a1094: HIV/AIDS Memorial Gardens in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Stuart M Leiderman <leidermn@cisunix.unh.edu>

Group:

I would appreciate your reaction to this proposal.  is it worthwhile?  is
it sacreligious or objectionable in any way?  also I would like to hear
from anyone who is interested and qualified to help me coordinate the
work.

thank you,

Stuart Leiderman

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Stuart M. Leiderman
Environmental Response
P.O. 382
Durham, New Hampshire 03824 USA
leidermn@christa.unh.edu
603.776.0055

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A PROPOSAL FOR
HIV/AIDS MEMORIAL GARDENS IN HAITI

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Summary

Many victims of HIV/AIDS are directly involved in the fight against this
fatal disease.  Some devote their remaining lives to speaking and writing
about their tragedies, or to teaching others how to avoid the disease, or
to raising money for medical research and treatment.  Others give care and
consolation to HIV/AIDS patients, in homes, clinics or hospices, as long
as their own strength holds out.  After death, however, that valuable
involvement ends and the HIV/AIDS campaign has to struggle on without
them.

But it does not have to end there.  The gravesites and cemeteries of
people who die from HIV/AIDS in Haiti can become a source of comfort and
sustenance to those who are still living.  Specifically, this project
proposes that community groups of caretakers and skilled gardeners be
allowed to cultivate the gravesites and cemeteries of HIV/AIDS victims as
living memorials in an aesthetic, respectful and environmental way.  The
harvest of flowers, fruits and vegetables would be distributed to people
with HIV/AIDS and their families, or distributed to school children and
poor people, or sold in village marketplaces to help pay for public health
education and HIV/AIDS prevention.  Thus, in the same way that people can
consent to be an organ donor after they die, Haitians who are dying from
HIV/AIDS may request that their final resting places also become
productive Earth spaces within their communities.

The Setting and the Need

According to the United Nations', 200,000 to 300,000 people in Haiti are
HIV-positive, with 35,000 to 45,000 new cases occurring each year.  In
1999, it was estimated that 23,000 died from AIDS.  Today, it is estimated
that an average of 110 people die from AIDS in Haiti each day.  Presumably
most of them are buried.  In cities, the dead are generally taken to large
cemeteries; many of these cemeteries are filled with above-ground mausoleums
each containing several corpses.  In the countryside there are large
cemeteries but also numerous small ones on church properties and on family
farms and other privately-owned land.  It is not known whether the graves
of HIV/AIDS victims, either in the city or countryside, are marked,
segregated or cared for in any distinct way.

Where there is land for gravesites and cemeteries, a burial plot of
approximately two square meters is sufficiently large to grow a fruit tree
or a few berry bushes or to create a small garden that can be cultivated
from all sides without having to tread on its soil.  With adequate water
supply, a selective combination of plants, bushes and trees on a one-meter
by two-meters gravesite could yield a continual harvest of flowers,
nutritious foods and beneficial herbs.  At the same time, it could produce
compost and mulch, earthworms and honeybees, and provide habitat for
songbirds.

Intensive gardening on small plots is feasible and appropriate in Haiti
and is probably already practiced in communities throughout the country
although perhaps not on gravesites and cemeteries.  Intensive gardening
skills could be easily taught to youths, and the results would promote
plant vitality, soil tilth, fertility and the land's ability to capture
and hold precious moisture.  These are landscape attributes urgently
needed for the ecological restoration of Haiti.

Goals

--Create aesthetic, productive and ecologically-sound memorials to
  HIV/AIDS victims in Haiti.
--Connect the memory of HIV/AIDS victims to the health and wellbeing of
  people still alive.
--Offer people with HIV/AIDS a new way to contribute to improving
  community life.
--Demonstrate how gravesites and cemeteries can become small orchards and
  gardens.
--Increase the amount of fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs grown in
  Haiti.

Objectives

--Write a guidebook for this program in English, French and Creole.
--Commission three Haitian artists to create posters depicting gravesite
  orchards and gardens.
--Recruit five grassroots organizations to help create and promote the
  program.
--Create the first five garden sites as demonstration and teaching
  resources.
--Establish gardens on 50 sites.
--Regularly distribute harvested produce to 50 families.

Obstacles

--There may be reasons why the dying wishes of HIV/AIDS victims cannot be
  fulfilled.
--There may be taboos or customs preventing or restricting the use of
  gravesites and cemeteries.
--There may be health risks or objections to working in soil where
  HIV/AIDS victims have been buried.
--There may be health risks or objections to handling or eating produce
  grown on such sites.

Strategy

--Explore and develop ways to memorialize HIV/AIDS victims and the
struggle against the disease in Haiti by creating small orchards, flower,
vegetable and herb gardens on gravesites and in cemeteries, whose harvests
would be used to comfort and sustain the victims' families, other
HIV/AIDS-stricken individuals and their families, schoolchildren and poor
people, and to sell in marketplaces to raise money for the burial costs of
HIV/AIDS victims, for community health education and for the purchase of
land for additional orchards and gardens.

--Develop a simple process for persons with HIV/AIDS to give consent that
their gravesites can become small orchards or gardens for the special
purposes described in this program.  Typically, a person would give a
written and witnessed consent form to someone of their choosing, such as a
family member, gardener or representative of a church or community
organization, who would in turn accept responsibility to care for and
cultivate the site.

--Commission Haitian artists to create posters that explain and publicize
small intensive gardens.

--Work with community health and education organizations to find suitable
burial sites, develop and offer consent forms to HIV/AIDS victims and
connect them with people who will care for and cultivate the sites.

--Work with gardeners and representatives of community organizations to
establish small demonstration orchards and gardens where intensive
gardening can be taught.

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Stuart M. Leiderman
Environmental Response
leidermn@christa.unh.edu
603.776.0055