I continue to be overwhelmed by the acts of solidarity I am witnessing. My former Peace Corps community, Batey 8, a Haitian and Haitian-Dominican village and itself one of the poorest settings in the Dominican Republic, is sending volunteers into Haiti and to the Haitian-Dominican border town of Jimani to assist with the relief efforts.
For the past six days, those Batey residents with medical training – a handful are nursing students at a state-run university nearby – have been in Haiti attending to injured survivors. The community itself is sending food, clothes, and medical supplies each day in the back of a pickup truck, and many others are along the border at Jimani translating Haitian Creole to Spanish in the Dominican hospitals tending to Haitians.
When understood in the context of the longstanding hostility between Haitians and Dominicans, and the grinding poverty of the Dominican’s Bateys, these courageous acts of solidarity are all the more inspiring.
The sad truth is that the international community does not have a long attention span. Humanitarian relief efforts galvanize millions, even billions of dollars in the short-term, only to lose steam once the cameras turn off and the reporters go home.
In this regard, it’s crucial that we support organizations that were present in Haiti before the earthquake and that will be present long after. Fonkoze is Haiti’s foremost microfinance institution with hundreds of thousands of Haitian clients, many of who rely on Fonkoze to sustain their businesses and livelihoods.
Join with those who know Haiti best and support Haiti’s long-term recovery with Fonkoze – http://fonkoze.org
