The View from Petit Trou - Crisis in Haiti
With so many human tragedies unfolding across the world one could easily miss news of the current crisis in Port-au-Prince. The situation is dire.
Our partners in Petit Trou are safe, but not well.
They are struggling through a mix of grief, isolation, uncertainty, and frustration.
A fuel crisis, caused by gang control of the capital, has severely limited access to transportation throughout the community and country. Food costs have skyrocketed. Schools are not yet open. Haiti is at risk of severe famine.
To the extent possible, our local leaders are continuing their work. Planting high nutrition crops and continuing with food security programs that are more important than ever. Gathering groups of children and young people for activities and psychological support. Conducting small mobile health clinics in the most remote areas. Preparing for the school year.
At the same moment, many households in Petit Trou are stretching to welcome family members who’ve been forced to flee the conditions of Port-au-Prince. Whether those shifts in population end up permanent, we don’t know, but it is an additional weight on structures in the community.
The people we know in Petit Trou are continuing to fight for each other, to look out for their neighbors. It is not easy.
I recently had an exchange about the term failed state, and whether it applies. The truth is, I don't think the term is that interesting or relevant to what we're doing.
What Haiti is not, is a failed nation. The state is the apparatus, and that apparatus is broken. It has been for some time. The nation is the people, and while the people are tired, weary, and exhausted - they are neither failed nor defeated. They are not a lost cause.
They are not a lost cause.
With regards to the state, it feels important to say clearly that the government on the local level is very different from the government in Port-au-Prince. Our relationship with the local ministry of health is strong, healthy, and productive. I speak with Dr. Laroche, the head of the Department of Nippes, on a weekly basis. I am in touch with Dr. Rodrigue, the head of the health center, about preparations for treatment and prevention of cholera, which is resurgent. Our relationship with Mayor Wilnor is also strong. Listen here to witness for yourself his commitment to his community.
Mayor Wilnor, and the host of local leaders we so admire and rely on have a vision for their community. It is a vision for a rural community that is strong from the inside out. With healthy local food systems and the basic institutions and resources needed to build a life. It is a vision for a country that is not fully dependent on, or hostage to, what occurs in Port-au-Prince.
Investment in this vision is more important than ever.
Petit Trou de Nippes is not a utopia; a self-sufficient city on the hill. There is poverty, there is great need, there are challenges that local leaders don’t have the resources to meet.
But it is, and can continue to be, an example of what’s possible. An example of a progress that is precious, hard earned, and local.
Petit Trou is children walking to school along a dusty coastal road, laughing and singing as they go. It is farmers working together to produce local food - beans, corn, vegetables; beehives and honey. It is young women and girls, gathered around a table with their mentors, brainstorming together for steps toward change and progress. It is a community health worker taking a motorcycle, or in these days more likely a donkey, into the far off, beautiful hills, to vaccinate children who would otherwise have no access to life-saving care.
The stories you are hearing from Port-au-Prince are real. It is a terrible moment. A moment beyond words.
The potential, power, and progress present in Petit Trou is also real.
We are more committed than ever to the vision of our leaders in Haiti, and we thank you for continuing to believe in them, their families, and their work.
