with many Haitians who are still struggling to build healthy, successful lives.
HOPE is working with Haiti's National Office for Persons with Disabilities and other NGOs to ensure wide distribution of the book, which is to be launched next month and distributed for free to over 5,000 people.
ARTICLE - 16.1 MILLION INHABITANTS - 2050
16.1 MILLION INHABITANTS IN 2050
Haiti now has nearly 10 million inhabitants, 6.4 million live below the poverty level. According to the latest projections of the Haitian Institute of Statistics and Information (IHSI), the population of Haiti, will have 16.1 million inhabitants in 2050 [8,023,000 men and 8,126,000 women]. A projection higher than the previous recommunicated in June 2010, which provided then 13.4 million inhabitants in 2050.
This update of the projections of the Haitian population in 2050, was conducted by the IHSI with the support of the Latin American Center of Demography (CELADE) and the Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL). Moreover, these projections indicate that by 2050, two thirds of Haiti's population will live in urban areas, against less than 50% today. The gender distribution will remain substantially the same as today.
According to Evens Joseph, Director of the IHSI, such informations on the Haitian population, are essential to the planning process and of economic and social development of the country. "With these statistics, we can better plan the future [...] We can also have a more objective idea of the challenges we will face: schools, health centers to build, jobs to create..."
For André Lemercier Georges, Minister of Economy and Finance "the government will use these projections to improve its understanding of the growth dynamics and predict changes sufficiently accurate, for making good decisions."
Added to the challenge of the reconstruction of the country, it is essential that these demographic data are taken seriously into consideration by our Government, to avoid that in the coming years, the situation is worse than that prevailing before January 12, 2010. Recall that the density of the population in Haiti is 350 inhabitants per square kilometer, while for a population equal, it is only 200 inhabitants per square kilometer in the Dominican Republic. Will it be necessary to establish a more rigorous family planning to ensure housing, work and food for future generations and avoid the negative socioeconomic consequences of overpopulation?
Haiti now has nearly 10 million inhabitants, 6.4 million live below the poverty level. According to the latest projections of the Haitian Institute of Statistics and Information (IHSI), the population of Haiti, will have 16.1 million inhabitants in 2050 [8,023,000 men and 8,126,000 women]. A projection higher than the previous recommunicated in June 2010, which provided then 13.4 million inhabitants in 2050.
This update of the projections of the Haitian population in 2050, was conducted by the IHSI with the support of the Latin American Center of Demography (CELADE) and the Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL). Moreover, these projections indicate that by 2050, two thirds of Haiti's population will live in urban areas, against less than 50% today. The gender distribution will remain substantially the same as today.
According to Evens Joseph, Director of the IHSI, such informations on the Haitian population, are essential to the planning process and of economic and social development of the country. "With these statistics, we can better plan the future [...] We can also have a more objective idea of the challenges we will face: schools, health centers to build, jobs to create..."
For André Lemercier Georges, Minister of Economy and Finance "the government will use these projections to improve its understanding of the growth dynamics and predict changes sufficiently accurate, for making good decisions."
Added to the challenge of the reconstruction of the country, it is essential that these demographic data are taken seriously into consideration by our Government, to avoid that in the coming years, the situation is worse than that prevailing before January 12, 2010. Recall that the density of the population in Haiti is 350 inhabitants per square kilometer, while for a population equal, it is only 200 inhabitants per square kilometer in the Dominican Republic. Will it be necessary to establish a more rigorous family planning to ensure housing, work and food for future generations and avoid the negative socioeconomic consequences of overpopulation?
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
ARTICLE - HAPPIEST/UNHAPPIEST COUNTRIES
GALLUP POLL DECLARES DENMARK HAPPIEST NATION IN THE WORLD, TOGO, UNHAPPIEST
(NewstrackIndia) - By ANI
Los Angeles - Scandinavian countries Denmark, Finland and Norway have been declared the three happiest nations in the world during the last six years (2005 to 2011), according to a Gallup poll.
An L.A. Times report has listed the ten happiest countries, as follows:
Denmark
Finland
Norway
Netherlands
Canada
Switzerland
Sweden
New Zealand
Australia
Ireland
The United States ranks 11th. The unhappiest countries were Togo (ranked last), Benin, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Comoros, Haiti, Tanzania, Congo and Bulgaria.
Bhutan, which pioneered the happiness index, is not included in the Gallup World Poll.
The unhappiest countries are also some of the poorest. The four happiest countries have incomes that are 40 times higher than the four unhappiest countries, the report said.
People can also expect to live 28 years longer in the happiest nations.
But economic growth doesn't necessarily drive up happiness, the report found.
For instance, U.S. incomes have grown dramatically since the 1960s, yet average happiness hasn't changed, past research has found.
Freedom and trust in government are also big factors in happiness, the report said.
Economists John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs have prepared the happiness quotient report. (ANI)
(NewstrackIndia) - By ANI
Los Angeles - Scandinavian countries Denmark, Finland and Norway have been declared the three happiest nations in the world during the last six years (2005 to 2011), according to a Gallup poll.
An L.A. Times report has listed the ten happiest countries, as follows:
Denmark
Finland
Norway
Netherlands
Canada
Switzerland
Sweden
New Zealand
Australia
Ireland
The United States ranks 11th. The unhappiest countries were Togo (ranked last), Benin, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Comoros, Haiti, Tanzania, Congo and Bulgaria.
Bhutan, which pioneered the happiness index, is not included in the Gallup World Poll.
The unhappiest countries are also some of the poorest. The four happiest countries have incomes that are 40 times higher than the four unhappiest countries, the report said.
People can also expect to live 28 years longer in the happiest nations.
But economic growth doesn't necessarily drive up happiness, the report found.
For instance, U.S. incomes have grown dramatically since the 1960s, yet average happiness hasn't changed, past research has found.
Freedom and trust in government are also big factors in happiness, the report said.
Economists John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs have prepared the happiness quotient report. (ANI)
Sunday, January 8, 2012
ARTICLE - A BILLIONAIRE LENDS A HAND
A BILIONAIRE LENDS HAITI A HAND
(New York Times) - By Stephanie Strom
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Almost two years after an earthquake ravaged this city, some half a million people are still living in filthy tents, cholera has infected a similar number across the country and the president works from a flimsy prefab structure behind the still crumpled Presidential Palace.
Denis O’Brien, an impatient Irish billionaire who tends to make his points with a few choice profanities, is determined to change all that.
On a recent sunny morning, he presided over the opening of the 50th school that his vast telecommunications company, Digicel, has rebuilt since the quake struck in 2010 — and then he promptly pledged to build another 80 schools by 2014.
His intention is not, however, to be a one-man force for change. With a skill for what he calls “frying feet,” he has sweet-talked, cajoled, harangued, nagged, strong-armed and shamed government officials, international financiers and business leaders into doing more to rebuild Haiti.
“It’s all about project management,” Mr. O’Brien, 53, said in an interview at Digicel’s offices here. “Everyone’s on hand for the photo op, but where are the 100 houses that were promised after the cameras are gone? I’m the guy who’s going to count them.”
In the process, he has become de facto ambassador for an emerging business-centered approach to the redevelopment of this disaster-prone nation, which has so long relied on the work of nonprofit groups and aid agencies that it is known as the Republic of N.G.O.’s, or nongovernmental organizations.
“We’ve seen the growth of the N.G.O. community here for the last 20 years, and many of them do good work and there is a demand and a need for that work,” said Lionel Delatour, a business consultant and lobbyist whose brothers have served as government ministers. “But N.G.O.’s do not pay taxes, and when they bring their supplies and cars and other goods into the country, they do not pay customs duties.”
Digicel, on the other hand, is the country’s largest employer and taxpayer. The privately held company has invested $600 million in Haiti, making it by far the country’s largest foreign investor ever, and it has democratized communications with its strategy of selling low-price cellphones and services to the masses.
Mr. O’Brien has profited extensively from Haiti, which is Digicel’s largest market and accounts for roughly one-third of its 11.1 million subscribers.
“There is something that is two-way about this relationship,” Mr. Delatour said. “It is not only a story of what Digicel and Mr. O’Brien have done for Haiti, but also what Haiti has done for Digicel and Mr. O’Brien.”
For his part, Mr. O’Brien does not like to hear his work on behalf of the country or Digicel’s largess there described as corporate social responsibility. “If you make money in a poor country, you can’t just take it and disappear,” he said. “It would be bad business.”
Thus, Digicel unveiled plans in November to invest $45 million in a new 173-room hotel next door to its offices, to be run by Marriott. That announcement came at a forum sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank that drew 500 business people from 29 countries.
It was kicked off by a ribbon-cutting at a new industrial park in Caracol whose first tenant will be Sae-A, a Korean apparel manufacturer with extensive experience in Latin America. It is building a plant that plans to employ 20,000 and, unlike the low-wage apparel manufacturing operations that spawned vast urban slums, incorporate housing developments and other infrastructure.
Just last month, Heineken, the Dutch brewing concern, increased to 95 percent from 23 percent its stake in Brasserie Nationale d’Haiti, a Haitian brewery and bottler, saying it saw greater political and economic stability in the country.
Then there are commitments from the 60-odd members of the Haiti Action Network of the Clinton Global Initiative, or C.G.I., which include installing solar panels, increasing energy supplies, refurbishing homes and providing job training.
Mr. O’Brien is charged with overseeing their progress on behalf of former President Bill Clinton, and so after the school opening, he headed to the Hotel Montana to grill the network’s members, as he does 10 times a year.
“I hear Digicel is a difficult company to work for because he holds the people who work there accountable for everything, and he runs the network in much the same way,” said Anne Hastings, chief executive of Fonkoze, a microfinance institution in Haiti that is a member. “But he does it with a nice sense of humor, so that no one is afraid — and Haiti is a country that can benefit from someone keeping account, believe me.” President Clinton said, “The Haiti Action Network symbolizes the best of C.G.I.” in large part thanks to Mr. O’Brien’s unusual commitment to it. “What is striking is how deeply he has embedded his Haiti work into both his business and personal life,” Mr. Clinton said. “Because he cares so much, it’s easier for him to motivate and hold accountable other network members.”
Mr. O’Brien does not limit his haranguing. He pointedly asked the guest speaker at a recent network meeting, Thierry Mayard-Paul, Haiti’s interior minister, about the government’s plan for a new Center to Facilitate Investment. “It has five people,” Mr. O’Brien said. “It needs 50. How will you staff it? How long will it take? How many weeks?”
They are the kind of questions Josefa Raymond Gauthier knows well. In charge of the agency that finances a variety of government projects financed primarily by international donors, Mrs. Gauthier was the first chief executive of the Digicel Haiti Foundation, which oversees the construction of the schools.
“I arrived at the foundation in late 2008, and all of a sudden it was, ‘We have to deliver a school by March because Denis O’Brien is coming,’ ” Mrs. Gauthier said.
“Then Denis arrived and said, ‘What a nice school. Let’s have 20 more, one in each department of Haiti, before the end of the year,’ ” she said. “That’s Denis.”
The foundation quickly realized, however, that simply putting up a school was not the answer. “Teachers are a catastrophe,” Mrs. Gauthier said. So Digicel began remedial teacher training and paying teachers when the Ministry of Education was late or checks went missing. And then there were textbooks and desks and myriad other things.
“I always thought building the schools would be the hard bit, because of the contracts involved and all that,” Mr. O’Brien said. “But the hard part is really about getting the community together to support the school and identifying the leaders and so many other things.”
As a young man, Mr. O’Brien thought he would make his fortune replicating the Home Shopping Network in Ireland, but instead he nearly went bankrupt, saving his investors and himself with the do-or-die purchase of an Irish radio station that became part of what is now the Communicorp Group. He then established Esat Telecom in 1990, eventually buying Ireland’s second mobile phone license — and igniting speculations that political favor had played a role in the bidding.
After a 14-year inquiry, a judicial tribunal last year accused the government minister who awarded the license of accepting payments from Mr. O’Brien, payments he vehemently denies ever making. He has denounced the tribunal as a sham and has been accused of using his investments in the Irish media to squelch coverage of it, accusations he has described as “malicious and simply not true.”
Amid the storm, Mr. O’Brien sold Esat in 2000, leaving him at 41 with a few hundred million in the bank and “bored out of my mind.” He saw an ad for the sale of a mobile license in Jamaica, picked up a phone in a Dublin pub, bid $47.5 million and won, opening the door to a telecom enterprise spanning the Caribbean and South Pacific. Forbes magazine ranks him 254th on its list of the world’s billionaires, with an estimated $4.2 billion.
He walks a fine line in Haiti, where his take-charge manner and ability to push projects forward highlight government ineffectuality and weakness. Digicel, for instance, has put up street signs in parts of Port-au-Prince, serving as reminders of the company’s role in public life as much as guides for navigating the city.
Most mornings, people crowd around the reception desk of Digicel’s office building, not to complain about the firm’s services but to see the mayor and other city officials whose offices are on the sixth floor since the earthquake.
The company provides the space rent-free, Mayor Jean-Yves Jason said, and gave the city computers and furniture. “We have plans to build a new city hall in downtown Port-au-Prince, but we are so comfortable here it is easy to delay,” Mr. Jason joked.
The mayor conceded that the arrangement has left the city vulnerable to charges of conflicts of interest and favoritism. Mr. Jason said, for example, he was having trouble getting another Haitian telecom company to pay its taxes. “We can’t really go after them publicly, though, because they are going to claim we’re aligned with Digicel, their competitor.” Mr. Jason said the city could not have functioned without Digicel’s help in the early days after the earthquake. The company prepaid its taxes, which allowed the city to make its payroll and other payments, and paid for dump trucks and tractors that were used to remove rubble and clear spaces.
Digicel does not always get its way. It would like, for instance, to increase its role in the redevelopment of downtown Port-au-Prince around the iconic Iron Market, which Mr. O’Brien rebuilt with $16.5 million of his own money after the earthquake. But so far, he has been unable to get the necessary government approvals to move forward and redevelop parts of downtown. “We’re getting the slow no,” he said. There are other challenges. In an interview in New York after attending the Clinton Global Initiative’s meeting in September, Mr. O’Brien spoke enthusiastically about plans by Haiti’s president, Michel Martelly, to finance his program to provide free primary school education to all Haitian children with fees on cellphone calls and remittances.
Mr. O’Brien said that despite opposition from his senior management, who knew the charges would be unpopular with customers, he regarded them as an innovative means of raising needed revenue and a promising sign of government resolve.
Two months later, word broke that $26 million in the new National Fund for Education was missing. “I’ve spoken with President Martelly about this, and there will be an audit,” Mr. O’Brien said. “I will make it my business that it will be audited, one way or the other.”
(New York Times) - By Stephanie Strom
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Almost two years after an earthquake ravaged this city, some half a million people are still living in filthy tents, cholera has infected a similar number across the country and the president works from a flimsy prefab structure behind the still crumpled Presidential Palace.
Denis O’Brien, an impatient Irish billionaire who tends to make his points with a few choice profanities, is determined to change all that.
On a recent sunny morning, he presided over the opening of the 50th school that his vast telecommunications company, Digicel, has rebuilt since the quake struck in 2010 — and then he promptly pledged to build another 80 schools by 2014.
His intention is not, however, to be a one-man force for change. With a skill for what he calls “frying feet,” he has sweet-talked, cajoled, harangued, nagged, strong-armed and shamed government officials, international financiers and business leaders into doing more to rebuild Haiti.
“It’s all about project management,” Mr. O’Brien, 53, said in an interview at Digicel’s offices here. “Everyone’s on hand for the photo op, but where are the 100 houses that were promised after the cameras are gone? I’m the guy who’s going to count them.”
In the process, he has become de facto ambassador for an emerging business-centered approach to the redevelopment of this disaster-prone nation, which has so long relied on the work of nonprofit groups and aid agencies that it is known as the Republic of N.G.O.’s, or nongovernmental organizations.
“We’ve seen the growth of the N.G.O. community here for the last 20 years, and many of them do good work and there is a demand and a need for that work,” said Lionel Delatour, a business consultant and lobbyist whose brothers have served as government ministers. “But N.G.O.’s do not pay taxes, and when they bring their supplies and cars and other goods into the country, they do not pay customs duties.”
Digicel, on the other hand, is the country’s largest employer and taxpayer. The privately held company has invested $600 million in Haiti, making it by far the country’s largest foreign investor ever, and it has democratized communications with its strategy of selling low-price cellphones and services to the masses.
Mr. O’Brien has profited extensively from Haiti, which is Digicel’s largest market and accounts for roughly one-third of its 11.1 million subscribers.
“There is something that is two-way about this relationship,” Mr. Delatour said. “It is not only a story of what Digicel and Mr. O’Brien have done for Haiti, but also what Haiti has done for Digicel and Mr. O’Brien.”
For his part, Mr. O’Brien does not like to hear his work on behalf of the country or Digicel’s largess there described as corporate social responsibility. “If you make money in a poor country, you can’t just take it and disappear,” he said. “It would be bad business.”
Thus, Digicel unveiled plans in November to invest $45 million in a new 173-room hotel next door to its offices, to be run by Marriott. That announcement came at a forum sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank that drew 500 business people from 29 countries.
It was kicked off by a ribbon-cutting at a new industrial park in Caracol whose first tenant will be Sae-A, a Korean apparel manufacturer with extensive experience in Latin America. It is building a plant that plans to employ 20,000 and, unlike the low-wage apparel manufacturing operations that spawned vast urban slums, incorporate housing developments and other infrastructure.
Just last month, Heineken, the Dutch brewing concern, increased to 95 percent from 23 percent its stake in Brasserie Nationale d’Haiti, a Haitian brewery and bottler, saying it saw greater political and economic stability in the country.
Then there are commitments from the 60-odd members of the Haiti Action Network of the Clinton Global Initiative, or C.G.I., which include installing solar panels, increasing energy supplies, refurbishing homes and providing job training.
Mr. O’Brien is charged with overseeing their progress on behalf of former President Bill Clinton, and so after the school opening, he headed to the Hotel Montana to grill the network’s members, as he does 10 times a year.
“I hear Digicel is a difficult company to work for because he holds the people who work there accountable for everything, and he runs the network in much the same way,” said Anne Hastings, chief executive of Fonkoze, a microfinance institution in Haiti that is a member. “But he does it with a nice sense of humor, so that no one is afraid — and Haiti is a country that can benefit from someone keeping account, believe me.” President Clinton said, “The Haiti Action Network symbolizes the best of C.G.I.” in large part thanks to Mr. O’Brien’s unusual commitment to it. “What is striking is how deeply he has embedded his Haiti work into both his business and personal life,” Mr. Clinton said. “Because he cares so much, it’s easier for him to motivate and hold accountable other network members.”
Mr. O’Brien does not limit his haranguing. He pointedly asked the guest speaker at a recent network meeting, Thierry Mayard-Paul, Haiti’s interior minister, about the government’s plan for a new Center to Facilitate Investment. “It has five people,” Mr. O’Brien said. “It needs 50. How will you staff it? How long will it take? How many weeks?”
They are the kind of questions Josefa Raymond Gauthier knows well. In charge of the agency that finances a variety of government projects financed primarily by international donors, Mrs. Gauthier was the first chief executive of the Digicel Haiti Foundation, which oversees the construction of the schools.
“I arrived at the foundation in late 2008, and all of a sudden it was, ‘We have to deliver a school by March because Denis O’Brien is coming,’ ” Mrs. Gauthier said.
“Then Denis arrived and said, ‘What a nice school. Let’s have 20 more, one in each department of Haiti, before the end of the year,’ ” she said. “That’s Denis.”
The foundation quickly realized, however, that simply putting up a school was not the answer. “Teachers are a catastrophe,” Mrs. Gauthier said. So Digicel began remedial teacher training and paying teachers when the Ministry of Education was late or checks went missing. And then there were textbooks and desks and myriad other things.
“I always thought building the schools would be the hard bit, because of the contracts involved and all that,” Mr. O’Brien said. “But the hard part is really about getting the community together to support the school and identifying the leaders and so many other things.”
As a young man, Mr. O’Brien thought he would make his fortune replicating the Home Shopping Network in Ireland, but instead he nearly went bankrupt, saving his investors and himself with the do-or-die purchase of an Irish radio station that became part of what is now the Communicorp Group. He then established Esat Telecom in 1990, eventually buying Ireland’s second mobile phone license — and igniting speculations that political favor had played a role in the bidding.
After a 14-year inquiry, a judicial tribunal last year accused the government minister who awarded the license of accepting payments from Mr. O’Brien, payments he vehemently denies ever making. He has denounced the tribunal as a sham and has been accused of using his investments in the Irish media to squelch coverage of it, accusations he has described as “malicious and simply not true.”
Amid the storm, Mr. O’Brien sold Esat in 2000, leaving him at 41 with a few hundred million in the bank and “bored out of my mind.” He saw an ad for the sale of a mobile license in Jamaica, picked up a phone in a Dublin pub, bid $47.5 million and won, opening the door to a telecom enterprise spanning the Caribbean and South Pacific. Forbes magazine ranks him 254th on its list of the world’s billionaires, with an estimated $4.2 billion.
He walks a fine line in Haiti, where his take-charge manner and ability to push projects forward highlight government ineffectuality and weakness. Digicel, for instance, has put up street signs in parts of Port-au-Prince, serving as reminders of the company’s role in public life as much as guides for navigating the city.
Most mornings, people crowd around the reception desk of Digicel’s office building, not to complain about the firm’s services but to see the mayor and other city officials whose offices are on the sixth floor since the earthquake.
The company provides the space rent-free, Mayor Jean-Yves Jason said, and gave the city computers and furniture. “We have plans to build a new city hall in downtown Port-au-Prince, but we are so comfortable here it is easy to delay,” Mr. Jason joked.
The mayor conceded that the arrangement has left the city vulnerable to charges of conflicts of interest and favoritism. Mr. Jason said, for example, he was having trouble getting another Haitian telecom company to pay its taxes. “We can’t really go after them publicly, though, because they are going to claim we’re aligned with Digicel, their competitor.” Mr. Jason said the city could not have functioned without Digicel’s help in the early days after the earthquake. The company prepaid its taxes, which allowed the city to make its payroll and other payments, and paid for dump trucks and tractors that were used to remove rubble and clear spaces.
Digicel does not always get its way. It would like, for instance, to increase its role in the redevelopment of downtown Port-au-Prince around the iconic Iron Market, which Mr. O’Brien rebuilt with $16.5 million of his own money after the earthquake. But so far, he has been unable to get the necessary government approvals to move forward and redevelop parts of downtown. “We’re getting the slow no,” he said. There are other challenges. In an interview in New York after attending the Clinton Global Initiative’s meeting in September, Mr. O’Brien spoke enthusiastically about plans by Haiti’s president, Michel Martelly, to finance his program to provide free primary school education to all Haitian children with fees on cellphone calls and remittances.
Mr. O’Brien said that despite opposition from his senior management, who knew the charges would be unpopular with customers, he regarded them as an innovative means of raising needed revenue and a promising sign of government resolve.
Two months later, word broke that $26 million in the new National Fund for Education was missing. “I’ve spoken with President Martelly about this, and there will be an audit,” Mr. O’Brien said. “I will make it my business that it will be audited, one way or the other.”
Thursday, June 24, 2010
ARTICLE - ADOPTION
RESCUED CHILD IS ORPHANED AGAIN
(AP) - By Rukmini Callimachi
PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Time was up, not 10 minutes into the visit. The social worker went to pull the 3-year-old orphan out of the arms of the woman he calls "Momma."
The boy turned his face and dug his hands into her clothes. He kicked his legs. He screamed as they carried him away.
Tamara Palinka covered her mouth to hold back the sobs. The 37-year-old Canadian volunteer aid worker did not know when - or if - she would get another glimpse of the child she was desperately trying to adopt.
International adoption has always been a sensitive subject in Haiti, a reminder that the country is too poor to care for its own. After January's quake, the Haitian government effectively slammed the door shut on most adoptions altogether. With no foster care system and virtually no domestic adoption in Haiti, untold numbers of children orphaned by the quake - like the 3-year-old known as Sonson - now face a lifetime inside an institution.
The crackdown on adoption came in response to two incidents. First, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell flew 53 children from a destroyed orphanage run by two Pittsburgh sisters back to the U.S., after a tense standoff with officials at the Haiti airport. Then a group of U.S. missionaries tried to take 33 Haitian children out of the country without papers, claiming they were orphans when in fact all had at least one living parent.
Infuriated, the Haitian government announced that all children leaving the country would need the signature of Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. Since then, the government has relented somewhat, but it still allows only the adoption of children orphaned before the quake or those relinquished by their parents in the presence of a judge.
"The sad part is that because of a few people's mistakes, children that could find a good home and are waiting for a home will now have to suffer for years - and may never get a home at all," says Miriam Frederick, founder of the New Life Childrens Home orphanage.
At another orphanage, Sonson sits apart from the other children.
He stares at the floor."Who is your momma?" asks an orphanage worker. "Mara," he whispers.
"Do you miss her?" He nods.
---The first thing people saw after the ground stopped shaking on Jan. 12 was the thick, white cloud. It was the dust kicked up by hundreds of falling buildings. People pulled out of the destruction looked like they had been doused in flour.
Three weeks passed before anyone noticed the 3-year-old. The only part of him not covered in white dust was his foot, which was stained red with blood.
Two women saw him playing by himself on top of a destroyed house and assumed his parents were nearby. But after four days and nights, they realized he spent all day on top of the rubble by himself.
Then they noticed his belly was getting bigger, a sign of malnutrition. He was picking through the rubble for trash to eat. They carried him to the nearby office of the Salvation Army.
The toddler was covered with dust, didn't talk and looked dazed, according to the charity's report. His foot was infected, so they transferred him to a field hospital set up by the University of Miami on the grounds of the airport.
---Palinka could hear the hospital before she saw it.
Hundreds of people were screaming. Children moaned in pain as nurses changed bandages on their raw stumps. Families yelled out for help for their dying relatives.
For the next two months, she often worked 24-hour shifts without a break. She was paged when the generator stopped working, when the medical supplies ran low, when the water ran out and multiple times a day when a patient died.
"Everyday I catch my heart in my throat," she wrote in a journal entry.
An athletic blond, Palinka had been working drafting safety procedures at an oil refinery. By the time the quake hit Haiti, she had enough saved up to take a leave of absence.
She had been at the hospital for three weeks when the 3-year-old was brought in and placed in a cot. It was dark when they told her an orphan had been rescued from a trash pile.
The other children in the pediatric ward had parents nearby. At night, the mothers crawled into the cots with their children.
Palinka felt a sudden sadness. The boy looked so small, swallowed by the adult-sized cot. She didn't want him to wake up alone.
On a whim, she got in the cot with him.
She tried to sleep but couldn't. She listened to the sounds inside the sauna-like tent - coughing, the whimpering of a child in pain, nurses brushing past, doctors talking and the alarm set off by a little girl in the emergency room.
In the morning, the 3-year-old stirred. He rolled toward her, glanced at her, then quickly turned away. She felt that her side was wet. He had peed all over the cot.
She changed him. She gave him baths inside a plastic laundry tub. She rummaged through the donations flown in from Miami to find him fresh clothes and a play pen.
When she first tried to clip his toe nails, he pulled in his feet and curled them into little balls.
Coaxing him in Creole, a Haitian nurse slowly got him to extend his feet.
The food at the hospital came in a styrofoam takeaway container. She placed the box in front of the 3-year-old. He opened it and threw one leg over it, as if to shield it from anyone who might try to steal his food.
He ate in famished gulps until he couldn't eat anymore. Then he hid the box under a table. When she took him outside, he grabbed a fistful of dirt and stuffed it inside his mouth. The doctors determined that he had worms, most likely from eating food off the ground.
At lunchtime, the nurses placed the takeaway box on the floor of his play pen. Palinka returned to find him asleep in a pile of rice. When he lifted his face, chunks of rice were glued to his cheek.
One morning, as she lowered him into his play pen and turned to leave, he threw up his arms and screamed out, "Momma!"
---At first the little boy only looked at his feet. She would tell him softly, "regarde moi" - "look at me." He started to give her furtive glances. She took him into her tent, away from the clamor of the pediatric tent.
He started to talk to himself. Sometimes he sang. One of his favorite games was to blow on her stomach, making the sound of a motorboat.
She asked a Haitian translator to figure out his name. The translator got down on one knee to ask him. The child stared at his feet. He repeated the question. And then the child answered.
"Sonson," he said.
She brought a different translator. And then a third one. Each time the answer was the same. On her Facebook page on Feb. 13, Palinka wrote: "Sonson is a good name."
Two days later she posted: "Tamara Palinka wants to take Sonson home! will start the process tomorrow."
In Alberta, Palinka's mother Kate Millar wrote back: "Is Sonson a child you are hoping to adopt??? Am I going to be a grandmother???"
International adoptions by U.S. households have fallen from a high of around 23,000 in 2004 to roughly half that last year, according to U.S. State Department figures. Haiti is the latest of several former "donor" countries to put a freeze on such adoptions.
Vietnam and Guatemala have halted adoptions altogether. South Korea - one of the first countries from which orphans were sent - has revised its rules to make adoptions increasingly difficult.
"There is a sense in many many countries that to be a 'sending' country is an embarrassment," says adoption lawyer Diane Kunz, executive director of the Center for Adoption Policy and an expert on adoptions from Haiti. "Their perspective is 'Our patrimony is our children.' It's as if you are giving this away."
---By his second week at the hospital, Sonson was transformed. He sang and danced. At dinner, he beat a stick on the back of the styrofoam container like an instrument.
He begged for food. Other volunteers gave him candy and snacks. Some days Palinka would come to feed him and see he had already two empty styrofoam boxes in front of him. Several times he vomited on her. One night she took him to see a doctor at 2 a.m. because he was complaining of a stomach ache.
She taped a sign to the back of his shirt. "Please do not feed me," it said. "My mommy does that."
One time, she went to get him for his nap and couldn't find him. A volunteer had walked off with him.
"I was like, 'What are you doing?' Don't you ever ever walk off with him again."
---"I've made up my mind so don't even try to stop me," Millar wrote her daughter in an e-mail. "I'm coming down to see my grandson."
The two slept with Sonson between them.
Millar saw her daughter transformed into a mother. It was in every gesture - from the soft way she spoke to him, to the constant attentiveness she showed him.
"In my case that is something that I grew into by giving birth myself to a child. She didn't grow into it by being pregnant," Millar says. "When I saw her, she was a mom - in every way she is a mom. This is her son. ... I'm so proud of her."
---As Palinka spent more time with Sonson, her attention began to shift away from the hospital.
Then the order came from Miami. The rainy season was starting. The hospital needed to downsize.
None of the orphans had medical conditions that required them to stay. Palinka was tasked with contacting the government to transfer them to orphanages.
She clashed bitterly with the hospital's management, according to several volunteers. She accused the hospital of trying to 'unload' the orphans. Hospital officials accused her of letting her feelings for Sonson blindside her. A spokeswoman for the hospital said it does not comment on personnel issues.
Within days, the orphans - including Sonson - were registered with the state's child welfare agency.When Palinka returned, hospital officials relinquished her of her duties. They said she was spending too much time with Sonson.
A 6-minute video shot on a co-worker's Blackberry phone shows Palinka's final moments with Sonson before he was taken away.
He is sitting on her lap in the backseat of an SUV. He pinches her lips together, like a fish. Then he leans forward and kisses her over and over again.
When the SUV pulled away, Palinka waved until the car had driven out of sight. Then she sobbed until she started dry heaving in the hospital's parking lot.
Within a week she aged. Her eyes were hollows. Her face was taut. She carried his toy car in her pocket for comfort.
"I see her, and you don't even want to ask what's going on," says Jen Jasilewicz, the hospital's chief nursing officer. "It amazes me. You have someone who wants to give her love and all those beautiful things to a child, and she is not being allowed to."
Haitian officials say they are trying to protect children from possible exploitation.
"International adoption should always be a last resort," says former Deputy Gerandale Telusma, who headed a committee charged with drafting the country's new adoption law. "We need to first make sure there is no other family willing to take the child ... to make sure they don't enter into some kind of nightmare."
It is a position backed by the United Nations Children's Fund, which helped create a database for unaccompanied children after the Haiti quake. The aim is to reunite children with their extended families, even if family members say they cannot care for the child.
Michel Forst, the United Nations' independent expert on human rights in Haiti, says the adoption freeze is necessary.
"There were lots of people that were coming here and doing whatever the heck they wanted. So it needed to be put on hold so that we could make sure that these adoptions were being done in a legal manner," Forst says."And yes, it's hard. It's hard for the well-meaning families that are waiting to adopt children. And it's hard for the children that are being prevented from running into the arms of these families."
---Sonson was transferred to a modern orphanage in a village a 1 1/2 hour drive from downtown Port-au-Prince. Palinka spent her remaining weeks in Haiti trying to get visitation rights.
On her first visit, she was told to call a child welfare case worker at 8 a.m. Palinka says she called more than 20 times between 8 and noon and each time was told to call back "in 10 minutes." She was then told to drive to the side of the highway leading to the village and wait.
She says she waited for more than two hours in the sweltering car before the case worker arrived. Jeanne Bernard Pierre, the head of the child welfare agency, declined to comment.
The woman took her to see Sonson. She didn't recognize him.
His head had been shaven. He was sitting by himself on the floor. The other children rushed at her, screaming. "Where is he?" she asked.
"Don't you recognize him? That's him," said the woman.
She crouched on her knees. "Sonson?" she said. He looked up and then away. She scooped him up in her arms. He held on tightly. He made no sound, until they tried to pull him away. And then he screamed.
In the month since they were separated she has seen him twice more. Each time she finds him diminished. "He looks smaller. He's no longer making eye contact," she said.
He cannot be declared an orphan for at least six months, to give his family a chance to reclaim him if they are alive. After that, he enters the bureaucratic labyrinth of Haiti's adoption limbo.
Even before the earthquake, the waiting time for the roughly 300 Haitian children adopted each year into U.S. households was two to three years. So even if the government accepts Palinka's application, 3-year-old Sonson will be waiting for about as long as he has been alive.
---On her last supervised visit, Palinka was allotted 20 minutes with him. She arrived an hour early. She brought him his bike with the training wheels.
Through a translator she tried to explain what would happen next. "I'm going to go away for a long time, but I will come back for you," she told him.
When the visit was up, she lifted him onto the bike. Engrossed, he pedaled away.
She quietly slipped out. She kept her bloodshot eyes on the ground as she walked briskly out of the gravel driveway, his toy car in her pocket.
(AP) - By Rukmini Callimachi
PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Time was up, not 10 minutes into the visit. The social worker went to pull the 3-year-old orphan out of the arms of the woman he calls "Momma."
The boy turned his face and dug his hands into her clothes. He kicked his legs. He screamed as they carried him away.
Tamara Palinka covered her mouth to hold back the sobs. The 37-year-old Canadian volunteer aid worker did not know when - or if - she would get another glimpse of the child she was desperately trying to adopt.
International adoption has always been a sensitive subject in Haiti, a reminder that the country is too poor to care for its own. After January's quake, the Haitian government effectively slammed the door shut on most adoptions altogether. With no foster care system and virtually no domestic adoption in Haiti, untold numbers of children orphaned by the quake - like the 3-year-old known as Sonson - now face a lifetime inside an institution.
The crackdown on adoption came in response to two incidents. First, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell flew 53 children from a destroyed orphanage run by two Pittsburgh sisters back to the U.S., after a tense standoff with officials at the Haiti airport. Then a group of U.S. missionaries tried to take 33 Haitian children out of the country without papers, claiming they were orphans when in fact all had at least one living parent.
Infuriated, the Haitian government announced that all children leaving the country would need the signature of Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. Since then, the government has relented somewhat, but it still allows only the adoption of children orphaned before the quake or those relinquished by their parents in the presence of a judge.
"The sad part is that because of a few people's mistakes, children that could find a good home and are waiting for a home will now have to suffer for years - and may never get a home at all," says Miriam Frederick, founder of the New Life Childrens Home orphanage.
At another orphanage, Sonson sits apart from the other children.
He stares at the floor."Who is your momma?" asks an orphanage worker. "Mara," he whispers.
"Do you miss her?" He nods.
---The first thing people saw after the ground stopped shaking on Jan. 12 was the thick, white cloud. It was the dust kicked up by hundreds of falling buildings. People pulled out of the destruction looked like they had been doused in flour.
Three weeks passed before anyone noticed the 3-year-old. The only part of him not covered in white dust was his foot, which was stained red with blood.
Two women saw him playing by himself on top of a destroyed house and assumed his parents were nearby. But after four days and nights, they realized he spent all day on top of the rubble by himself.
Then they noticed his belly was getting bigger, a sign of malnutrition. He was picking through the rubble for trash to eat. They carried him to the nearby office of the Salvation Army.
The toddler was covered with dust, didn't talk and looked dazed, according to the charity's report. His foot was infected, so they transferred him to a field hospital set up by the University of Miami on the grounds of the airport.
---Palinka could hear the hospital before she saw it.
Hundreds of people were screaming. Children moaned in pain as nurses changed bandages on their raw stumps. Families yelled out for help for their dying relatives.
For the next two months, she often worked 24-hour shifts without a break. She was paged when the generator stopped working, when the medical supplies ran low, when the water ran out and multiple times a day when a patient died.
"Everyday I catch my heart in my throat," she wrote in a journal entry.
An athletic blond, Palinka had been working drafting safety procedures at an oil refinery. By the time the quake hit Haiti, she had enough saved up to take a leave of absence.
She had been at the hospital for three weeks when the 3-year-old was brought in and placed in a cot. It was dark when they told her an orphan had been rescued from a trash pile.
The other children in the pediatric ward had parents nearby. At night, the mothers crawled into the cots with their children.
Palinka felt a sudden sadness. The boy looked so small, swallowed by the adult-sized cot. She didn't want him to wake up alone.
On a whim, she got in the cot with him.
She tried to sleep but couldn't. She listened to the sounds inside the sauna-like tent - coughing, the whimpering of a child in pain, nurses brushing past, doctors talking and the alarm set off by a little girl in the emergency room.
In the morning, the 3-year-old stirred. He rolled toward her, glanced at her, then quickly turned away. She felt that her side was wet. He had peed all over the cot.
She changed him. She gave him baths inside a plastic laundry tub. She rummaged through the donations flown in from Miami to find him fresh clothes and a play pen.
When she first tried to clip his toe nails, he pulled in his feet and curled them into little balls.
Coaxing him in Creole, a Haitian nurse slowly got him to extend his feet.
The food at the hospital came in a styrofoam takeaway container. She placed the box in front of the 3-year-old. He opened it and threw one leg over it, as if to shield it from anyone who might try to steal his food.
He ate in famished gulps until he couldn't eat anymore. Then he hid the box under a table. When she took him outside, he grabbed a fistful of dirt and stuffed it inside his mouth. The doctors determined that he had worms, most likely from eating food off the ground.
At lunchtime, the nurses placed the takeaway box on the floor of his play pen. Palinka returned to find him asleep in a pile of rice. When he lifted his face, chunks of rice were glued to his cheek.
One morning, as she lowered him into his play pen and turned to leave, he threw up his arms and screamed out, "Momma!"
---At first the little boy only looked at his feet. She would tell him softly, "regarde moi" - "look at me." He started to give her furtive glances. She took him into her tent, away from the clamor of the pediatric tent.
He started to talk to himself. Sometimes he sang. One of his favorite games was to blow on her stomach, making the sound of a motorboat.
She asked a Haitian translator to figure out his name. The translator got down on one knee to ask him. The child stared at his feet. He repeated the question. And then the child answered.
"Sonson," he said.
She brought a different translator. And then a third one. Each time the answer was the same. On her Facebook page on Feb. 13, Palinka wrote: "Sonson is a good name."
Two days later she posted: "Tamara Palinka wants to take Sonson home! will start the process tomorrow."
In Alberta, Palinka's mother Kate Millar wrote back: "Is Sonson a child you are hoping to adopt??? Am I going to be a grandmother???"
International adoptions by U.S. households have fallen from a high of around 23,000 in 2004 to roughly half that last year, according to U.S. State Department figures. Haiti is the latest of several former "donor" countries to put a freeze on such adoptions.
Vietnam and Guatemala have halted adoptions altogether. South Korea - one of the first countries from which orphans were sent - has revised its rules to make adoptions increasingly difficult.
"There is a sense in many many countries that to be a 'sending' country is an embarrassment," says adoption lawyer Diane Kunz, executive director of the Center for Adoption Policy and an expert on adoptions from Haiti. "Their perspective is 'Our patrimony is our children.' It's as if you are giving this away."
---By his second week at the hospital, Sonson was transformed. He sang and danced. At dinner, he beat a stick on the back of the styrofoam container like an instrument.
He begged for food. Other volunteers gave him candy and snacks. Some days Palinka would come to feed him and see he had already two empty styrofoam boxes in front of him. Several times he vomited on her. One night she took him to see a doctor at 2 a.m. because he was complaining of a stomach ache.
She taped a sign to the back of his shirt. "Please do not feed me," it said. "My mommy does that."
One time, she went to get him for his nap and couldn't find him. A volunteer had walked off with him.
"I was like, 'What are you doing?' Don't you ever ever walk off with him again."
---"I've made up my mind so don't even try to stop me," Millar wrote her daughter in an e-mail. "I'm coming down to see my grandson."
The two slept with Sonson between them.
Millar saw her daughter transformed into a mother. It was in every gesture - from the soft way she spoke to him, to the constant attentiveness she showed him.
"In my case that is something that I grew into by giving birth myself to a child. She didn't grow into it by being pregnant," Millar says. "When I saw her, she was a mom - in every way she is a mom. This is her son. ... I'm so proud of her."
---As Palinka spent more time with Sonson, her attention began to shift away from the hospital.
Then the order came from Miami. The rainy season was starting. The hospital needed to downsize.
None of the orphans had medical conditions that required them to stay. Palinka was tasked with contacting the government to transfer them to orphanages.
She clashed bitterly with the hospital's management, according to several volunteers. She accused the hospital of trying to 'unload' the orphans. Hospital officials accused her of letting her feelings for Sonson blindside her. A spokeswoman for the hospital said it does not comment on personnel issues.
Within days, the orphans - including Sonson - were registered with the state's child welfare agency.When Palinka returned, hospital officials relinquished her of her duties. They said she was spending too much time with Sonson.
A 6-minute video shot on a co-worker's Blackberry phone shows Palinka's final moments with Sonson before he was taken away.
He is sitting on her lap in the backseat of an SUV. He pinches her lips together, like a fish. Then he leans forward and kisses her over and over again.
When the SUV pulled away, Palinka waved until the car had driven out of sight. Then she sobbed until she started dry heaving in the hospital's parking lot.
Within a week she aged. Her eyes were hollows. Her face was taut. She carried his toy car in her pocket for comfort.
"I see her, and you don't even want to ask what's going on," says Jen Jasilewicz, the hospital's chief nursing officer. "It amazes me. You have someone who wants to give her love and all those beautiful things to a child, and she is not being allowed to."
Haitian officials say they are trying to protect children from possible exploitation.
"International adoption should always be a last resort," says former Deputy Gerandale Telusma, who headed a committee charged with drafting the country's new adoption law. "We need to first make sure there is no other family willing to take the child ... to make sure they don't enter into some kind of nightmare."
It is a position backed by the United Nations Children's Fund, which helped create a database for unaccompanied children after the Haiti quake. The aim is to reunite children with their extended families, even if family members say they cannot care for the child.
Michel Forst, the United Nations' independent expert on human rights in Haiti, says the adoption freeze is necessary.
"There were lots of people that were coming here and doing whatever the heck they wanted. So it needed to be put on hold so that we could make sure that these adoptions were being done in a legal manner," Forst says."And yes, it's hard. It's hard for the well-meaning families that are waiting to adopt children. And it's hard for the children that are being prevented from running into the arms of these families."
---Sonson was transferred to a modern orphanage in a village a 1 1/2 hour drive from downtown Port-au-Prince. Palinka spent her remaining weeks in Haiti trying to get visitation rights.
On her first visit, she was told to call a child welfare case worker at 8 a.m. Palinka says she called more than 20 times between 8 and noon and each time was told to call back "in 10 minutes." She was then told to drive to the side of the highway leading to the village and wait.
She says she waited for more than two hours in the sweltering car before the case worker arrived. Jeanne Bernard Pierre, the head of the child welfare agency, declined to comment.
The woman took her to see Sonson. She didn't recognize him.
His head had been shaven. He was sitting by himself on the floor. The other children rushed at her, screaming. "Where is he?" she asked.
"Don't you recognize him? That's him," said the woman.
She crouched on her knees. "Sonson?" she said. He looked up and then away. She scooped him up in her arms. He held on tightly. He made no sound, until they tried to pull him away. And then he screamed.
In the month since they were separated she has seen him twice more. Each time she finds him diminished. "He looks smaller. He's no longer making eye contact," she said.
He cannot be declared an orphan for at least six months, to give his family a chance to reclaim him if they are alive. After that, he enters the bureaucratic labyrinth of Haiti's adoption limbo.
Even before the earthquake, the waiting time for the roughly 300 Haitian children adopted each year into U.S. households was two to three years. So even if the government accepts Palinka's application, 3-year-old Sonson will be waiting for about as long as he has been alive.
---On her last supervised visit, Palinka was allotted 20 minutes with him. She arrived an hour early. She brought him his bike with the training wheels.
Through a translator she tried to explain what would happen next. "I'm going to go away for a long time, but I will come back for you," she told him.
When the visit was up, she lifted him onto the bike. Engrossed, he pedaled away.
She quietly slipped out. She kept her bloodshot eyes on the ground as she walked briskly out of the gravel driveway, his toy car in her pocket.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)