A Reflection from Wynn
Dear Friends,
Locally Haiti’s mission is “to advocate for and invest in locally led initiatives that support the vision of our partner communities in rural Haiti.”
A big part of our advocacy here in the U.S. is based on how we communicate with you - specifically what we choose to focus on in our updates, emails, and conversations. How do we effectively express the depth of the need and the scale of the challenges our friends and partners in Haiti are facing, while also focusing on the positive and the possible? In order to understand just how bright the lights of our leaders are, one has to also understand the darkness and despair that surrounds them at times.
Communicating these two realities is a constant balance.
Over the course of the past week, the depth of Haiti’s institutional challenges has landed on the front page of newspapers across the world. While I won’t share updates on the news itself in this email (more on that in Monday's Zoom discussion, or I recommend the NY Times continuing coverage) I do want to share a few thoughts.
While the assassination was a heinous, tragic, and deeply troubling act, it was not an isolated incident disrupting an otherwise stable situation. Over the past several months the situation in Haiti, and particularly in Port-au-Prince, has deteriorated to alarming levels. Kidnappings have occurred at an unprecedented rate. Gangs control significant parts of Port-au-Prince. Several prominent journalists and activists have been killed. A spike in COVID-19 has added enormous strain to overburdened institutions and structures. Millions are threatened by severe hunger. The situation in Haiti is truly dire.
If in reading that paragraph, you felt a tinge of hopelessness, I submit that while the emotion is normal and understandable, it is also worthy of further study. Let’s think about why and how we are engaging in Haiti.
Why do we support our partners in Haiti? Because we believe that regardless of nationality and political borders, we are one human family, and we believe that what affects one in the family affects all in the family. Haiti is a place of enormous need, where thanks to real relationships with local leaders there, we have the ability to make a transformational impact. Is this still true? Yes, more than ever.
How do we work in Haiti? Humbly, through relationship, one step at a time, and with conviction and commitment. We don’t set forth a master plan for the country or for our partner community - we invest in the talents and the vision of local leaders and institutions, fully aware that the road to progress will be long, will not be linear, and will not be easy. Is this still true? Yes, more than ever.
In Haiti, it is often said that “hope gives life.” The young students who walk miles to reach St. Paul’s School every morning do not have the luxury of hopelessness. Nor do the farmers as they plant their fields, or the nurses as they begin their shifts at the clinic. Do they feel frustration? Yes. Sadness? Yes. Anger? Yes. Hopelessness? No. As partners in this work, we don’t have the luxury of hopelessness, nor do we have the right to project hopelessness onto our friends and family in Haiti.
I lived in Haiti during 2010 and 2011 - difficult years characterized by an earthquake and a cholera epidemic. During the epidemic, I lived and worked at a locally led hospital in Port-au-Prince - 18 hour days that bled into one another - organized chaos, tragedy, and loss of all kinds.
During this time, a few friends and I adopted a simple mantra: “Do the next right thing.” When the scale and scope of the challenges became too much, when it felt impossible to know which step to take next, it was a helpful meditation. Take a deep breath, pick the next right thing, and do it. During that time, in Haiti, those things had to do with patients, supplies, medications, logistics.
Today, from here in the U.S., the next right thing is to keep advocating, keep believing, keep learning, keep giving, and keep standing with our sister community of over 30 years. We’re in the final stages of planning our Harvest Series, which we’ll announce later this week. We’re in close touch with our partners in Petit Trou each day, and we’re seeking ways to increase our support in each of our major programs. We’re committed to continuing to communicate with you, our partners here in the U.S., as we attempt to clearly express the depth of the need, and just as importantly, the ability of our friends and leaders in Haiti to meet that need.
Thank you all for your notes of support, your questions and concerns, your generosity and solidarity, and your belief in our work. I hope to see you Monday night on Zoom, and hope to see you in person soon as well.
With gratitude as always for all you do.
Wynn Walent
Executive Director
wynn@locallyhaiti.org
Cell 347.348.2587
P.S. A relevant quote from Rebecca Solnit’s work, Hope in the Dark...
Hope locates itself in the premise that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes—you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterward either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone.