Globals For Solidarité
Unheard Voices
Listen to the voices of the unheard grassroots organizations in Haiti, and let the truth within history transform your mind. Solidarity is the most powerful tool for change; we must use it!
Who are we?
Globals for Solidarité is an informal student group created by students at the University of Colorado, Boulder. We traveled to Haiti in March of 2014 to document the voices of these organizations and to share their messages with the world. We are going back in March of 2015 to document change, or lack there of.
Our overall mission is to aid grassroots organizations/activists in Haiti and to educate students on global affairs. We work to promote community building with a focus on three main sources of growth; education, the empowerment of women and youth, and improving standards of living.
If you would like to donate:
Checks can be made out to Audrey Cashen
and Can be sent to 926 Marine St. Unit A Boulder, Co 80302
thank you so much for your time and support!
Where will the funding go?
Real Dol, a prominent Haitian activist and community organizer who worked closely with President Aristide, has hosted Globals For Solidarité and guided us through Haiti’s history and contemporary state,introducing us to strong and transformative grassroots organizations. On the ground, we met with many organizations ranging from women’s groups, to schools, to journalists, to medical clinics, all of which share a common neglect from their government for basic human rights, and the subsequent responsibility to build Haiti from the ground, up. Since they have been faced with oppression in every aspect of their lives, they have joined together to create their own micro-loan programs in response to unreasonable interest rates on loans granted by banks, adult classes in response to the 91% of schools in Haiti being private and unaffordable, student scholarship clubs in response to the common inability to finance and therefore continue education past high school, mobile clinics in response to the high costs and low access to medical assistance, libraries in response to the governments denial to fund public education, community gardens in response to the pervasive reliance on cheap imported food, tent city councils in response to unfulfilled promises of aid and rescue after the earthquake, and journalism groups in response to neglect by international players toward the pervasive and violent political corruption.
-Mojub and Fasa are women’s groups that provide adult classes, micro-loans, and mobile clinics to communities suffering to raise themselves out of poverty.
-The scholarship club is a group of university students we work with that all graduated from Sopudep, the school Rea created, and have come together to find support for tuition, books, electronics, and transportation fees.
-Sakala, a youth group in Cite Soleil, has created a safe haven for children in the community, a place for them to escape from their severe poverty with a garden to prove to the children that they can produce good in the world, a library and computer lab to support and encourage education, and a soccer club to unite the community as a positive alternative to youth involvement in gangs.
-We also partner with various other small schools created after the earthquake, that are in dire need of funding and assistance to support their goals of spreading educational access to impoverished children.
The funding we are able to collect with your help, will be taken down to Haiti with Globals for Solidarité in March of 2015. Rea and I lay out what projects are being worked on and need helping funding, and how much money will be distributed to each organization doing so.
The money collected isn’t merely a donation, but a symbol of our solidarity; every year we return to Haiti, we prove our solidarity and partnership with these organized peoples, and by continuously financially assisting them when we go down, we are proving our respect for their work and our acknowledgement of how important their work is. We give them hope that one day, their efforts will pay off. The truth within history tells a sadly unrecognized story, so we must listen and learn the undeniable reality that proves grassroots organizations undoubtedly are the only hope for change. Building a new world must start from the ground in order to work its way up.
captured by Stefano Mccoy
Known in Haiti for her motherly ways, Rea Dol shines light into the corners of Haiti ignored by those in power. This woman opens her home, heart and mind to the people of this country as well as outsiders such as our selves, all while holding the position of director at Sopudep school and supporting most, if not all, of the groups pictured here. She works everyday of her life to promote positive change in Haiti and without her, none of our work would be possible.
The cathedral pictured here, destroyed in the devastating earthquake of 2010, four years later, still remains untouched by any reconstructive forces. A once vibrant center of peace and worship is left to decay as the city around it keeps moving at a slow but steady pace of life. It seems there is a huge disconnect between those in the streets and those in charge of them.
As we set up a medical tent on a cliff side slum, hundreds of women and children lined up to receive the only medical assistance available, thanks to Fasa’s medical clinic and the nurses that volunteer their time to provide resources for neglected communities.
Haiti 2014
photography by globals for solidarité
captured by Audrey Cashen
One can only imagine what these strong and resilient individuals have lived to see. These women pictured here, along with roughly 300 others in this elderly home, live within the harsh confines of an abandoned concrete building, where the air is potent with feces and urine, where food and medicine is not available, and where the only doctors and nurses to assist are volunteers and can only help occasionally. This harsh reality depicts the explicit neglect these victims face from the government, and only emphasizes the importance of grassroots organizations, like Fasa, whom took us here, and worked this entire day to provide volunteer medical assistance, food, and bathing.
Sakala, a youth group in the depths of the Cite Soleil, sees past the tent city landscapes surround, and has created an oasis for children, where the food nurtured by the hands of children instills a vision of hope in their minds, that growth is possible in desolation, that it is possible to achieve a self-sufficient Haiti.
captured by Emily Laurance
captured by Kendall Simon
captured by Audrey Cashen
Background
The study of colonialism, imperialism, and their contemporary embodiment as capitalism within globalization, in the context of Haiti’s history and modern state, has gained focus and been explored by various scholars, but little has been studied on the ways in which these systems have forced the organization of Haitian people. The previous research that has been done on these systems historically affecting Haiti is not abundant, due to the lack of access to unbiased information circulated by United States, but from the scholarly literature available, the common consensus is clearly that the international community has consistently exploited and stripped Haiti of government-supported self-sufficiency, social justice, and human rights.
Alex Dupuy, an author and sociology professor at Wesleyan University, articulates this history of corruption in, “Disaster Capitalism to the Rescue: The International Community and Haiti After the Earthquake,” and discusses the role that the international community and their capitalist policies have played in denying democracy, supporting violent government, exploiting cheap labor, implementing detrimental embargos and their counterparts, belittling basic human rights, and destroying Haitian local economy, agriculture, and self-sufficiency; “The Humanitarian Aid Regime in the Republic of NGOs,” by Oliver Cunningham, a humanitarian professional with an M.A. in International Studies and Humanitarian Assistance from the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies, furthers Dupuy’s exploration by discussing the political corruption that the international community has constructed for the purpose of their own benefits; the actions of the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund that can be unveiled by their notorious disguise of self interests, the actions of USAID that can be illustrated by their advisement to kill off creole pigs and the subsequent poverty and forced urbanization in response, and the actions of NGOs that can be depicted by their spread of cholera and the thousands of Haitian deaths as a result, all expose how external organizations involved in internal affairs have completely contradicted their claims of helping Haiti.
