Haiti: one year later.
Posted Jan 12, 2011 04:21:26 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
As Haitians gather around the world to remember the victims of the earthquake that devastated the country a year ago, people living in tent cities and make-shift camps are looking forward.
Dave Toycen, president of World Vision Canada, was in Port au Prince Wednesday to visit cities where his organization has been working to improve living conditions, education, health and sanitation.
He had been in Corail, a village outside of the capital where displaced people are beginning to build a new community. There are about 5 thousand people living there, many in new homes built by World Vision.
These are semi-permanent but more sturdy than the tents and makeshift tarp shelters they had been living in.
Toycen said the organization worked with Haitians to design the buildings, which have three rooms and little porches. The porches, he said, were suggested by the community.
He said there is still a lot of work to do but it is coming along.
In Port au Prince he spoke with a lot of children, all of whom said they wanted to be able to create their own futures.
“They want a Haiti that’s changed, they want it to be a place where they can go to good schools and of course they want the opportunity to have a job to be able to contribute to something in the future,” he said.
One of the main barriers, beyond the basic needs of food and shelter, is the fact that the Ministry of Education isn’t operating the way it should. That means that even when they work to build schools there are no standards for what is needed or what should be taught.
So World Vision is operating make-shift schools, described by Toycen as under the radar. He said he met one little girl who told him she wants to be a doctor. But with neither parent employed, and no access to a proper school Toycen said he was worried her talent and ambition wouoldn’t be enough.
He says investing in the youth of Haiti will mean the country will eventually be able to take care of its own affairs.
“I wish it was less complicated,” said Toycen, but he admitted that between the cholera outbreak and the recent election troubles, there are so many immediate barriers it’s difficult to think of the future.
“If you think of Haiti as a car,” he says, “it’s a car that hardly runs. In fact you have to push it most of the time. The transmission is in trouble, the engine doesn’t work very well and even there’s the question that the driver, or the leader of the country isn’t doing exactly what should be done.
“And so we come along, and sometimes people with the best intentions, think we can solve this if we just pour more gasoline into the tank — bring more resources into the country. But the real challenge is the whole car needs to be overhauled.
Former Governor General Michaelle Jean was in Port au Prince today as well to mark the anniversary as part of her new role as special envoy to Haiti for UNESCO.
She echoed Toycen’s feeling that rather than continuing to give aid, it will be more worthwhile to empower the people themselves.
“Haitians will want to be a part of it. They don’t want just to be, you know, the beneficiaries of charity,” she said.
She added that while she has seen some improvements, there has not been enough.
In a public letter, she called for countries who have made a commitment to Haiti to come through on their promises.
