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I always knew I wanted to come to Haiti. My cousin married a Haitian woman and had four beautiful children with her and, through them, I was given the opportunity to experience the beauty and culture of the nation. As i studied politics and development, the story of the country wove back and forth through the books, exemplifying misery, oppression and bad luck. The horrors and struggles the people of this country have been through are terrible and shouldn't be forgotten. But they also shouldn't be the focus!

This was Spring 2010. A few months following the earthquake in Haiti, my university hosted a panel discussion on the post disaster situation. This panel was a rather motley crew of professionals, each professing that their opinion of Haiti was the “most” correct. What started off as a civil debate over the reconstruction process, turned into a bitter feud particularly between a US Army Officer and a Haitian-American professor. The officer would repeatedly cite “statistics” about the estimated cost of reconstruction while pointing out some of the atrocious conditions that Haitians lived in.

On behalf of the Haitian American Caucus- Haiti we want to thank our partners Promet Source for their generous donation to our primary school over the Christmas Holidays. Promet source’s generosity enabled us to purchase much-needed books for the 2013 academic school year. Last year only 10% of our students were able to afford books needed for their classes.

 
This week was a fantastic week for the public health and nutrition program. We have been working with 5 women in the community to conduct the needs assessment surveys. Working with them has been wonderful and productive; we are getting lots of good data! As we collect the surveys we have noticed some hopeful windows for progress amidst stories of poverty and struggle.
 
A single mother with 8 children. None of these children are in school, and there is no source of income.