The Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe at the head of the Haitian delegation of high-level is on an official visit to Havana (Cuba) to follow up on the Cuban cooperation in the field of agriculture, health and literacy and strengthen relations between the two countries.

The Prime Minister, accompanied by Jean Patrick Alfred, Representative of the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP), began on Wednesday his official visit to Cuba, with a meeting with Marcia Cobas, Vice-Minister of the Cuban Public Health and responsible for cooperation with Haiti.

At the heart of discussions between Marcia Cobas and Prime Minister Lamothe, an extensive program of popular pharmacies. The meeting ended with the possibility of establishing a local production of herbal medicines for the integration of green medicine in Haiti.

Moreover, the Prime Minister met successively on the same day. Ambassador of India to Cuba and Vietnamese Ambassador to Cuba.

Second day of the visit of the Prime Minister, last Minute

:

The Prime Minister accompanied by all the Haitian delegation just arrived in the protocol lounge of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and of the Cuban investment. The Haitian delegation is composed of Thomas Jacques, Minister of Agriculture ; of Marie Mimose Félix, Minister Delegate responsible for promoting the peasantry ; of Philippe Cinéas, Secretary of State for Public Works ; of Oswald Thimoléon, Secretary of State for Literacy ; Advisor Guy William and of Jean Patrick Alfred Representative of the Ministry of Public Health.

Agriculture is the topic discussed at the beginning of this work session.

http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-8571-haiti-cuba-laurent-lamothe-discusses-green-medicine-and-popular-pharmacies.html

Port-au-Prince

WHEN I was living in Haiti, people often asked me for money. Strangers in the street held out their hands to me on the rare occasions that I walked by on foot. The construction workers shoveling sand in front of my house stopped as I closed the gate on my way to work, pointed to their throats. “I’m hungry,” that meant.

I came to Haiti in May 2011 as a development worker with an international nongovernmental organization. I liked Haiti from the start, but in my 15 months here, I struggled with the feeling that my job was ineffectual.

I understood why people asked me for money, a job, for things. Most Haitians only ever meet Westerners in our capacity as self-appointed helpers. We are never just here because we want to be in Haiti; we claim we are here to better Haitians’ lives. But they have seen us come and go for decades, and they are poorer than ever before.

Meanwhile, they see us leaving the grocery store with bags of food that cost more than what they make in a month. They watch us get into large air-conditioned cars and drive by them, always by them. They see us going home to nice, big houses, shielded by high walls.

And here is what they don’t know: These houses? We could never afford them back home. These houses we have because they don’t. We have a job because they are poor. And because their poverty is extreme, because the country they were born in is hot, dusty, stormy, messy and perilous, we are paid well.

There are those among us who have come, in all genuineness and dedication, to help, to make a difference. Some are willing to accept very little reward for our efforts. I wasn’t one of them.

Like most development workers in Haiti, I did not live with Haitians. I kept a car window, a gate, a wall between them and me most of the time. I didn’t sit with Haitians in the dark when the power left once again. I didn’t hurry with them after overcrowded tap-taps — the run-down, beautifully painted cars that are the Haitian version of public transport. I didn’t walk home with them for hours over mountain tops, in the pouring rain or under the burning sun.

“I thought you were here to help,” a little boy once told me with a confused frown after I refused to give him money, or a new football, or the pen in my hand.

“Well, I’m helping in a different way,” I said, and added an evasive explanation about how my work would better the health of the Haitian people. I felt like a liar, knowing that I spent my days in an air-conditioned office with little to do.

Maybe, if I had believed in my own answer, that would have made a difference.

I knew people who put their foot down every time. “Where’s your dignity?” a friend once asked a girl in a school uniform who hassled him for money. “You’re getting an education. You’re the one who’s supposed to move this country forward.”

I understand his anger at this girl. But is this girl likely to find a job in Haiti, with her education? No.

When I complained about my work, I was told that I should just look for something else, that there were opportunities a-plenty in the wake of the earthquake. In a country where 80 percent live below the poverty line, I could have found another job in a heartbeat.

But the longer I lived in Haiti, the less I believed in my work.

“A year spent in Haiti gets you street cred for the rest of your life,” somebody once said about what our stint in the Caribbean could mean for our careers. And that’s exactly what my development work had become: a career.

I left Haiti eight months before my contract was up. I went to Scotland, back to university, with a clear goal of my own: to quit development work and find myself a different career path. I still feel that was the most honest thing I could do for Haiti. Because another truth is that I would not have wanted to live in Port-au-Prince without that big house.

I am writing this from Haiti. I came back here eight months later to visit friends and rejoice in the country’s beauty — as a visitor. So far, nobody has asked me for money — maybe because this time I get around mostly on foot or on the back of a motorcycle taxi. But if they do, I’ll say no. If they ask: “Aren’t you here to help?” I’ll say: “No. I’m just here to be in Haiti.”

Nora Schenkel is a masters student at the University of Dundee, Scotland.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/opinion/global/i-came-to-haiti-to-do-good.html?_r=0

A “for-profit, for-good” startup, dloHaiti, raised $3.4 million in Series A funding to bring clean, affordable water and new jobs to communities across Haiti, according to the company’s chief executive and founder, Jim Chu.

(Photo:  dloHaiti, The water purification system used at dloHaiti’s local water-treatment facilities.)

Investors in dloHaiti’s Series A round included firms that focus on social ventures: Leopard Capital, IFC InfraVentures (an investment arm of the World Bank Group) and Netherlands Development Finance (FMO), along with Miyamoto International.

Pronounced like the French word for water (“de l’eau”), dloHaiti sets up solar-powered kiosks that purify water on-site. It also hires teams to distribute the water to nearby communities. The kiosks are made from off-the-shelf components, Chu said, and are optimized to treat Haiti’s abundant supply of groundwater.

While Haiti is still rebuilding critical infrastructure after a catastrophic earthquake in 2010, it experienced drastic water poverty, especially in rural areas, many years prior, the CEO said. In Haiti, the lowest price for treated water is 12 cents per gallon, about eighty times higher than the lowest price in the U.S., according to research by dloHaiti.

An investor with IFC InfraVentures, Jean Marc Christian Arbogast, said, “In Haiti…piped water systems [serve] only about a third of Haiti’s urban poor and fewer than a third of its rural poor. The alternatives provided by undercapitalized water-delivery companies, [using diesel trucks, mostly] are unreliable and expensive.”

Besides providing an affordable source of clean water, dloHaiti is expected to “create jobs for hundreds of Haitians outside of Port-Au-Prince…at kiosks and as distributors and delivery agents,” the investor noted.

(Photo:  dloHaiti.  Jim Chu, chief executive of dloHaiti, demonstrating to residents that the water is safe to drink.)

Chu, a former Cisco Systems executive and advertising technology entrepreneur, said he decided to start this company not just to do good in Haiti, but to prove that business is a force for both social good and wealth creation.

“Sometimes, and this is unfortunate, the phrase ‘social business’ is used as shorthand for ‘bad business,’” he said. “I want to be able to prove anyone wrong who believes this.”

DloHaiti was a finalist at the water-tech innovation tournament Imagine H2O in 2012, where it gained attention within the water investment community, Chu said.

According to Douglas Clayton, chief executive of Leopard Capital, investors expect dloHaiti to use its Series A funding to install 40 water kiosks this year, which will supply filtered water to more than 145,000 people, mainly in small towns and rapidly growing peri-urban areas.

He estimates that dloHaiti could meet the drinking water needs of more than a half-million people living in Haiti, an annual market more than $10 million. He said the company could also distribute other products via its high-traffic kiosks, adding to its income without much additional cost.

http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2013/05/14/dlohaiti-taps-vc-funding-as-it-brings-haiti-clean-water-and-jobs/

THE STRUGGLE to reform the educational system in Haiti is nothing new; everything from using Creole to incorporating a practical approach to science, technology, math and the arts in every classroom have been a dream for so long, but, more recently, a glimpse of a new reality has surfaced.

Students in Haiti generally get their education in French, a language that most do not ordinarily speak at home, but are obligated to use for their studies.

Efforts were made in the past — more precisely in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Center of Investigation of Haitian Social Studies (CHISS) received foreign grants to perform experiments by using Creole as an initial learning language for education. Although the results were encouraging, the follow-up and necessary implementations never took place.

In more recent times, there have been two major educational reforms in Haiti, at least on paper, which Luzincourt and Gulbrandson (2010) cited: The Bernard reform of 1978, which resulted in the recognition of Creole in classrooms, and the National Plan of Education and Training of 1997, which was an attempt to shift from the French educational model to a more participatory student-centered approach.

There are many reasons for the failure of both reforms — among them a lack of funds, and an execution plan. Professor Marc Prou (2009), in particular, said that the lack of support from major players led to the failure of the Bernard reform from the start.

In any case, we are now living in a world that moves at an exponential rate when it comes to digital technology. Many things that used to take years, now with the right people in place could be reduced to a few days. What was once impossible is now very possible, and a good example is distance learning through the various open courses from major American universities.

In order for Haiti to catch up with the industrialized and developing world, it must transform its educational system and ask a few important questions: What should Haitian students study? How should they be educated? Who should be doing the teaching? And what is expected of an educated Haitian?

There is a large body of literature that points to the value of the STEM education and how that can lead to development and democracy (Holt et.al 2011, D’Ambrosio 2001.)

Just last month, a visit by Haiti’s current Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) garnered great headlines in the media. Prime Minister Lamothe in the name of the Haitian government signed an MOU with MIT that will facilitate the use of modern technology to teach complex subjects, such as science and math in Creole in some of Haiti’s post-secondary establishments.

At MIT, professor Michel DeGraff is doing all he can to promote the use of Creole via technology in Haiti’s school system. Not too long ago, he received an NSF grant that would allow him to achieve this goal — and, just a few months ago, he brought a team to Haiti to train Haitian college professors on how to use some of the educational tools being developed at MIT.

The MOU between MIT and the Haitian government can be a giant step at transforming education in Haiti, but it has to be more than just a headline. There must be substance, a clear path forward, and a dialogue among all the concerned actors, in order to make this dream a reality for Haiti.

Haiti’s government must lead this transformation. It is encouraging that the current administration has found a way to fund primary education for all, but for the sake of continuity and true success, transparency and accountability must play an important role in this plan.

The Haitian society needs to settle on the type of education they want for this and future generations. Can Creole be the main language used for complex subjects such as math and science?

Studies have proven that students learn best in the language that they speak and understand best. The language in which information is disseminated is very important, not only for learning, but also for creativity and innovation.

It is time that a greater purpose be linked with education in Haiti; a purpose that can play a role in transforming the society from consumerism to include a producer-based and innovative culture. It’s time for education that will lead to employment.

The sciences and math can play a pivotal role toward that end. It should not be acceptable for students to receive the equivalent of a high school diploma, and never actively participate in a laboratory experiment. How should it be considered learning, if students are forced to memorize math problems for state exams? The culture of education needs to change.

The educational transformation that needs to take place in Haiti must give the STEM subjects their rightful place in the curriculum. A culture of critical thinking must replace memorization, and full learning immersion in the native language, Creole, can only boost the creativity of Haitian students.

In order to accomplish this dream of making Haiti an emerging country within the next decade, STEM education, along with added emphasis in arts and languages, must play a pivotal role in the classroom.

Haitian students must learn to become creators, inventors, entrepreneurs, and noble citizens.

This would require a holistic review of the educational system. Teachers would need to be better trained, schools would need to be inspected and be obligated to meet minimum requirements. Lastly, funds would have to be made available for students, not only at the primary school level, but throughout the formative years all the way to post-secondary education.

As the news headlines fade, Haitian educators, current students, and parents must not get satisfied with a few good words, but they must consistently demand transformation of the educational system. This is the surest way to develop Haiti, and create a sustainable economic prosperity that can benefit everyone in Haiti.

http://www.caribjournal.com/2013/05/14/how-science-math-and-creole-education-can-lead-to-prosperity-in-haiti/

MIAMI — JetBlue Airways Corp. is extending its service in the Caribbean to Haiti.

The airline announced Thursday that it plans to offer daily nonstop flights to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and South Florida’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

The flights are scheduled to begin Dec. 5.

In a statement from the airline, Haiti’s consul general in New York said JetBlue’s service will help the Caribbean country’s economy and give Haitian-Americans more opportunities to visit their homeland.

The airline says destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean make up nearly a third of its routes. It flies to more than 10 countries, including the Dominican Republic, Aruba, Barbados and the Bahamas.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/09/3389505/jetblue-plans-flights-to-haiti.html

This Monday, Leopard Capital LP announced today that Leopard Haiti Fund LP has made an equity investment in dloHaiti, Inc., a water kiosk venture that will provide safe, affordable drinking water to underserved neighborhoods across Haiti.

dloHaiti will establish a network of wells serving water kiosks that will dispense and deliver water to households in 5-gallon jugs. The kiosks will be powered by solar cells and will contain high technology filtration systems. dloHaiti’s water will exceed WHO health standards and be priced at a 25% – 40% discount to other water sources. The Company’s for-profit model will initially create over 600 jobs and save Haitian consumers more than US $400,000 annually in water expenditures.

Leopard Haiti Fund LP’s investment will help finance dloHaiti’s business and product development, infrastructure deployment, and domestic market expansion. Rilwan Meeran, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Leopard Haiti Fund LP, commented “dloHaiti brings world-class entrepreneurs, technology and know-how to address some hard, persistent problems in providing basic services in Haiti. We like the market-driven model and would like to see this type of investment expanded in Haiti [...].”

Jim Chu, the CEO of dloHaiti, added “We’re excited to have the support of the Leopard team in Haiti. They’re here with boots on the ground and understand the local market. They also share our philosophy that business investment in frontier markets such as Haiti can have high social impact while providing a solid return to investors.”

Learn more about DloHaiti, Inc.

DloHaiti is led by a team of Haitian and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs with experience in the water business including water kiosk operations in Haiti. Its shareholders include its Founder, Jim Chu, Leopard Haiti Fund, International Finance Corporation’s IFC InfraVentures Fund, and the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO). In March 2013, dloHaiti was named a finalist and runner-up in Imagine H2O’s annual international competition recognizing the world’s most promising water start-ups.

Learn more about Leopard Haiti Fund LP :

Leopard Haiti Fund LP was launched in July 2012 as the first private equity fund for Haiti, initially raising US $20 million from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO), and the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) Multilateral Investment Fund. The Fund invests in small and medium-sized businesses that are vital to job creation, economic development, and Haiti’s continuing recovery from the 2010 earthquake. Priority sectors include food processing, affordable housing, renewable energy, and tourism. Leopard Haiti Fund LP is managed by Leopard Capital which has a branch office in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Learn more about Leopard Capital :

Leopard Capital LP manages investment funds in frontier markets. The Group was founded in 2007 by Douglas Clayton as a partnership of financial professionals with decades of investment experience in emerging markets. In addition to Leopard Haiti Fund, Leopard Capital LP also manages two other funds: Leopard Cambodia Fund, Cambodia’s first private equity fund which has made 14 investments in telecommunications, consumer goods, agriculture, financial services, and renewable energy, and Leopard Asia Frontier Fund, a frontier public equities fund launched in May 2012. Leopard Capital LP is domiciled in the Cayman Islands and its subsidiary company is licensed and regulated by the Hong Kong Securities & Exchange Commission.

http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-8552-haiti-economy-first-investment-of-leopard-haiti-fund-lp.html

PLANO, TX — On Saturday, May 11, City Councilman Harry Agnant LaRosiliere won a historic election to become the first black mayor of Plano, a suburb in the Dallas-Forth Worth, Texas metro area. LaRosiliere, a New York-bred financial advisor of Haitian descent, bested Fred Moses, the African-American Collin County Republican Party Chair.

(Photo:  Harry LaRosiliere – Photo/Dallas Morning News)

LaRosiliere is a moderate who garnered the endorsement of the outgoing Mayor, Phil Dyer, while Moses enjoyed strong tea party support. Though the race was at times contentious, with both sides claiming the other was an outsider, LaRosiliere beat Moses by a 20-point margin.

LaRosiliere grew up in Harlem, where his family settled after they migrated from Haiti. Almost 20 years ago, the City College of New York graduate who ran a photography studio, moved to Plano to join his wife Tracey (who relocated to Dallas after she was hired in Frito Lay’s marketing department). He then launched a career in financial services at Prudential Securities.

In a city where over 40 percent of the population are people of color, this election — with two viable candidates of color — was a marker that the local political landscape was catching up to the times.

For instance, within the last two decades, the makeup of Plano Independent School District (ISD) went from one in 10 students being from diverse ethnic backgrounds to 20 percent Asian, 18 percent Hispanic and 13 percent black district-wide. According to the Dallas Morning News, in schools such as Mendenhall Elementary, students of color make up 80 percent of the population.

A cornerstone of LaRosiliere’s campaign message was his experience in municipal government. He served on the Plano City Council for six years, along with posts on the local Planning and Zoning Commission, the Economic Development Board, the Community Finance Committee and the Tax Abatement Council Committee.

“Harry has demonstrated his dedication to the citizens of Plano by his many years of community service,” said Mayor Phil Dyer, according to CBS DFW. “His invaluable experience as a city council member has prepared him to do an outstanding job as Mayor of the City of Plano.”

http://www.haitiantimes.com/harry-larosiliere-makes-history-in-texas/

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Diplomats from donor nations met in Haiti on Friday to learn more about a new government panel that seeks to co-ordinate billions of dollars in aid money and speed up their release.

(Photo: Former President Bill Clinton, left, and newly named Finance Minister Wilson Laleau pose for photos before a meeting of the Coordination of External Aide for the Development of Haiti (CAED), in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Friday, May 10, 2013. Created by the Martelly administration, the CAED, is a new commission to coordinate reconstruction funds. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

Countries have pledged $5.4 billion to help the impoverished Caribbean nation rebuild from the 2010 earthquake, but only a little more than half of that amount has been released.

Half of the 32 members on the panel are Haitian and the other half are international representatives. The panel is known by the French acronym, CAED.

Overseen by the Planning Ministry, it replaces an agency established after the earthquake and co-chaired by former U.S. President Bill Clinton before it was shut down in October 2011.

Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe created the new government agency in September in an effort to better co-ordinate aid for rebuilding and provide more transparency.

The CAED also identifies areas where the government does and doesn’t need support to avoid duplicate efforts. Areas requiring attention include education, health, energy, banking and construction.

Clinton was among the dozens of people at the Friday meeting at a new hotel in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Diplomats+learn+about+Haiti+panel+that+seeks+coordinate+quake/8368676/story.html

MACLEAN’S, by Luiza Ch. Savage on Friday, May 10, 2013

Julian Fantino, a former police chief of Toronto, has been Minister of International Cooperation since July 2012. In that short time, he has presided over major changes in Canadian development policy: the merger of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Development (DFAIT) announced in the recent federal budget; and changes to Canadian foreign expenditures, including the unilateral withdrawal of Canada this year from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and an announced freeze of new spending on aid projects in Haiti, a major recipient of Canadian aid. He spoke with Maclean’s while in Washington, where he attended international meetings, including with Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe and other donors to Haiti.

Q: In your meeting with the Haitian Prime Minister, what did you say?

A: We all got the same feedback from the Prime Minister that he wants to work closely with us to help the Haitian people out of their predicament. At the same time for us, as well as other countries, there is a concern about making sure that we are accountable for the tax dollars that are expended. There was consensus on all sides that we want to work cooperatively together. They obviously have huge challenges. The earthquake didn’t help.

Q: But you had said you didn’t want Canada to be a “blank cheque” for Haiti. Did you hear anything at the meeting that would lead you to want to start new aid projects in Haiti?

A: What we also said is that the humanitarian assistance—we never cancelled any programs that were ongoing. But certainly, there was a need to refocus going forward.

Q: What can we expect going forward on policy and aid toward Haiti?

A: You can expect two things: our response on humanitarian assistance will continue uninterrupted. In fact, we announced four-and-change million dollars of aid going to Haiti. And going forward, new initiatives will be better coordinated, and a closer relationship with the Haitian government to ensure that we are all working in sync to help the people of Haiti. And making sure we expend Canadian tax dollars in the most efficient way possible.

Q: So that suspension [you announced] had an impact then? It led to some kind of result?

A: I don’t want to go there. The “suspension” wasn’t really a suspension because we didn’t suspend anything. We just didn’t dedicate any new funding. That will now come. But it will come by way of a new focus on our Haiti strategy.

Q: But you did send a message. There was a message received . . .

A: What I said, I said. I can’t say how it was received. But I made a determination on behalf of Canada that we were going to do things differently going forward.

Q: This merger of CIDA and DFAIT, what does it mean for development policy? What actually changes?

A: What changes primarily is the embodiment of the ministry in law and the role of the minister.

Q: So are you in charge? Is [Foreign Affairs Minister] John Baird in charge?

A: That’s a good question, because we are equals under the tent. We now have three streams of foreign policy: Minister Baird is responsible for diplomacy, Minister [of International Trade, Edward] Fast, for trade, and yours truly for development. So we are expected to—and we hope we will—work well together. There is not—how can I put it to you—an “in-charge,” per se, minister. We are all working together to achieve the best possible outcomes on behalf of Canadians.

Q: A former Canadian diplomat, Colin Robertson, wrote that the merger was a good thing because CIDA had become “a policy centre with a network of clients who, in turn, developed a sense of entitlement.” He added that “the direction was not always congruent with our foreign policy. In the development world, there is a tendency towards moralism and a disdain for the urgencies of realpolitik.” Is there any truth to that? Was there a problem?

A: There was no problem. I think that there is a very fundamental need for us to coordinate our efforts with respect to what Canada does. We heard it here time and time again from the international community. You’ve got DFAIT working on projects in the same country and same location as what CIDA does, so there is a need to coordinate our efforts.

Q: So what will this mean on the ground?

A: We will create a united front on how we spend Canadian tax dollars in areas of development. It will mean more efficiencies and effectiveness. It will also mean that development will now be entrenched in Canadian law.

Q: When Canada pulled out of the UN Convention on Desertification in March, Baird called it a “talk fest.” You said that “it showed few results, if any, for the environment.” Are there other areas that Canada is reviewing our participation in that maybe we don’t need to be spending money on?

A: Let me first say that we partner with the UN on so many initiatives. This particular one was one where an evaluation was done and it did not result in very positive outcomes for how it is that we expended, I believe, 300,000-and-change Canadian taxpayer dollars. The results, the productivity, was negligible and could not be justified. And so, therefore, we feel that money can be better spent helping those in need in a much more meaningful way.

Q: Can we expect Canada to be pulling out of any other projects?

A: I haven’t embarked on any of that. But if they come to my attention, we’ll deal with them.

Q: You also announced plans for CIDA to partner with private industry in development. How is that working on the ground?

A: We are looking for partners who can help us achieve our mission, which is to alleviate poverty and lift countries out of poverty. If that can be done with wholesome partnerships where we don’t compromise our focus and our mandate, then I feel it’s just another resource we can utilize to effect our mandate: to lift people out of poverty.

Q: But there have also been incidents of corporations that have been involved in conflicts with local communities, human rights abuses, environmental damage. How is that being accounted for? What safeguards do you take?

A: All the due diligence in the world sometimes will not result in the most positive outcomes. But we have been extremely diligent, making sure that whoever it is that we partner with or engage does in fact fulfill all the expectations. Partnering with private industry, if that can achieve our goals and objectives to alleviate people out of poverty, while making sure all the ethical checks and balances are in place, I don’t see a problem with that.

Q: You were a police chief before this line of work. How does that experience affect your view of development?

A: I was involved in international issues dealing with public safety, dealing with situations in poor, developing countries, exchanges of training, other opportunities for law-enforcement people in those countries. I believe I have a pretty good handle on what the situations are like in some of these difficult, poor countries, having been there and having interacted with some of their officials.

Q: What perspective does that give you?

A: When I go to these places, I make it an absolute requirement that I meet with not only the political people, but I meet with civil society, businesspeople, human rights people, I meet with police chiefs or police commissioners, I meet with NGOs, people who are receiving services and aid. I meet with media people. I think I do my homework very well.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/05/10/on-canadas-changing-aid-to-haiti-the-merger-of-cida-and-dfait-and-the-role-of-the-private-sector-in-development/

Gina Athena Ulysse received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. She is an anthropologist, spokenword poet/performance artist and blogger. Her artistic work revolves around finding and defining the self as a Haitian-American woman, and she remains fiercely committed to her chosen role of change agent for her birth country. She is currently an associate professor at Wesleyan University.

WATCH VIDEO BELOW

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.  To read more click on the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xHhngXU8Zw4#!

Also featured in The Haitian Times,  May 10th, 2013

ANN ARBOR, MI — Michigan is home to a growing population of immigrants from all over the world, including Haiti. One of the draws to the state is the University of Michigan, known for its top notch graduate programs. One of its prominent alumni is anthropologist and performing artist Gina Athena Ulysse, who performed last month at its TEDx conference. At the center of the riveting performance was her Haitian heritage, in which her giant leaps as a first generation student was a result of “love of self, love of country.”

“If I did not define myself for myself, I would be crunched up into other people’s fantasies for me… I exist as I am — and that is enough.”

ttp://www.haitiantimes.com/video-giant-leaps-for-haiti-at-tedx/