I’m pretty happy with my reporting but have concerns about the structure and if everything flows logically. I’m interested if you all think I should include more interviews, because I have a few I could go back over.
I’m also considering turning this into a radio story, so I’d definitely appreciate feedback on whether this piece would work for that or not.
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Foreign Aid in Haiti
photo and subtitle
The United States’ humanitarian relationship with Haiti has spanned decades. According to the U.S. Embassy for Haiti, the United States has invested a total of $6.7 billion in the last 20 years. Additionally, there are innumerable charities in the U.S. concerned with Haiti, spanning many issues like public health and economic growth.
Success has varied. Sometimes clerical problems arise from a lack of transparency. Other mistakes are more devastating. The ongoing cholera endemic in Haiti, for example, has killed at least 9,000 people and was traced to United Nations peacekeepers who were deployed following the 2010 earthquake. Despite once being a powerful force in the Caribbean, Haiti has struggled to build itself back up amid both internal struggles and outside interference.
Jean Pierre-Louis is a Haitian immigrant who currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. He is the founder and executive director of Capracare. The non-profit organization’s mission is to promote access to healthcare in Haiti, using teams and infrastructure established both there and in New York.
Pierre-Louis left Haiti at the age of nine but found himself drawn back to his home country as he got older. Bleak American press coverage of the island and taunts from his classmates growing up, especially in reference to the stereotype that developed in the 90s of Haitians spreading HIV, prompted him to establish his organization. As the COVID-19 pandemic grew early in the year, Capracare was in a unique position to help.
“We are an organization that has a big component on prevention education,” said Pierre-Louis. Their doctors and nurses on the ground in Haiti began pushing the importance of hand-washing and other early strategies for avoiding the coronavirus in early February.
Once the country started shutting down in March, Capracare, instead of closing their doors, responded by putting together kits of PPE and handmade hand sanitizer and distributing them door to door. “Many of the other organizations during that time were not as prepared,” said Pierre-Louis.
His organization’s success speaks to a concern many people have when examining humanitarian aid: the worry that an insider will always do it better than an outsider. Some have criticized American-led aid efforts in Haiti, viewing them as an interference in Haitian affairs or as serving an ulterior motive.
Herold Dasque is a Haitian immigrant and the director of community relations for Haitian Americans United for Progress, a non-profit community resource center operating across several boroughs in New York City. He considers himself opposed to the Republican party but was unwilling to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. He cited the Clinton family’s involvement in the US’s post-earthquake humanitarian efforts as the reason.
“No one knows whatever happened to 9 million dollars that was raised to rebuild the country,” said Dasque. Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that prompted fundraising efforts from nations all around the world, then-President Obama tasked former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton with overseeing US fundraising efforts, and Clinton was named as the United Nations’ special envoy to Haiti. The Clinton Foundation alone claims to have raised $16.4 million of immediate aid after the earthquake. Where all this money went is unclear.
Millions of dollars and two years later in 2012, Clinton stood in front of a new industrial park in Haiti and praised its opening as an example of what the US has done for the island nation. He viewed the project as an economic boon, saying “I know a couple places in America that would commit mayhem to get 20,000 jobs today.” Caracal, Haiti, where the park is located, was completely unaffected by the earthquake.
“A lot of the funds that was raised during the earthquake was raised to help Haiti’s infrastructure, and we felt like the transparency of how that money was spent didn’t do justice for what it was put forward for,” said Pierre-Louis.
This oblique system is what led to another scandal involving the Red Cross, one of the largest humanitarian non-profits in the world. Following the earthquake, they raised almost half a billion dollars. Then, reports emerged in 2015 of widespread failures, including one allegation that the organization had built only six permanent homes since 2010. The Red Cross has since responded, acknowledging that the building of only six homes outside of Port-au-Prince was technically true but claiming that it was due to a change in strategy.
Many people, including Haitians, have accused the Haitian government of corruption and mishandling of funds. However, others believe government officials received very little of the aid that was raised. “I think the Haitian government got a bad rap,” said Pierre-Louis, “but if you didn’t get the funds, how can you spend it?”