myMADRE

Broadcasting Live from Haiti--Tune In!

Earlier this week, we mentioned on this blog that a network of women’s rights activists and organizations—in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the broader Latin American and Caribbean region and around the world—have come together with MADRE to launch an incredible project in response to the earthquake in Haiti.

The Myriam Merlet, Anne Marie Coriolan and Magali Marcelin Feminist International Camp, named after three Haitian feminists who lost their lives in the earthquake, is an initiative that will provide a space to channel support and to give Haitian women the means to raise their voices.

Towards that end, the feminist international camp will host live radio broadcasts, led by the Feminist International Radio Endeavor (FIRE), from the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic--and you can tune in today.  Click here at 3pm EST to listen to the live streaming broadcast in three languages.  The schedule is:

• 3pm - 4pm in Spanish
• 4pm - 5pm in English
• 5pm - 6pm in Haitian Creole

Howard Zinn, a Life-Long Activist for Social Justice

Howard Zinn, the wonderful historian and life-long activist for social justice, died yesterday at the age of 87. Through his writing, organizing, and public speaking, Howard Zinn worked to propel MADRE's vision of a world where human rights are a reality for all people. Here is one of our favorite passages from his work: 

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."

Howard Zinn, presente!

Women’s Human Rights Are Key to Successful Reconstruction in Haiti

*This blog entry is re-posted from a statement we made available on our website today.

In the traumatic weeks after the earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, survivors have endured the loss of loved ones, severe injuries, shortages of food and water, collapsed homes and constant fear of renewed aftershocks. Through it all, we have witnessed the dignity and resilience of the Haitian people and the solidarity of women’s rights activists throughout the region and the world. Haitians have dug neighbors out of collapsed buildings, cared for orphaned children and shared dwindling food supplies. A network of women’s organizations—in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the broader Latin American and Caribbean region and around the world—have come together with MADRE to provide urgent medical aid and reproductive healthcare, document human rights abuses and give Haitian women the means to raise their voices.

Today, as disaster response shifts from the search-and-rescue phase to rebuilding and reconstruction, Haiti is at a crossroad. It could recreate the status quo ante of economic misery, predatory government and widespread human rights abuses; or rebuild in ways that promote human rights and true development, including much-needed resiliency to disaster.

Realizing the latter vision will require the effective participation of Haitian women in the rebuilding process. In a society devastated by disaster, the opportunity to participate in relief and reconstruction efforts is a means to empowerment through access to jobs, resources and skills-training. Participation in the reconstruction process must therefore include Haitian community-based and women's organizations, which represent the majority of the population, those most deeply impacted by the disaster and those who have been historically excluded from decision-making in Haiti.

Right now, there is a window of opportunity to ensure that Haiti’s reconstruction process upholds the full range of women’s human rights and uses gender awareness as a starting point for successful recovery efforts. Nothing less than the future of Haiti is at stake.

Women’s Organizations Must Play Leadership Roles

After such a disaster, women are confronted with many challenges. They face an increased risk of sexual abuse and violence, particularly at the hands of an intimate partner. They lose essential access to reproductive healthcare services. They may be denied property rights to rebuilt homes. They may be passed over in aid distributions that target male heads-of-household. Haitian women’s organizations are uniquely positioned to recognize and respond to these threats, which may go unnoticed if a so-called “gender-neutral” approach is adopted for humanitarian aid and reconstruction.

Reconstruction efforts that operate in partnership with community-based women’s organizations can mobilize Haitian women’s expertise—as first-responders, caregivers, farmers, teachers, healthcare providers, income-earners and human rights defenders—in the service of broader efforts to rebuild communities. Women can and must play leadership roles, drawing from their knowledge of environmental resources to support agriculture or tapping into informal but vibrant social networks to efficiently direct needed support to the most vulnerable, including children and the elderly.

For decades, MADRE has worked with local women’s organizations in Haiti and worldwide, partnering with them to meet urgent community needs in ways that advance human rights and social justice for the long-term. This is the model for successful reconstruction in Haiti today.

Though international donors are preparing for an aid pledging conference in March, now is the time to prioritize and integrate gender into Haiti’s reconstruction process.

MADRE calls on all parties to the reconstruction process, including the Haitian government, foreign governments, the United Nations and non-governmental agencies to:

• Consult with and include Haitian women’s organizations in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all relief and reconstruction programs;
• Operate within a human rights framework, upholding principles of transparency, accountability, capacity development, participation and non-discrimination;
• Adopt relevant provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for the full participation of women at all levels of reconstruction.

Short Video from the Inauguration of Evo Morales

MADRE's Program Coordinator Natalia Caruso attended the inauguration of Bolivian President Evo Morales last week, and she sent us this brief clip from his speech at Kalasasaya, in Tiwanaku, an Indigenous sacred site.

Quick Post: Edwidge Danticat in the New Yorker

Edwidge Danticat, author and MADRE supporter, has written a beautiful piece in the New Yorker about her cousin Maxo, whom she recently lost in the earthquake in Haiti.

This generosity, along with the Haitian sense of kindness and community, is perhaps why, immediately after four stories collapsed on Maxo on January 12th, family, friends, and even strangers began to dig for him and his wife and their children. They managed to free his wife and all but one of his children, ten-year-old Nozial, from the rubble two days later. Even when there was little hope, they continued to dig for him and for those who had died along with him: some children who were being tutored after school, the tutors, a few parents who had stopped by to discuss their children’s schoolwork. We will never know for sure how many.

Read the rest here.

The Inauguration of Evo Morales, President of Bolivia

MADRE’s program coordinator, Natalia Caruso, this week attended the inauguration ceremony of Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president. The ceremony took place at the Indigenous sacred site Kalasasaya, in Tiwanaku, before a crowd of 60,000 people, most of them belonging to different Indigenous groups from around the country.

Although the majority of the population is Indigenous, Bolivia has long been characterized for its high rate of discrimination and violence towards Indigenous Peoples.  Rising to power, Evo Morales has become a widespread and powerful symbol for Indigenous Peoples’ rights.

As the first Indigenous president in Bolivia, with a majority Indigenous population, Evo Morales not only represents a victory over discrimination and inequality in the country but also stands in contrast to hundreds of years of oppression against Indigenous groups not only in Bolivia, but around the world.

In his heartfelt words at the ceremony, Morales vowed, in his mother tongue Aymara, then Quechua and Spanish, to serve Bolivia and guarantee equality among the people. President Evo Morales recognized the many underlying issues that have not been addressed, including the defense of women’s rights.

Over the next few days, we will follow up on this blog with more information from Natalia as she returns from Bolivia.

For more information:

• In pictures: Bolivia celebrates presidency, BBC
• Evo Morales y Álvaro García asumen su segundo periodo, Los Tiempos (in Spanish)

*Photo credit: One of the many Indigenous Bolivians present at the inauguration ceremony. http://www.flickr.com/photos/presidenciaecuador/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Team of Women's Health Providers Traveling to Haiti

We just got this update from Circle of Health International (COHI), the organization MADRE is partnering with to support a team of midwives and maternal health practitioners traveling to Haiti.  They are doing incredibly important work, and we'll continue to post updates as we receive them.

January 20, 2010 – Circle of Health International (COHI) announced today that its first women's health team has arrived in the border town of Jimani to identify and begin responding to women's unique and critical health care needs. This team, comprised of midwives and other women's health providers and public health professionals, will conduct a Rapid Health Assessment to gather information about the most pressing women's health concerns, provide desperately needed clinical services, and liaise with other relief agencies and organizations on the ground to make sure that women's health needs are addressed as part of the overall relief effort. They will also lay the groundwork for future COHI teams to continue this important work on behalf of women. A second team will be leaving shortly.

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund has estimated that there are 37,000 pregnant women among the survivors of the earthquake, and has recognized COHI's expertise in preventing more maternal deaths in crisis situations. As the international community acts to bring relief to the disaster torn island, COHI is using their expertise to include women's health needs as an integral part of the overall relief effort, doing their best to ensure that the devastating earthquake in Haiti does not have a similarly devastating effect on women's health in the region.

Read the rest here.

Update from a Contact in Haiti

We heard from a contact at Diaspora Community Services about the status of some of their staff and friends in Haiti.  Diaspora Community Services provides health services, including HIV/AIDS prevention and support, in communities across New York City.  They also run programs in Haiti that promote children's education, community organizing and improved medical services.

She let us know that their building is barely still standing, and they have not yet been able to assess fully the level of damage.  Across the street from their office stood a school that they often partnered with.  Tragically, when that school collapsed, many of the children inside died.  Like many other organizations with roots in Haiti, they are now working to provide support to their staff, who have been hard hit by the quake.

A Message of Solidarity with Haiti - From Croatia

We recently received this message from Gordana Obradovic-Dragisic, a human rights advocate in Croatia, who had previously partnered with MADRE to promote women's human rights in that region.  We wanted to share it with you as an example of the incredible solidarity with Haiti that people worldwide are experiencing now.

Dear colleagues from MADRE,
 
Regarding recent events and humanitarian emergency in Haiti, we would like to inform you that we have published your appeal for aid on our web  www.libela.org. This is an on-line portal for women, gender and democracy (only in Croatian) but we also wanted to do something and ask people to support your efforts. Since, we know that MADRE helped us here in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 90ies when several of us at that time worked for Center for women war victims.
 
We wish you success in your endeavors in helping women worldwide!
 
Kind regards,
 
Gordana Obradovic-Dragisic,
Executive Director

Two Haitian Feminists Lost their Lives in Earthquake

We have been hearing heart-breaking stories from Haiti these past days, and we continue to mourn with so many who have lost loved ones.  We received the message below from the World March of Women, with terrible news about two Haitian feminist activists:

Haiti: solidarity with our sisters and brothers

14-01-2010

It is with very heavy hearts that we write to you today, two days after the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti. We are incredibly shocked and saddened by the images and news that we have been receiving over the last 48 hours, and we are very worried for our World March of Women sisters in the country.
 
We have been trying to get in contact with sisters from the NCB and from the WMW participating groups in Haiti, but have so far not been able to speak to any of them. The tragic news we have had is that our sisters Magalie Marcellin from Kayfanm and Myriam Merlet, a feminist activist and actual Head of the Ministry of Women, were killed in the earthquake. Our thoughts and solidarity go out to their families and friends.
 
Some good news that we have received is that our sisters from SOFA (one of the groups that makes up the NCB in Haiti) are safe... Their office was badly damaged, but none of them were hurt. We are incredibly thankful. Other good news is that Camille Chalmers, close friend of the WMW and our allied social movements, and member of PAPDA and Jubilee South, has survived along with his wife and children, although his mother-in-law was killed, and his house has been destroyed.