Locally Haiti In the Press
Note: In March 2021 we changed our name from the Colorado Haiti Project to Locally Haiti. Media coverage prior to this change references us by our old name. We’re still the same organization, with the same mission.
Colorado’s ‘Locally Haiti’ Offers Assistance Following Earthquake
August 19, 2021 | Colorado Public Radio
“The death toll continues to rise in Haiti after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck the island in the Caribbean last Saturday. So far, more than 2,000 people are confirmed dead and 10,000 injured. Those numbers are expected to climb as searches through rubble continue. The quake was centered in a rural area about 5 miles from the city of Petit Trou de Nippes where a Colorado non-profit called Locally Haiti has worked for more than 30 years. The agency’s director, Wynn Walent, is headed there to survey the damage and offer help.”
OPINION: HOW THIS TIME CAN BE DIFFERENT IN HAITI
August 17, 2021 | The Denver Post
“If we want to break the cycle of disappointing relief efforts, if we are truly serious about long-term results, we must get resources into the hands of the Haitian people. … Petit Trou was at the epicenter of the earthquake. If we can invest smartly, strategically, and intensively in this initial response, with a smart transition to long-term development, Petit Trou can thrive.”
INTERVIEW: PRIME WITH CHARLES BLOW
August 17, 2021 | BNC News
"To parachute into anywhere and quickly hope to understand the complex situation, complex dynamics and make a difference without making a mess, there's a bit of arrogance to that."
Colorado Nonprofit ‘Locally Haiti’ Focuses On Petit-Trou-de-Nippes Community After Earthquake
August 17, 2021 | CBS4 News Denver
“We know enough to know it’s the leaders who know their community best so we really follow their lead and do everything we can to build bridges to resources for those folks,” said Wynn Walent, the executive director of Locally Haiti. “So we’re going to be helping to meet short-term needs immediately, helping to put all the generosity that we’ve seen from Colorado and across the country into the hands of local folks.”
Already But Not Yet—The Colorado Haiti Project is Now…Locally Haiti
March 17, 2021 | The Episcopal Church in Colorado
“Our new name, “Locally Haiti,” is an indicator of both where we already are and where we are not yet. What I am certain of is that we will continue to push forward, believing that persistence, coupled with a heavy dose of humility, reflection and introspection is the way to stay on the right path.”
10 YEARS AFTER THE DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE, COLORADANS IN HAITI STRUGGLE TO HELP BUT CONTINUE TO HOPE
January 20, 2020 | Colorado Public Radio
“You’re hard-pressed to find a story that doesn’t follow Haiti’s name with the phrase, ‘The poorest country in the Western hemisphere," Walent said. "That’s factual. But when it follows the name of the country in 95 percent of the reporting that you find, it comes to define the country and that’s just not accurate. It’s also a place of enormous richness, enormous possibility.”
HAITI IS IN CRISIS, AGAIN, AND YES, WE CAN HELP
November 15, 2019 | The Denver Post
I speak to friends in Haiti daily, both in Port-au-Prince and in the rural city I now work in, Petit Trou de Nippes. For most, “normal” conditions are what we would consider poverty — as you know if you’ve ever read an article about Haiti, it is rarely separated from its sad moniker, “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.” Even so, usually these conversations are not about poverty or desperation. They are about birthday parties, or grandma’s health, or about how school is going. Lately, though they are fearful, and mostly about a looming food crisis.
FOUR WAYS A HAITIAN SCHOOL IS ADDRESSING THE UN'S SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
March 13, 2018 | Education Week
Situated on the southern peninsula of Haiti, near the rural town of Petit Trou de Nippes, St. Paul's Episcopal School offers classes from preschool to 9th grade for around 300 area students. In 2015, the school undertook the development of a new agricultural education program aimed at promoting food security by teaching students sustainable growing practices. Over the past several years, the program has provided both students and the community with a platform that also addresses several different areas within the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
COLORADANS VOW TO HELP HAITI AFTER NATURAL DISASTERS, EARTHQUAKES
January 12, 2018 | CBS 4 News Denver
A focus on education and agriculture collided following Hurricane Matthew in 2016. CHP helped farmers plant stable crops to avoid a food emergency after massive flooding in the area. Walent admits there’s still work to be done around Haiti. But what keeps bringing him back is the resolve of the human spirit he sees every time he goes back.
“It’s a group of people who are constantly moving, constantly fighting for progress, constantly looking out for one another and facing really tough conditions with the grace and creativity you can imagine.”
AFTER BILLIONS IN MISSPENT AID, HOW HAITI COULD RECOVER FASTER FROM THE 2010 EARTHQUAKE
January 11, 2018 | Colorado Public Radio
In some ways, it's like the earthquake that devastated Haiti eight years ago happened just yesterday. Wynn Walent, who leads the Colorado Haiti Project, says there are people still in temporary housing, looking for work or struggling to get clean water. That's despite $13 billion in aid that poured into the country. Walent has gone to Haiti regularly since the quake hit in January 2010, and says he has found a model for rebuilding more quickly.
FROM HAITI TO AURORA AND BACK
January 11, 2018 | Colorado Independent Guest Post
Haiti is the most beautiful place I know. Beauty in its people, beauty in its countryside, beauty in its courage and grace. It is a place of unique history and singular resistance. I’ve heard it called the birthplace of the human rights movement, due to its triumph over Napoleon’s army and its subsequent status as the first independent black republic in the New World. It is a place with long tradition of homegrown community development, of neighbors looking out for one another, and of grassroots movements organizing to great effect.
Progress is more than possible in Haiti: it is inevitable.
AS THE 2017 HURRICANE SEASON ENDS, PREPARING FOR STORMS IN YEARS TO COME
November 6, 2017 | Denver Post Op-Ed
Last year, after the devastation of Hurricane Matthew, the Colorado Haiti Project invested in agriculture: planting trees, opening a seed bank, and strengthening agricultural education programs for students. By investing directly in local community agricultural structures, soil was conserved, local food systems were reinforced, and yields increased for farmers, thus putting working capital in the hands of local people as they recovered.