I was sitting and minding my own business about twenty minutes ago and the world started swaying. It took a few seconds before I realized that this was an earthquake. What? Here I am in San Diego, a whole continent away from Haiti, and --all of a sudden-- I'm right back in Haiti.
If you visited Port-au-Prince today, you'd think the earthquake had just happened. Debris is still everywhere; thousands and thousands of families are living in tents; humanitarian aid is still being distributed. Everyone is waiting for the reconstruction. The big question is when. When will the jobs come? When will the homes be built? When will the health system be able to respond to the people's needs? And so on...
Haiti was on the front page of every newspaper for a while. But other crises have replaced the devastating 12th of January. That's how things work in the media and now it's hard to find any news about Haiti in the papers. Please don't follow their example. Remember our Haitian sisters and brothers.
In my school we were raising money for charity by paying a few cents every time we forgot our book/homework. When we started it was in January, and everyone immediately said, 'Let's give it to Haiti.'
ReplyDeleteBut, by June, we had a class discussion. People thought of different charities, and I said exactly what you just did, just because Haiti isn't in the front page of the newspaper, or on the radio or television every day, doesn't mean that they still don't need all the help we can give. We had almost a hundred Euro.
Anyway, long story short, we ended up giving it to a a local hospice, just because some people thought we might get in the newspaper (not that the hospice wasn't a good choice).
The earthquake really changed my life, which is strange because I've never even seen Haiti and, up until then, didn't even care. But my father visited twice in the eighties, and he still talks about it as if it was yesterday. And I realised, just because I've never seen, never met anyone in Haiti, doesn't mean that they aren't people just like me. And I can relate, even if I don't speak the same language, look the same, even dress the same.
It made me really angry, well frustrated, that none of those other people felt that same way. It wouldn't have mattered so much, if they hadn't been so keen to give it to Haiti when Haiti was still top news, but then just a few months later to totally change their minds and decide on something else for selfish reasons (almost fifteen people voted for the hospice, about half the class).
It makes me sad that people can forget things if they are no longer shoved in their faces.
I also noticed that Oxfam changed their donate page, so that choosing to donate to 'the Haiti relief effort' is no longer an option.
ABC has been doing an interesting report on Haiti this week -- good to see it back in the news.
ReplyDeleteYou are not forgotten.
Sorry that the news media has fallen short, but know that there are many people in the World that still remember. Many of us are of extremely modest means, but do what we can to contribute to Haiti's reconstruction.
ReplyDeleteBlessed Be, Jean K.