BEING WHO WE WANT OUR CHILDREN TO BECOME

From YES magazine and others who have written about how we can help our students understand Haiti in deeper way. An opportunity for them to see how relationships to other nations can be handled differently than in the past.The best options for helping the Haitian people recover from the devastating January 12 earthquake.Reports from Haiti indicate massive trauma and casualties from the January 12 earthquake. Outside help is needed for people who were already the poorest in the western hemisphere. But the wrong kind of help can feed corruption, dependence on outsiders, and even exploitation.How can we support the right kind of aid, the kind that builds local self-resilience, strengthens the local economy, and fosters local leadership?Here are some of the groups that have a track record of offering the right kind of support:Partners in Health. Paul Farmer, founder, has been offering medical care to the poor in Haiti since 1983. The PIH team has sent an urgent request for help.Oxfam’s Latin America emergency response team is headquartered in Haiti, so they are well positioned to respond quickly. And they have a strong track record of supporting local rebuilding rather than funneling money to outside contractors.Grassroots International has set up an emergency fund to assist their Haitian partners—local organizations that have been working for years for a sustainable future for Haiti.Action Aid, which is working around the world to end poverty, works in Haiti and is looking for help for both short term response and long-term rebuilding.Doctors Without Borders, which already had medical teams in Haiti, has begun treating earthquake victims. According to a staff member, most medical facilities in Port-au-Prince are not functioning.Any of these groups will use your donations effectively. Please spread the word. Comments are welcome on these and other opportunities to help.And another…..Friends: There are ways that your donation, no matter how small, can have a big impact. They are not via the huge bureaucracies, but via the foundations who have long histories of accompanying, trusting, and strengthening the grassroots groups which, in Haiti, are the only ones who have ever made a sustained difference. These are small foundations that know that the only thing that ever works in Haiti is for people to have control over their own rebuilding, over their own communities, and over their own needs and destinies. These are the small foundations who understand that the best that they can do is strengthen those groups’ capacities and strength with funding, infrastructure, and technical support.The need today is of course enormous and overwhelming. Even the UN and Red Cross have no idea how to respond to a calamity of this size. Past the urgency of everyone now getting food and water (which will not happen) and the wounded getting care (neither), what will be needed is what the Lambi Fund called today “second responders.” That involves rebuilding the efforts that were under way to move Haiti “from misery to poverty with dignity,” as it is known there. That is the slow, careful work of helping grassroots movements get back on their feet, reclaim what they lost, and move forward - both individually, and as organized movements working for change and justice. The two groups listed below bring respect, trust, and integrity to that process.Lambi Fund of Haiti, www.lambifund.org Grassroots International, www.grassrootsonline.orgIf you have any questions or want any more information, please let me know.With gratitude,Beverly Bell  Other Worlds