Does Haiti see the light?
Two months after the destruction in Haiti, UMass Lowell (UML) held a panel discussion in regards to the catastrophe. The event was entitled, “Shine a Light on Haiti, Spectrum of Challenges, Spectrum of Solutions.”
Walking in, one may have felt that it had been a while, and the event was perhaps a little late. But then the first two people to speak at this discussion began. They were two students, Eunice Delice and Jane Jacques, president and vice president of the Haitian Student Association. The poem, called “Our Love for Haiti,” was read in both French and English, the two languages most commonly used in Haiti. The poem was heartfelt and seemed to have left a few people in the audience in tears.
A common theme amongst the events that have been created in response to the devastation in Haiti was that the earthquake did not only affect the people on the island of Haiti, but rather affected people far beyond the borders of Haiti.
Then spoke Caryn Cosse-Bell, a professor of history at UML. She described the importance of Haiti in world history.
“Haiti was the first country in the western hemisphere to abolish slavery in 1794,” said Professor Cosse-Bell. Professor Cosse-Bell described how Haiti is not just another third-world country in the Caribbean, but rather a location rich in history.
After learning of Haiti’s history, it was important to know of Haiti’s current situation. And so Neville Jiang, a UML economy professor discussed the economic status of modern Haiti. Professor Jiang explained the Solow Theory of economics, which basically states that a country low in economy has the potential to grow the fastest. According to this theory, Haiti has hope to recover from its current economic state.
What seemed to be hope for Haiti dwindled as Professor Jiang continued to speak in regards to the economic status.
“Haiti is ranked 177 out of 179 countries in regards to corruption,” said Professor Jiang. There are only two other countries that have a higher level of corruption than Haiti. Being so corrupt, it is unlikely that Haiti’s economy will improve, but very likely that members of the Haitian upper class will have pockets that are fuller than they once were.
Following Professor Jiang, the next speaker was Valerie King, a nursing professor at UML.
“There is one hospital bed per 1000 patients, and 209 surgical beds for more than six million people outside of Port-au-Prince.” Professor King provided these statistics and continued to explain one of the main reasons why Haiti’s healthcare system is dying.
“People are paid more as cabbies and hotel staff in Europe than as medical staff in Haiti,” said Professor King.
After the physical health of Haiti was talked about, Dr. Doreen Arcus, a professor of psychology and the director of the honors program spoke about the mental health of Haiti. The residents of Haiti will be facing a large difficulty with mental health problems. They are at risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as well as learned helplessness and other difficulties.
“They will relive the traumatic event, experience a loss of enjoyment, have a difficulty in regulating attention, be avoidant, emotionally numb, and feel depressed or guilty,” said Professor Arcus. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is painful and has a large impact on the people who suffer from it. Learned helplessness makes people lose initiative. People who experience learned helplessness think that if bad things happen when they put in effort, why put in effort anymore.
Then spoke Bob Giles, a physics professor from UML. Rather than speaking about how physics directly applies to the people of Haiti and its reconstruction or the earthquake, he spoke from his heart. Professor Giles talked about his personal experiences in Haiti. Professor Giles has visited every two years since 2003.
“You need to stand where they stand and sit where they sit.” That is what Professor Giles focused on. It is an age old concept more commonly stated as: you do not know a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes. To understand what the people in Haiti go through in all entirety, you have to be down in Haiti and live just like them, there is no other way.
Ph.D students, Manuel Meredia and Carolina Barreto were the next two to speak. They spoke about their experiences in Peru and what it takes to help people in third world countries.
“You need to work with communities, not for them,” said Barreto. To actually help people, you need to help them with what they want help. Providing machinery to assist in irrigation will not be useful if there is no hardware store to buy repair parts. If people do not want the system then they will not use it and will not take care of it.
Then William Moeller, one of UML’s civil engineering professor’s briefly spoke echoing what he had heard in the previous two presentations. Helping people is important, but you need to know how to help them.
Finally there was Jacques-Antoine Jean, a professor from Middlessex Community College and a citizen of Haiti. Jean had only recently returned from a trip he had taken to Haiti and told everyone what horrors the people still faced. He had during the presentation summarized the miseries of Haiti in a single power-point slide containing an image and one brief sentence that he emphasized. The image was of a collapsed building. The rubble was piled high and seemed like a mass of dust, metal, and concrete.
“Two months after the crisis, there are still people buried under the rubble.” Jean had left the people at the discussion with the message that while help has been given, it has not been enough.
It is not too late to do or say anything about the earthquake in Haiti, because while the disaster may have happened so long ago, the aftermath is still disastrous and continues as a devastating force each and every day
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