Tribeca, NY. On Tuesday, April 27, the Damon Dash Gallery will honor two organizations working on relief in post-disaster Haiti, Child Education International and my own Orphans International Worldwide (OIWW). The event will revolve around the works of photographer Morgan Freeman who will display digital art from our recent March mission to Haiti. Several of his works will be available by silent auction.
Like children in The Kite Runner set in Afghanistan, Haitian kids make kites from scraps
to enjoy. As Tevye said in Fiddler on the Roof, being poor is no disgrace – but it’s no
honor either. In spite of their lack of ‘things,’ Haitian children make the most of
what they do have Imagination, creativity, hope – and a few scarps to make toys.
Our combined Relief Team, including Child Education International and Orphans International Worldwide members, recently returned from Haiti where we identified communities and children in Leogane and Port-au-Prince to whom we have begun to provide relief and reconstruction support.
The Gallery, owned by hip-hop mogul Damon Dash, is a cutting edge meeting place for the arts, where the Upper East Side meets Tribeca in an evening to honor the children of Haiti who need our support. The Stewardship Report and The Huffington Post will report from the event.
In spite of the earthquake, Haitians carry on with dignity and many a certain "joie de vivre." As the first independent slave republic, Haitians are filled with a deep and enormous pride
that centuries of abuse by outsiders and their own leaders have not managed to erase.
Child Education International, formerly known as The Cambodia Project, works to bring quality education and health care to children at high school levels in Haiti, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia. It was founded and continues to be led by Jean-Michel Tijerina, who founded the organization when he was a student at Columbia University.
In March 2010, the Relief Team traveled to Léogâne, Ouest Province, Haiti, 18 miles west of Port-au-Prince. Léogâne was the epicenter of the January 12, 2010 earthquake that destroyed Haiti, leaving 90% of the buildings in Léogâne in ruins. Virtually 100% of its citizens remain in tents, as engineers are not available to perform structural analysis and all buildings that survived are deemed uninhabitable until proven safe.
On the smaller streets, much of the roads are often covered with six-foot piles of cement debris. Cement dust coats all of Haiti, as 9/11 dust coated New York. The rains are now beginning to still the dust, but the flooding and disease will be far worse. Through March, it was still officially ‘Relief & Recovery,’ but this April, theoretically, ‘Reconstruction’ begins. The earthquake killed as many as the Tsunami, yet the damage is not limited geographically. The street scene in Haiti today is similar to photos of WWII bombings of London and Berlin.
A young woman merchant – marchant – carries eggs to market along the street in Leogane.
Microcredit unions such as Fonkoze allow women to borrow enough to be able to stake out their
small space on the road, selling fruit, gum, eggs – whatever they can to try to move themselves
up the ladder. But almost no lower-class Haitians make it out of poverty.
Our objective is to provide post-disaster family-care programming for orphaned children living with their extended families in Léogâne. In addition, we are involved with our partner NGOs to provide education, health care, and clean water for the city's children. Education is the key, and our partners are focused on primary, secondary, vocational, and long-distance learning via Skype. Emphasis is on helping to decentralize Haiti, building opportunities for people to leave the nation's overcrowded capital.
Even after a natural disaster, girls have hair ribbons and nail salons have opened
in refugee camps. Unlike the beaches of Indonesia and Sri Lanka, Haiti’s few
trees remained, adding some hope to an otherwise bleak and stark landscape.
Our NGO coalition has partnered with the Ecole Primaire la Rédemption elementary school and the Nouveu College Surin Eveillard secondary school (high school). The elementary school has a three-story structure with about 12 classrooms that sustained minimum damage during the earthquake, and has the original two story wooden structure adjacent to it. We have erected two large tents already.
Haiti lies covered in cement dust like New York City after 9/11, yet somehow Haitians
keep clean. Heavy machinery is needed to traverse many of the debris-covered roads,
and are being used to clear Haiti of the rubble – a task that may take years.
The local radio station invited us to share with the local community in Leogane that we are looking to help local high school graduates in assisting to secure scholarships to universities in the U.S. and around the world. We identified 40 high school graduates out of 200 to begin to give pre-college English to as we seek to find them college scholarships. Two universities have already emerged as possibilities.
Haiti is not looking for a hand-out, just a helping hand. We hope to stay for as many years as necessary, until the time when Haiti will be able to take care of its own people by using its own people.
The children we are placing in Orphans International Worldwide family care, the students we are going to assist in primary and secondary education – both academic and vocational – and the high school graduates we are setting up with full university scholarships around the world will place a transformative role in rebuilding Haiti. By Haitians.
Children on the streets of Leogane celebrate life in the shadow of death
and destruction. American gang symbolism is frequently seen in Haiti, but
seems to be a reflection of hip-hop influence more than a sign of criminality.
At the end of the day, it is all about relationships. Thanks to all of us – Haitian and global – we will level the playing field and begin the process in which Haiti may resume, though its children, its future place in the world.
Please join us on Tuesday, April 27, from 7-9pm as we celebrate the future of children in Haiti! The VIP reception begins at 6pm. The Damon Dash Gallery is located at 172 Duane Street in Tribeca, New York City.
All photographs by Morgan Freeman.