Short Film: Baseball in the Time of Cholera

A mailing from the IJDH alerted me to this powerful short film, Baseball in the Time of Cholera. Brian Concannon writes:

Baseball in the Time of Cholera is a powerful 29-minute documentary that tells the true story of 14 year-old Joseph Alvyns and the ways in which the cholera epidemic changed his young life forever. Baseball also prominently features BAI’s managing attorney, Mario Joseph’s tireless work to achieve justice for victims of cholera. This film will bring Haitians’ fight for justice to the world stage.

By making this film freely available online, our partners at Ryot, led by Directors David Darg and Bryn Mooser and Executive Producer, actress Olivia Wilde, are igniting a global campaign to share the message with as many people as possible: it’s time for the UN to “UNdeny.”

Ryot decided to feature our work in their film because they recognized that the fight for justice is an essential part of the solution to Haiti’s cholera epidemic. As IJDH supporters, you are an important part of this opportunity. Social media is changing the face of advocacy, and showing the UN that huge numbers of people support our clients’ fight.

The film includes many good moments with Mario Joseph and Brian Concannon.

One of the important points that Concannon makes in the film is that the UN is quick to find funding for an elaborate and long-term MINUSTAH presence in Haiti, but that it’s comparatively sluggish about finding funding to halt the spread of a disease that it caused.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the IJDH takes donations to support their case to hold the UN accountable for its role in the cholera epidemic. Sadly, the IJDH is not a registered charity in Canada, so Canadians can’t get a tax deduction. But the IJDH’s work is incredibly important and they can use anything you can offer.

In the News: New study notes rise of private security firms in Haiti since quake

by Trenton Daniel, The Associated Press, Monday, July 9, 2012
originally posted at CIGI online

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haiti has seen a demand for private security companies grow since the 2010 earthquake and those same firms are training more agents to keep up with the boom, a Canadian think-tank announced Monday in a new report.

The study by the Centre for International Governance Innovation notes that the growing demand coincides with a “subsequent spike in international engagement” — a reference to the foreign groups that arrived in the country in the aftermath of the January 2010 quake. Haiti’s market for private security is likely to grow at least as rapidly as the global rate of 7 to 8 per cent annually, the report said.

Continue reading In the News: New study notes rise of private security firms in Haiti since quake

Under Tents: Taking Action for Haiti’s Homeless

by: Kevin Edmonds
Originally posted July 6, 2012 on NACLA

On July 2, Haitian grassroots organizations and their international allies launched a housing rights campaign called ‘Under Tents’ in response to the failure the Haitian government to “address Haiti’s epidemic of homelessness.” According to Haiti Liberté, the campaign will press for congressional and parliamentary action in the U.S., Canada, and Europe to support the construction of housing for displaced Haitians. Central to the campaign is an online petition addressed to President Martelly, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and other senior Haitian and American officials to take action to combat Haiti’s severe housing crisis.

Reading recent headlines however, it would be easy—albeit mistaken—to think that progress was being made on the housing front. On July 26, the International Organization of Migration (IOM) reported that the number of displaced Haitians living in the camps had dropped below 400,000 from a high of nearly 1.5 million in the immediate aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake. What the IOM didn’t tell the public was where the displaced people had gone, and why so many had left the camps.
Continue reading Under Tents: Taking Action for Haiti’s Homeless

In the News: Bev Oda leaves behind a poor record in Haiti

by Roger Annis, published on Rabble.ca, July 10, 2012

Recently resigned Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda was a symbol and point person for many of the harmful policies of aid and international relations that mark the Conservative government of Prime Minister Harper.

As Green Party MP Elizabeth May has noted, Oda may have been more of a hand raiser than policy and decision maker. Regardless, during her tenure, the government cut aid to some of the poorest countries in the world in Africa, it tied aid funding ever more closely to the interests and promotion of Canadian business abroad, and it cut funding to respected NGOs such as KAIROS that do not follow its foreign policy line.
Continue reading In the News: Bev Oda leaves behind a poor record in Haiti

In the News: Too Soon for Carnival: Sweeping Haiti’s 400,000 Poor Back Under the Rug

For those who haven’t been to Haiti for a while, or for those who have never been but have seen the hell on earth portrayed in the media, the fact that Champs-de-Mars and other plazas in Port-au-Prince are no longer home to thousands of people is a symbol of progress.

Celebrating this “liberation” of public spaces, President Martelly is planning a Carnival des Fleurs, a tradition under Duvalier, scheduled to begin July 29, a day after the anniversary of the 1915 U.S. invasion.

For the 390,276 people the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates who are still under ripped sheets of plastic or tarp, it’s too soon to celebrate.

Many believe this relocation of camps on highly-visible areas is akin to sweeping the garbage off the floor only to have it out of sight and out of mind, in someone else’s backyard. Where are people going?

For its part, the IOM is keeping track of people they have relocated in the 16/6 program. But the 16/6 camps only account for 5 percent of the total camp population.

And for the others? “Nou pa konnen.” We don’t know.

Read the rest at the Huffington Post