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9018: Re:9017: Re: 9010: another relief shipment held up in Haitian customs (fwd)
From: JHUDICOURTB@aol.com
I agree with Mr. Nau's point of view concerning the food being sent to Haiti.
Yes there is food wasting in the USA, but there is also food wasting in
Haiti. As I have traveled in many areas of the country, I have often seen
that fruit in season just goes to waste. It is often too expensive to
transport fruit to markets to when they are in season, and then encounter
many more merchants selling the same. Some ladies just leave the fruit to
rot on the ground at the end of a market day. Wouldn't it be much better for
the Haitian people and the environment to take the transportation and customs
money and build small industries, where fruit could be transformed into
juice, preserves, and pig food? Then maybe the farmers would think more
seriously when they pick up the hatchet to cut down a giant mango tree.
Many of the bleeding heart missionary approaches to helping Haiti make no
sense for Haiti. Why fly 50 American youths down at $500 -$1000 cost each to
build a church or a school? That money would be much better used in the
hands of a Haitian mason. All of this is just that the American youths want
to feel their salvation by going down there and "suffering" with the people.
Most of those church groups have members who are experts in one field or
another. Only those people are needed in Haiti. Why not help with organic
agricultural practice, reforestation, transformation of agricultural
products, alternative energy development, sanitary practices. The Haitian
people are starting to feel like they are animals in a zoo. Foreigners come
to see poverty and be saved by doing something about it. There is a Band-Aid
approach to development. That is the only thing going on now and it will not
work. I think that instead of sending their youth to go down there to feel
good about themselves because they spend a week with the poor people, the
American Churches involved with Haiti should form a federation to do some
integral work in one specific area of Haiti. Unskilled labor is the least
needed of all down there. One week engagements should be eliminated unless
they are to offer extremely specialized work within a developped plan. Haiti
needs help but the help it needs is not the kind it is receiving. Those food
donations and group missions do not make any sense and are damaging to Haiti.
They create a sick relationship between the donor and the receiver.