Search

In post-disaster societies, critical events intensify diasporic engagements. This article examines the diaspora as a category of practice that mobilizes energies in furtherance of revitalizing Haiti's oft-neglected higher education sector. With rebuilding efforts dependent upon international assistance, the diaspora emerges as an important actor that engages national and international entities in shaping that agenda. Hence, the research question posed here: "How has diaspora engagement in higher education influenced institutional capacity for recovery and reconstruction in post-disaster Haiti?" Conceptualizing the 2010 earthquake as a threshold event that has reconfigured Haitian society and drawing on a post-structuralist notion of power, this article analyzes contexts of engagement where the diaspora negotiated their cultural understanding of higher education with local practices, within larger competing national and transnational power dynamics. These new opportunities for engagement created conditions for the diaspora to move higher education from the margins of national development to the post-disaster rebuilding agenda.

Natural disasters over the past few decades have necessitated mass migration of Haitian immigrants to the United States. Haitians residing in the United States have experienced significant cultural and social challenges. Recent political deportation mandates have increased the systemic challenges that Haitian students and their families are currently facing in the United States. These systemic barriers have fostered an increase in stressors affecting the mental wellness of Haitian students and their families. This article introduces school counselors to the culturally focused, multiphase model of psychotherapy, counseling, human rights, and social justice as a framework to assist Haitian students and their families.

International service learning courses, cultural immersion projects, and international disaster response teams have provided valuable aid, services, supplies and programs to trauma-impacted communities across the globe. Many colleges and universities support global learning and the creation of global citizens, and this ethic is reflected in many educational mission statements. To avoid a tepid humanitarian response to a disaster, it is important for human services providers to critically examine their motivations for assisting so that the result reflects justice, integrity, and cultural competence. This article offers a set of reflective questions for human services providers, cultural immersion curriculum developers, and independent agents to ponder prior to responding to international disasters. We used a qualitative social justice framework to inform and design applied practice recovery efforts. This framework promotes meaningful dialogue for ensuring mutually reciprocal recovery efforts, a goal that will be ultimately more empowering in the long run.

Alternative break programs, which are short-term service-learning trips, immerse students in direct service and education, resulting in the creation of active citizens who think and act critically around the root causes of social issues. Over the last 20 years, domestic alternative breaks have effectively created strong community partnerships and fostered student development. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, universities around the United States were seeking opportunities to offer "hands on" aid, and the need for best practices to avoid potential pitfalls of international volunteerism became plainly apparent. In response, a small group of alternative breaks professionals from five U.S. universities came together with Break Away (the national alternative breaks nonprofit organization), to form the Haiti Compact. The Compact developed best practices for international alternative breaks, allowing staff and students to overcome potential harm done to communities while contributing to student learning and engagement. This essay shares those practices and their application to work in Haiti. (Contains 1 table.)

For approximately 35 seconds on January 10, 2010, an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale struck the small Caribbean nation of Haiti. This research used a preexperimental one-shot posttest to examine the incidence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and associated trauma symptomatology from the earthquake experienced by a sample of adult Haitians who were living in temporary shelters located in "tent cities" in Port-au-Prince and a comparative group of displaced individuals who left the capital city and took up residence in the northern rural town of Terrier Rouge. Sixty-five (N-65) participants completed the Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R) to assess the severity of trauma symptomology in the study groups. Data presented are comparisons between the groups on total IES-R scores and the measure subscales for intrusion, avoidance, and hyperarousal. Based on the scores on the measure for the comparison groups 4 months after the earthquake, the findings suggests that all participants in the study exceeded the threshold of an acute stress disorder and most likely experienced PTSD. Implications of using the data in future longitudinal studies on trauma in Haiti are also discussed.

Adolescents are an emerging population in Haiti, particularly after the deadly 2010 earthquake. The steady penetration of U.S. culture into this poor, disaster-prone country begs the question, Do today's adolescents possess a similar fondness for their home country, culture, and traditional family values as did Haitians of old? Or are they more oriented toward U.S. culture? Early adolescents (N = 105, 52% female, M = 12.87 years, SD = 0.86) in rural Haiti reported their cultural orientation toward Haitian culture and U.S. culture as well as their family obligations beliefs. Findings revealed high Haitian orientation, very high family obligations (boys especially), and very low U.S. orientation, although adolescents who interacted more frequently with U.S. tourists and those who consumed more U.S. fast food had higher U.S. culture orientation. Despite severe challenges, rural Haitian early adolescents demonstrate remarkable allegiance to their home country, culture, and traditional family values.

This study documents the vicarious psychological impact of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti on Haitians living in the United States. The role of coping resources--family, religious, and community support--was explored. The results highlight the importance of family and community as coping strategies to manage such trauma.

The manner in which the built environment is constructed has a tremendous effect on the degree to which health, wealth and social outcomes are distributed within a society. This is particularly evident when a crisis of the natural environment affects the built environment, as was the case after the Haitian earthquake of 2010. Understanding the consequences of the earthquake as socially precipitated rather than a natural occurrence requires a paradigm shift, a project for educational policy, pedagogy and epistemology. In particular, education for democracy in its broadest sense can serve to re-align thinking towards understanding the connection between the built environment and social justice. In this article the authors present their research with teacher-education candidates and the candidates' perspectives and experiences of education for democracy at a Canadian university. In relating these perspectives to the possibilities for contextualizing the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, the authors propose educational policy solutions that highlight a thick democracy, social justice, the role of context and history, and a more concrete connection with public health.

Regardless of where disasters occur immediate access to images and stories are available. People are quickly drawn into the trauma and become acutely aware of the massive damage and overwhelming needs of survivors. Over the past decade, catastrophic earthquakes, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, war, and political upheaval have heightened the need for volunteer assistance, particularly in providing immediate life-saving food, water, emergency shelter, and medical treatment. In addition to meeting the immediate needs, ongoing support services also assist in stabilizing disrupted communities, helping them return to previous functioning and self-sufficiency. Individual faces and stories elicit deepest emotional responses, and a desire to help those impacted by disaster propels people into action. Overwhelming needs of communities leave people searching for answers to the following questions: (1) How to support family basic needs, reducing disruption and chaos; (2) How can support efforts be organized into focused practical applications; and (3) How to organize support efforts to prepare schools to educate children and help families resume daily activities? The purpose of this article is to provide potential volunteers with critical information on preparing to serve and support communities disrupted by disaster. Common challenges and suggested strategies are outlined. Additionally, information is offered to assist volunteers in their readjustment following their return home.

In this article, the author describes her preparations for the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) professional presentations in Haiti. As a cultural worker, (after Paulo Freire), she was very conscious of the need for care in working with "the Other" especially when the Other is known only from second hand experiences and mainly through superficial lens. How presumptuous it would be on their first visit to assume the needs of the people they had never met. It would be better to become familiar with the needs and then decide upon the best course of action later. Similar to what she does in her TESOL practicum in working in the homes of unknown refugee families, she knows that it is important for an ethnographer to clarify his or her own thinking and purpose before venturing into unfamiliar territory. She wanted to be sure that she was not operating under a false assumption or deficit perspective. How was she to be in Haiti? What lens would dominate seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling? What does poverty really look like? From her readings she learned about the evils and corruptions of life in an impoverished state. Described herein are her preparations and her work during her time in Haiti. (Contains 1 table.)

Long before the earthquake in Haiti on 12 January 2010, but particularly since, international media and humanitarian groups have drawn attention to the "vulnerable child" in Haiti, a child often portrayed as needing "saving". Focusing in particular on the "restavek" (child domestic laborer), this article first explores the ways in which such children are represented as vulnerable and victimized, despite emerging ethnographic evidence on children's lived experience that paints a rather different picture. It then argues that far from being inconsequential, however, representations of children's vulnerability enable a critique of the Haitian culture and nation itself as fundamentally flawed and in need of saving through the interventions of the international order. Raising the question of for whom and for what purposes such projects of critique and saving exist, the article suggests that the saving of Haiti's children can be seen as a way to position the Haitian nation within a universalized and moralizing narrative of maturation/development that ultimately is not so much about meeting Haiti's (and its children's) needs as it is about satisfying the needs and desires of the more powerful in terms of their own security, prosperity and global dominance. (Contains 19 notes.)

This paper recounts the author's story as she returned to Haiti in February to join a building project near Port-Au-Prince and to document efforts by U.S. higher education institutions to help the country rebound from the devastating 2010 earthquake. The author describes how consortiums have been formed in order to support the development of the island's public university network in the region. Yet, the 5-month-old Haitian government led by President Michel Martelly still struggles to make good on its promises of moving people out of camps by supplying loans to rebuild homes. Free education for 900,000 children is expected to come from taxing money transfers and international calls from cell phone providers such as Digicel. Other pipeline schools such as the Village of Hope are run by nonprofits.

This paper is a theoretical effort to support but complicate critiques of disaster capitalism and neoliberal strategies to profit from public education. We put into conversation a discursive analysis following Michel Foucault and a spatial analysis following Henri Lefebvre that focus on monumentalized disasters. We argue that neoliberalism carries out its agenda of privatization through public spaces that are never fully dismantled. We draw on empirical research into spaces that exemplify the usefulness of our reading of neoliberal privatization, including aspects of post-Katrina New Orleans and a more thorough case study of a pre- and post-earthquake Haiti and its highly privatized education system. (Contains 2 figures and 18 notes.)

Individuals who are indirectly exposed to disasters may be affected psychologically. The impact of the 2010 Haiti earthquake reverberated throughout the Haitian American community in Miami, Florida. Many within the community held strong transnational family and friendship bonds to their homeland. We examined associations between indicators of family and social connectedness and symptom levels for generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, and physical and mental health status for Haitian Americans and non-Haitian Americans who were living in Miami at the time of the earthquake. Results showed that family and social connectedness to earthquake victims strongly predicted symptom levels for Haitian American survey participants. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

Objectives: The paper reviews the experiences of conducting child protection assessments across four humanitarian emergencies where violence and insecurity, directly or indirectly, posed a major threat to children. We seek to identify common themes emerging from these experiences and propose ways to guide the planning and implementation of assessments that effectively identify, and suggest means of response to, threats to children's rights and well-being in emergency settings. Methods: In the context of a field evaluation of an inter-agency resource kit, crisis settings where an inter-agency assessment of child protection had been considered in the period August 2008 to July 2010 were identified. Email correspondence, telephone-based structured interviews and documentary review collated information from child protection coordinating agencies from a total of twenty sites, the minority of which had proceeded to complete an assessment. This paper presents case studies of the experience in Georgia (following the conflict between Russian and Georgian forces in August 2008), Gaza (following the Israeli military incursion beginning in December 2008), Haiti (following the earthquake of January 2010), and Yemen (following the ceasefire agreement between the government and rebel forces in early 2010). Case study findings: In each setting the context of the humanitarian emergency is outlined. The processes of the planning (and, where appropriate, implementation) of the child protection assessment is described. Where available, the findings of the child protection assessment and their use in shaping interventions are summarized. Practice implications: Case studies document experience across humanitarian settings widely divergent in terms of the nature of the emergency, social-political context, and institutional capacity. Despite such differences, analysis suggests securing inter-agency coordination, preparation and capacity building, and means of ensuring timeliness of findings to be recurrent themes in the effective mobilization of an effective assessment able to inform programming.

This article addresses what factors best motivate individuals to work toward shared goals. We propose that when individuals do not identify highly with a group, their contributions will mimic others': An emphasis on things done will increase their contributions toward achieving a goal, because such emphasis suggests the goal is worth pursuing. Conversely, we propose that when individuals identify highly with a group, their contributions will compensate for others': An emphasis on things left undone will increase their own contributions, because missing contributions suggest insufficient progress toward a goal they already consider worthwhile. Five studies lend support to these predictions by measuring contributions to goals centered on idea generation and helping victims of various global disasters (earthquake in Haiti, wildfires in Southern California, rioting in Kenya). (Contains 6 figures.)

The earthquake that thumped the Haitian coast in January 2010, wiping off entire suburbs of Port au Prince and other cities, left 222,570 casualties with an estimated 80,000 corpses still missing. One and a half million people were displaced and the majority is still living in 1000 improvised camps, in tents or self-made shelters. The national and international relief effort has been hampered by logistical, co-ordination and leadership challenges. In January 2010, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) was asked to lead the cluster co-ordinating humanitarian agencies involved in the management of the camps and to provide various forms of assistance, including psychosocial, to the populations living in them. The IOM psychosocial response plan has since focused on community mobilisation and participation, and has used the arts and social theatre widely as tools. Placing the value of participation and prevention, and ultimately of democratisation over solely reactive social responses to natural disasters has been a learning experience from IOM's Haitian programme.

In this interview conducted by "Harvard Educational Review" editor Raygine DiAquoi, Fabienne Doucet of New York University and Louis Herns Marcelin of the University of Miami discuss their roles as Haitian American scholars who are participating in Haiti's reconstruction process after the earthquake of January 2010. Each professor focuses on different sectors of the educational system: Doucet on the importance of investing in early childhood education and Marcelin on the significance of higher education in rebuilding Haitian society. From these scholars we learn about the importance of including local actors in the efforts to rebuild in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Through the Interuniversity Institute for Research and Development (INURED), they work with scholars around the world to facilitate participatory research that seeks to democratize the production of knowledge while simultaneously building the capacity of Haitian students and educators to use research to effect change in their own communities. (Contains 2 notes.)

In October 2010, Harvard Educational Review editor Raygine DiAquoi interviewed Maryse Desgrottes, the mother of a close friend and a visible presence in the relief efforts in Petit Goave, Haiti. Desgrottes, a former physician's assistant turned educator and school superintendent, shares the story of her involvement in Haiti's relief efforts since the January 12, 2010, earthquake. Her story takes us from the initial terror and trauma of the first tremors to the present condition of the Haitian people. In her role as founder of the Henri Gerard Desgranges Foundation, which provides education and medical care to the town's people, Desgrottes reflects on the importance of education in the midst of disaster and the role that her school has played in the lives of Petit Goave's children and families. She also discusses the importance of partnerships with foreign organizations and the delicate balance between helping and hurting after a disaster. Desgrottes travels to Haiti every few months to monitor the rebuilding of the Ecole Village Lucina. Currently, this school serves two hundred children, including a number of students who were orphaned by the earthquake. As the final touches are added to the new school building, Desgrottes looks ahead to the future of the students. Her story reveals themes of the importance of culture, sovereignty, and strength in the face of disaster.

In this essay, Joyce King attempts to interrupt the calculus of human (un)worthiness and to repair the collective cultural amnesia that are legacies of slavery and that make it easy--hegemonically and dysconsciously--for the public to accept myths and media reports, such as those about the depravity of survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the earthquake in Haiti. King uses examples of Black Studies scholarship within a critical studyin' framework to recover and re-member the historical roots of resistance and revolution and the African cultural heritage that New Orleans and Haiti have in common. Within this framework, teachers, students, and parents can combat ideologically biased knowledge, disparaging discourses of Blackness, and dehumanizing disaster narratives. (Contains 13 notes.)

In this essay, Charlene Desir reflects on her role as an academic from the Haitian diaspora and her journey to reconnect to her Haitian roots after the 2010 earthquake. Desir begins by exploring her family background and the centrality of "lakou"--a sacred family space in which to connect to her ancestors and cultural ways of knowing. By centering the conversation on community and reciprocity, she considers the roles and responsibilities of academics in the diaspora to give back to their communities. This essay tells the story of her experiences in Saint-Raphael, Haiti, developing the Lakou Soley Academic Enrichment and Cultural Arts Center. In examining her own role in her community--or "lakou"--Desir underscores the importance of using Haitian epistemology in the process of rebuilding Haiti. (Contains 4 notes.)

When the author first heard that the earthquake that hit Haiti destroyed entire Haitian cities and killed more than a quarter million people, he was shocked. For him, it was apparent that this was more than a natural disaster. As he learned about the role the U.S. government had played in Haitian affairs--the multiple occupations, the support for dictatorships, the CIA-backed coups--it seemed to him that the "aid" effort had to be viewed in the light of this history. The role played by the U.S. government raises critical questions for students and teachers. How does Haiti's history explain why it experienced such devastation as a result of the earthquake? Who or what is responsible? And why has Haiti not been able to quickly rebuild and recover? The author's civics students at Lincoln High School use a mock trial to explore the economic, social, and political background to the tragedy. (Contains 1 online resource.)

After a disaster, or in the midst of a conflict, the news that finds its way into people's homes has a uniquely powerful effect on their psyche. Vulnerable people are caught in destructive forces beyond their control. The scenes people see are post-apocalyptic. The stories are gripping, spanning themes of luck, loss, hope, love, and wild fear, exploring the core of what it means to be human and also prompting questions about how one would react in the same situation. Often news outlets send their top reporters to chronicle the situation, capturing these stories as they unfold, raising the profile of the disaster, and also holding governments and response organizations accountable on the ground. Sometimes they even help support fundraising efforts. However, their interest, or the compassion they inspire in their audience, is not always matched by a deep understanding of the situation or an appreciation for the details of disaster response. Haiti emphasizes the complexity of these situations. Before the earthquake in January, 1.7 million people, or nearly 90 percent of the capital city, lived in slums. When the disaster struck, Haiti was already an exceptionally poor country. Teaching about global events such as Haiti's earthquake can help prepare young people for playing an active role in the face of such daunting disasters. The Exploring Humanitarian Law (EHL) program was developed by the International Committee of the Red Cross in 2001 to introduce young people to the basic rules that govern international armed conflict. In the past 10 years, the program has been integrated in the curricula of schools in more than 40 countries in an effort to challenge youth to think about and develop solutions for these modern international issues. The curriculum is divided into five thematic modules and provides educators with more than 30 hours of free material. These EHL resources include lesson plans, primary sources documents, and engaging activities that aim to make the situation of armed conflict more relevant to the everyday experiences of youth, most of whom have never witnessed armed conflict firsthand. Through Module 5 of EHL, students have an opportunity to learn in greater depth about the challenges of a disaster or conflict zone. Through lessons and critical exercises, they learn to appreciate what it means to be both a survivor and a responder, and how the two sides work together to restore lives and livelihoods. When the next major event breaks on the news, they will be prepared to contribute to a thoughtful discussion, and perhaps even take action, on issues that may not be covered on the 10 o'clock news.

As a teaching artist in public schools, the author is paired with classroom teachers to teach poetry and to give students an opportunity to experience their academic curriculum through the arts. At the beginning of the school year, she gave her students the on-going, yearlong assignment to watch the news, to pay attention. Knowing many of them were working with their classroom teachers on sharpening their skills for writing compare-and-contrast essays, the author asked them to apply what they were learning to their poetry class. She posed the question: How do race and class affect the aftermath and recovery from a natural disaster? In this article, students compare three natural disasters--Hurricane Katrina, the San Diego wildfires, and the recent earthquake in Haiti--and turn their grief and anger into poetry.

This article discusses the international interdependence Hexagon Project for Haiti which invites students, ages five through eighteen, to create an image within a hexagonal template and respond to big questions surrounding a global culture of interdependence. The hexagon is a visual metaphor for interdependence, with its potential to infinitely link together. Through the Hexagon Project, the students were involved in learning that art can be an activity of the heart and between hearts. The students created hexagons to send to young Haitians shortly after the January 12 earthquake that killed nearly 230,000 Haitians. They were also participating in the International Interdependence Project IV, which focuses on devising ways in which people can coexist creatively and collaboratively.

By nurturing empathy through a liberal education, educators can help their students understand their connections to other humans, animals, and the planet--and perhaps, eventually, find their way back to themselves. The author often use case studies in her undergraduate classes. The author wrote a new case study called "Toys for Haiti." The "Toys for Haiti" case study suggests that the current culture suppresses the very capacity for empathy that the planet needs now for its very survival.

The Faculty of Applied Linguistics at the State University of Haiti hardly looks like an institute of higher learning. Hidden away on a quiet downtown cross street, the grimy one-story building contains just three classrooms, along with a library, the dean's office, and a teachers' lounge, each no larger than a bedroom. Two years ago, the accommodations were slightly better, in a larger building with a language lab. Then, at 4:53 p.m. on January 12, 2010, an earthquake rocked Haiti, taking hundreds of thousands of lives and destroying thousands of buildings, including many schools and universities. The linguistics building was among the hardest hit. Two years after the quake struck, higher education in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation is struggling to rebound. The always fragile sector has made only marginal improvements, hamstrung by a lack of equipment, qualified people, and space. What universities want most is money, but most international donors either have focused their efforts on elementary and secondary education or have been hesitant to hand over cash in a country riddled with corruption and mismanagement. Professors' salaries are low and often go unpaid. Only a small percentage work full time. And university leaders are struggling not just to find the means to reconstruct buildings but also to reconceive the role of the university in a nation with so few resources. The reconstruction process has been especially difficult because successive Haitian governments never paid much attention to higher education in this nation of 10 million people. Some 39 percent of the population is illiterate, so the top priority, however badly executed, has always been elementary education. Soon after the quake, the country's president at the time, Rene Preval, created a presidential task force on education, which was charged with drafting a five-year "Operation Plan" for reforming Haiti's education system. It proposed expanding higher-education enrollments and raising more than a half-billion dollars to rebuild and revamp the system. Haiti's current president, Michel Martelly, who took power in May, named the country's first-ever under secretary for higher education, although he also emphasized that his focus is on bolstering elementary education. So far though, grand plans have seen little follow-through. Those in charge of higher education at the education ministry say they have had to beg for money, often in vain. They doubt that the appointment of Jean Claude Francois to the higher-education post will make much difference.

In the aftermath of the devastating January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, international humanitarian groups and volunteers poured into the country, bolstering what was already one of the world's hot spots for nongovernmental organizations. But the magnitude of the disaster--an estimated 300,000 were killed and one million left homeless out of a population of 10 million--far surpassed the response capacity of the international community. It also highlighted the need for a more strategic approach to development, centered on capacity building in a long-neglected sector in Haiti: higher education. Without university graduates, no country can survive. While the international community has long focused on improving basic education in Haiti, it has paid little attention to higher education, leaving the country dependent on outside experts to design everything from sanitation systems to economic policy. The same could be said of the Haitian government, whose decades-old neglect of higher education has left the national university in shambles and fueled the proliferation of poor-quality private institutions. Perhaps ironically, however, the destruction of much of the country's main universities in the earthquake has the potential to prompt a change in thinking, both on the part of the government and international donors. So far, though, major reform efforts have yet to get off the ground. A government report released in 2011 says that half a billion dollars is needed to rebuild and revamp the higher-education system. Yet higher-education officials there say they still go begging for money. Many of the international partnerships created to help rebuild the system have not gotten very far, and it remains unclear what impact they are having. The cholera epidemic in the country last year, as well as the violence following the disputed November 2010 presidential elections, further complicated the already daunting working conditions in Haiti. Political infighting has been a problem, too. And there is a lack of coordination among the different partnerships--a chronic problem with international-aid efforts in Haiti.

Only a few of Haiti's colleges have resumed classes since the earthquake effectively shut down higher education in the impoverished country. Most of the country's 159 colleges are concentrated in the devastated capital of Port-au-Prince. Those that have reopened are housed in temporary quarters. The destruction of Haitian higher education was so extensive that some administrators and advocates have argued for a remake of the system, which had serious deficiencies before the earthquake. Advocates say revamping Haiti's higher education system will fortify the country's leadership in business and government during its rebuilding process. If Haiti is to ever lift itself out of its profound poverty, it will need a more robust system of higher education. Only a small percentage of its citizens went to college to begin with, and many graduates emigrated and settled in other countries. The author stresses that a reformed system could produce the leaders to complete the rebuilding, govern the country and get the economy growing again.

As an art teacher, it's easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of objectives, lesson plans, grading, paperwork, setup, art shows and getting "that project" done within a certain time frame. Sometimes art teachers can miss out on a teachable moment not just for the students, but for themselves, as well. The author came upon www.haitihouses.com, a Web site developed by two Florida art teachers, Ann Ayers and Ellen McMillan. The premise was to allow students to get involved in helping the earthquake victims of Haiti by creating and selling "Haiti Houses--tiny houses that make a BIG difference." The site provides instruction, as well as a short QuickTime video showing highschool students creating houses out of scrap board and paint, and turning them into magnets or pins. What could allow her students to participate in this project, empathize with the people of Haiti, and get them pumped up to help someone else? In this article, the author describes how her second- through fifth-graders created Haitian houses on Shrinky Dinks, inspired by www.haitihouses.com.

An interactive mapping project is revolutionizing the way crises are reported and managed, and is spotlighting the value of citizen journalism. The project, called Ushahidi, which means testimony in Swahili, uses crowdsourcing (gathering information from a large number of people) to map crisis information. This crisis mapping tool has since been used across the world to monitor violence in Gaza, track political unrest in Congo, manage Washington, D.C.'s record blizzard in 2010, help earthquake victims from Haiti to Chile, and in scores of other situations. Digital volunteers around the globe have increasingly contributed their time using crisis mapping tools such as Ushahidi, Sahana, OpenStreetMap, and other Web 2.0 tools to help in emergency situations such as natural disasters. In June 2009, a spontaneous group of self-described "geeks" created CrisisCommons (crisiscommons.org) to advance the use of technology for better crisis management. The volunteers created ad-hoc CrisisCamps to discuss how technology could benefit crisis management in general. These later turned into all day or weekend gatherings, where individuals with only their laptops and power strips harness online tools to take civic engagement to a new level. (Contains 6 notes.)

On January 12, 2010, a catastrophic earthquake hit the small country of Haiti, reducing buildings and homes to piles of rubble and killing thousands of people. Immediately, the people of the United States and of just about every country in the world began to devise ways to help the victims of this tragedy. After seeing a presentation that showed the horrible living conditions in Haiti, the authors decided to create a project called Haiti Houses as a way for their students to help the people of Haiti. In this article, the authors share how their Haiti House Project became a big charitable endeavor for their students, and illustrate how this project can be a way to use the power of art to make a difference in the lives of others.(Contains 1 online resource.)

The news is sometimes frightening, but reacting to a disaster in a positive way empowers students to make a difference. On January 12, 2010, a catastrophic earthquake occurred in Haiti. An estimated three million people were affected and an estimated 230,000 people died. In response to this tragic event, the author's eighth-grade class viewed and discussed the tragedy and brainstormed ways to help and get involved in the relief effort by raising money for Haiti. They learned about the culture and art of Haiti, then created Haitian-inspired images. Inspired by the artwork of Betty LaDuke, an artist, educator, and humanitarian who has traveled around the world capturing the essence of diverse cultures in her vibrant, colorful paintings, the students created artwork that included a topic, a minimum of one stylized person, animals, and references from nature. The resulting artwork was reduced in size, a resin layer was added to protect the image, and magnets were attached to the back. These were sold for $5 a piece and students raised more than $400 dollars for Haiti. Through this project, students realized that they can play a significant role in helping others in need.

It is not easy to learn the "real story" of Haiti; mainstream historical accounts are often told through a distorted lens of racism and colonial exploitation. Even today, in the aftermath of the quake, Haiti's poverty is blamed on poor leadership, a lack of democratic traditions, and isolation due to language. Commentators describe it as a dangerous place requiring foreign intervention, its people incapable of running their own affairs. This, claims this author, lays the groundwork for those who will try to use the disaster as an opportunity to "reshape" Haiti's government and economy in a manner that will further impoverish its people while continuing to deny Haiti its rights to self-determination. So as the Haitian people courageously struggle to respond to the disaster with little besides their bare hands, there is something else one must learn, and teach, from this tragic moment in history. Students feel sympathy for the Haitian people. But that is not enough. If they are not asked to consider the legacy of racism and systemic injustice that underlies extreme poverty, students may revert to stereotypical understandings of the poor, blaming their situation on a lack of education, a poor work ethic, or some other personal shortcoming. When students recognize the common problems, struggles, and interconnected histories, feelings of sympathy can mature to ones of empathy and, finally, solidarity. People can move from talking about charity to working for justice.

For a few harrowing weeks in January, the eyes of the world were on Haiti, struggling with the impact of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. In the spotlight's glare, people saw the devastation wrought by the natural disaster. Viewers with a critical eye or access to alternative media also saw a U.S. military presence more focused on security than food and medical help, Haitians labeled as looters for trying to feed their families amidst the rubble, and the eagerness of international finance to rebuild Haiti on its own terms. What people didn't see in the mainstream media were the Haitian people's extraordinary history of resistance, the depth and richness of the culture, or the seemingly indestructible web of grassroots organizations that have sustained the Haitian people through crisis after crisis. Nor did the media explore the impact of European colonialism and U.S. intervention. Thousands of classrooms and school communities mobilized to raise money to help the Haitian people. As the devastation wrought by the earthquake fades from the headlines, this is a critical time to re-examine the history and culture of Haiti, and to develop ways to integrate Haiti into the curricula.

Haitians and their descendants all over the world are grieving and mourning the terrible disaster and loss of lives that befell their homeland. For a brief moment this winter, the whole world focused on Haiti. Educators at all levels--elementary, middle school, high school, and college--can take this opportunity to teach about Haiti: its past, present, and future. In the midst of this tragedy, the author would like teachers to bring into classroom discussions the reasons why Haiti, once the richest colony in the Antilles, the most prosperous French colony, became so poor. This is important for students to learn. Haiti is never described without these ominous words: "the poorest in the Western hemisphere." There is a lot to learn about Haiti and Haitians, and the author hopes that conscientious educators seize the moment to take Haitian history from its footnote status in textbooks to more in-depth learning experiences in their classrooms.

Sleep health is critical to overall health and quality of life. We investigated distinct patterns of sleep in Haitian men and women in post-earthquake Haiti, in an urban neighborhood impacted by non-partner sexual violence (NPSV). Latent Class Analysis enabled our development of a three-class model (3: Sleep Disturbance [SD] Often, 2: SD Sometimes, 1: No SD). We assessed relationships between class membership and SD correlates (e.g., experience of NPSV, feelings of depression, suicide intentions, physical health). More men (31.7%) than women (22.9%) experienced NPSV. Overall SD symptoms included 58% insomnia (nearly 2 times the 30% prevalence reported in the U.S.) and 40% restless sleep (>5 times the 7.7% prevalence reported outside of Haiti). Mean SD score for NPSV victims was significantly higher than that for non-victims. In multivariate models, women and men who reported higher level of suicide intentions, and poorer physical health had increased odds of membership in Class 3 (SD often). For women, odds of membership in Class 3 increased consonant with endorsement of NPSV. Reporting depression as mostly/constantly was associated with SD Class 3 for women, but not for men. Consideration of sex differences in sleep patterns and in NPSV experience is crucial and underscores healthy sleep among other critical intervention targets for recovery of NPSV traumatized residents in Haiti and in similar LMIC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study investigated the psychometric properties of the Haitian Creole version of the Brief Religious Coping Scale (Brief RCOPE). A total of 256 adult survivors of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti completed the Brief RCOPE and measures of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, resilience, general coping, and posttraumatic growth. The results showed the Brief RCOPE to have excellent internal consistency reliability α =.94 and α =.85 for the positive religious coping and negative religious coping, respectively. Confirmatory factor analysis showed construct validity for the Brief RCOPE subscales. The results also showed evidence of convergent validity of the Brief RCOPE in relation to measures of positive spiritual change and religion. Independent t-tests revealed statistically significant gender differences in scores on the positive religious coping subscales as women scored higher than men. These findings suggest that the psychometric properties of the Haitian Creole version of the Brief RCOPE are adequate for the assessment of religious coping with Haitian adults exposed to a natural disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Alternative Politics / Alternatif Politika is the property of Alternatif Politika and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Introduction: Cholera remains a significant public health threat for many countries, and the severity largely varies by the population and local conditions that drive disease spread, especially in endemic areas prone to natural disasters and flooding. Epidemiological models can provide useful information to military planners for understanding disease spread within populations and the effectiveness of response options for preventing the transmission among deployed and stationed personnel. This study demonstrates the use of epidemiological modeling to understand the dynamics of cholera transmission to inform emergency planning and military preparedness in areas with highly communicable diseases. Materials and Methods: Areas with higher probability for a potential cholera outbreak in Haiti followed by a natural disaster were identified. The hotspots were then used to seed an extended compartmental model, EpiGrid, to simulate notional spread scenarios of cholera originating in three distinct areas in Haiti. Disease parameters were derived from the 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti, and disease spread was simulated over a 12-week period under uncontrolled and controlled spread. Results: For each model location, scenarios of mitigated (intervention with 30% transmission reduction via international aid) and unmitigated (without intervention) are simulated. The results depict the geographical spread and estimate the cumulative cholera infection for each notional scenario over the course of 3 months. Disease transmission differs considerably across origin site with an outbreak originating in the department of Nippes spanning the largest geographic area and resulting in the largest number of cumulative cases after 12 weeks under unmitigated (79,518 cases) and mitigated (35,667 cases) spread scenarios. Conclusions: We modeled the notional re-emergence and spread of cholera following the August 2021 earthquake in Haiti while in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic. This information can help guide military and emergency response decision-making during an infectious disease outbreak and considerations for protecting military personnel in the midst of a humanitarian response. Military planners should consider the use of epidemiological models to assess the health risk posed to deployed and stationed personnel in high-risk areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Haiti remains a principal placement country for intercountry adoptees to the United States. This project reports the health status of children adopted from Haiti arriving to the U.S. and compares them to intercountry adoptees from other regions. Methods: A retrospective chart review was conducted of adoptees placed in the U.S. from Haiti (n=87), age and sex matched with intercountry adoptees placed in the U.S. from Asia (n=87) and Latin America (n=87) between January 2010 and November 2019. Data on immunization status, contagious diseases, and nutrition and growth were analyzed via linear, logistic, and multinomial regression. Results: After adjusting for age, sex, and standardized height, children adopted from Haiti, compared to adoptees from Latin America and Asia, demonstrated a lack of immunity to hepatitis B (OR=5.89;6.87), increased immunity to hepatitis A (OR=0.38;0.30), infection by two or more parasites (OR=8.43;38.48), high lead levels (OR=23.79;7.04), and anemia (OR=15.25;9.18). Unexpectedly, children adopted from Haiti had greater standardized height (-1.28 vs. -1.82 and -2.13) and standardized weight (-0.32 vs. -0.57 and -1.57) than their counterparts from Latin America and Asia. Conclusions: Children adopted from Haiti face complex medical challenges undoubtedly related to the country's low socioeconomic status (SES) and the impact of recurrent natural disasters and governmental neglect on public health infrastructure. Appropriate care is critical in preventing and avoiding transmission of infectious diseases in adoptees and family members. The high incidence of anemia and elevated lead levels may further exacerbate the developmental effects of early institutional deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]