November 19-21, 2011 Mission to Haiti Report

This mission was different than others. Our local partners informed us well in advance that they were all pretty busy the weekend of Fri. Nov. 18 - Sun. Nov. 20, but we decided to come anyway and fulfill the commitment of Port-au-Prince participating in the global celebration of TEDxYouth day. So we cleared with our local partners our intention to go forward and host a more modest event with other common friends and moved forward with the plan.

A smaller more intimate audience

As expected, often more modest, humble endeavors bring us the greatest surprises and most amazing results. Compared to the full house crowd which attended TEDxPortauPrince on September 29, 2011, TEDxYouth@PortauPrince audience was rather small, but this smaller size gave us the gift of intimacy, enhanced engagement and more profound interaction.

Local Support and Engagement

Danel Georges, founder and coordinator of the Association des Volontaires MUCI AVM, a very active Haitian volunteer association, met us upon our arrival and introduced us to Mme. Emeline Dessert, who runs a community kitchen and a school of photography. Emeline agreed to host our modest event at her school and to motivate the local kids and youth in Lalue to join the event.

As usual and according to our philosophy of local enabling and empowerment, we left the rest of the coordination for the event in their hands.

We Have a Dream in Haiti

We Have a Dream is a project started by Anne Kjær Riechert, a Rotary Peace Fellow from Denmark who has taken the initiative of motivating children to paint their dreams in paper to over a dozen countries in America, Europe, Asia and Africa. We met in Tokyo and agreed to collaborate with each other and to organize a dream painting workshop in Port-au-Prince at the same time Anne was hosting a parallel workshop at one of Living Dreams orphanages in Japan on November 20, 2011.

The "We Have a Dream" workshop was big success, although we only had a handful of kids, they embraced the activity of putting their dreams on paper with all of their heart and frantic enthusiasm. It was heartbreaking though to realize that most of their dreams involved a house, as most of them are still living in tents on the streets of Lalue, the neighbourhood where the activity took place. Other recurring themes in their dreams where Madame a L'Ecole (teacher), President (of Haiti, USA or Canada!), Singer and Dancer. Others dreamt of a community without garbage, with schools, police, hospitals, and of being engineers, lawyers, policemen, doctors and artists.

• Click here for pictures of the kids while drawing.
• Click here to see a small selection of their drawings.

Summary Report

Our operation was swift. Coming in on Saturday Nov. 19, working the entire day Sunday Nov. 20 doing video interviews, preparing the event and then overseeing it and documenting it, and finally leaving the next day on Monday Nov. 21. Unfortunately, without the support of our usual local partners, our budget was higher than previous longer missions as we had to cover our lodging and transportation expenses this time (local partners usually provide a place to stay, food and transportation for our volunteer teams).

Team Members

• Carlos Miranda Levy, logistics and operations coordinator.
• Celestino González Alvarez, video and photography.

Local Partners and Stakeholders

• Danel Georges, MUCI Volunteers Association.
• Emeline Desert, MUCI Volunteers Association.
• MUCI Volunteers Association.

Remote Partners

• Anne Kjær Riechert, We Have a Dream
• Ryuta Aoki, TEDxTokyoYZ
• Eden Quayle, teacher from Japan.

Activities and Results

1. Sustainable Recovery and Innovation Initiatives in Haïti.
   
   • Stéphane Bruno: Mobile Money for Haïti.
     • Video Interview and exploring the possibility of a presentation and collaboration with a local software factory in the Dominican Republic.
   • Video Interview with Emeline Desert: Association des Volunteers MUCI in Haïti.
     • Learning about local community initiatives of Haitians collaborating with Haitians.
   • Video Interview with Cyborg and Solei Levé young members from Cité Soleil.
   • Video Interview with Lionel St. Jean and Jeff Emmanuel Fleuridort about their Hope for Haïti TV series project.
   • Connecting and coordinating meeting of Lionel St. Jean and Jeff Emmanuel Fleuridort with Danel Georges of Association des Volunteers MUCI.
   • Coordination of a future visit and video recording session of Cyborg and Solei Levé at Cité Soleil.
   • Coordination of a future visit and interview with fishermen from Cité Soleil.
   • Photo and video documentation of the reconstruction process and rebuilt infrastructure at Ecole Supérieure d'Infotronique d'Haïti.
      
2. Relief 2.0 Tables of Dignity initiative.
   
   • Visit and contact with Solidarity Community Kitchen in Lalue, Port-au-Prince.
   • Initial discussion with Danel Georges to set up a social business model for the Solidarity Community Kitchens in Haiti, which can later be exported to other disaster and developing areas.
      
3. TEDxYouth@Port-au-Prince event in Lalue, Port-au-Prince.
   
   • We Have a Dream dream drawing workshop with children from Lalue.
     • Collection of drawings.
     • Documenting the workshop in pictures.
     • Video recording of children presenting their dreams and drawings. (Celestino is currently editing it)
   • Presentation of video message and song from Japanese kids for Haïti to the world.
   • Video and photo recording of song and message of hope from the kids of Haïti to the youth of Japan.
      
4. Relief 2.0 Markets of Hope initiative.
   
   • Video Interview with Street Art Merchants.
   • Purchase of Sample Crafts for Markets of Hope.