a1421: Haitian activist works to empower women (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Florida Sun-Sentinel
Haitian activist works to empower women

By Madeline Baró Diaz
Miami Bureau
Posted March 23 2002

MIAMI -- Marleine Bastien was born, appropriately enough, on International
Women’s Day, March 8, 1959.

Her father was in jail that day — one of many times he ended up behind bars
because the “Papa Doc” Duvalier regime labeled him a communist. Although he
was not politically active, trying to improve the lives of poor people was
seen as subversive, Bastien says.

Philippe Bastien, a farmer, was the village nurse in Pont Benoit, Haiti,
where he also built a school for children and adults. “Doc” Bastien put his
children to work and daughter Marleine was tending to neighbors’ wounds as
well as teaching them to read and write when she was just 8 years old.

“I grew up finding my house like a little social service place,” Marleine
Bastien recalls more than 30 years later. “My parents were really social
workers at heart.”

Bastien, one of eight children born to Philippe Bastien and Angelina
Destinoble, eventually became a social worker herself in the United States.
Today she is one of South Florida’s most vocal Haitian activists, working
through her organization Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami (Haitian Women of Miami) to
empower Haitian women.

Bastien, 43, founded the organization in 1991 and immediately came under
fire from Haitian men — and some women — who didn’t want her to upset
traditionally macho Haitian society.

In the decade since, criticism has turned to praise. Just last year, Ms.
magazine named Bastien one of its women of the year for 2001. “Through our
work and our actions we were able to show strong leadership and then show
that our intention was really to empower women, families, because when we
empower women, we actually empower families,” Bastien said. “And when we
empower families, society gets better.”

For many years, Bastien had two jobs. She was a social worker at Jackson
Memorial Hospital and devoted the rest of her time to building FANM, which
barely had a budget.

That changed in 2000, when the organization hosted representatives from
private foundations throughout the country. Sweating in an
non-air-conditioned room that served as FANM headquarters, the
representatives were surprised to hear that FANM operated on $7,000 a year.

After the private foundation members returned home, they encouraged FANM to
apply for grants and soon FANM was receiving thousands of dollars in
assistance. Today its annual budget is more than $400,000. In September
2000, Bastien took a one-year sabbatical from her job at Jackson and never
returned.

Today, FANM serves as an immigrant advocacy group, provides small loans to
women, offers citizenship classes and has educational programs about women’s
health issues, including HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases.

FANM currently has 320 people receiving immigration services, 120 families
in the family intervention and empowerment program, 40 people in a
citizenship class and about 20 people in a micro loan program, which gives
out $500 to $2,000 loans and has a waitlist.

Known as an advocate outside her work with FANM, Bastien appears at many
events affecting the Haitian community, whether she’s urging legislators to
“keep hope alive” by considering Haitians in the redistricting process or
greeting newly-arrived Haitian refugees with smiles and waves.

Although Bastien found her niche in social work, she really wanted to be a
doctor. When she was 12, she wrote an essay about it, saying she wanted to
build a hospital so people wouldn’t have to die.

Young Marleine saw plenty of death just outside her door. She recalls how
the people in her village would attempt to carry sick people on a two-day
walk to the hospital. Two people would hoist the sick person on a makeshift
stretcher. Everyone would walk quickly, singing to make their travel
lighter, but many times they could not walk fast enough.

Bastien would watch them return, now carrying a dead person. Instead of
singing, the family members were screaming and pulling at their hair and
clothes in grief.

“I was very affected by that,” she said. “It was always sad to see.”

Bastien’s dream of a medical career was derailed because she didn’t have the
connections to go to medical school. She was young and angry. When officials
declared that the Port-au-Prince park where she and other university
students studied was off limits, she spoke out about it on the radio. Her
father, who by then had moved to Florida, decided it was time to get his
daughter out of Haiti.

Bastien had barely set foot in her new country when she found herself knee
deep in activism. Three days after she arrived, she was at her first
political meeting. Two days after that, she was volunteering at the Haitian
Refugee Center and soon had a $5-an-hour job translating for an immigration
attorney.

That led to her first visit to Krome detention center. She says she was
shocked by the treatment Haitian refugees were receiving. Bastien, 22 at the
time, constantly got into arguments with guards.

“I didn’t have any patience,” she said. “I was angry as hell. I was young,
immature. I wasn’t politically subdued like I am now. ”

“Politically subdued” is certainly not the term some would use to describe
her.

Jean-Robert Lafortune, president of the Haitian-American Grassroots
Coalition, describes her as a passionate advocate, someone who speaks her
mind regardless of whose feelings might be hurt.

“Marleine likes to see quick and fast results,” Lafortune says. “She doesn’t
like to see things dragging. It’s a take no prisoners attitude.”

Lafortune recalled how he, Bastien and other Haitian leaders traveled to
Washington, D.C. in March 1998 as part of their efforts on behalf of the
Haitian Refugee Immigrant Fairness Act. There they met with Eric Holder, who
at the time was the deputy attorney general.

Lafortune says in the course of the meeting, Bastien cornered Holder and he
got defensive.

“That was one of those moments where she was blunt, maybe too blunt,”
Lafortune said.

Gepsie Metellus, executive director of Sant La, the Haitian Neighborhood
Center, has also known Bastien for almost 20 years and agrees that she is
not known for tempering her hard-charging style.

“[Her approach is] effective in some instances and in some instances it is
not,” Metellus said. “In a leader you’ve got to have both sides. You’ve got
to have the take no prisoners attitude, but you also have to have the
diplomacy.”

Lafortune says Bastien has developed as an activist.

“She’s a homegrown advocate,” he said. “She’s been through the trenches in
the 1980s. Now in the 2000s she has reached a level of maturity. That level
of maturity has been good for the community.”

Bastien, a divorcee, considers her biggest personal accomplishment to be her
three sons — Omar, 13, Akim, 8, and Tarik, 5.

As a single mom, Bastien is making sure she doesn’t raise little male
chauvinists. She tells her boys that it’s OK to cry and phrases like “crying
like a girl” are not allowed in the Bastien home in North Miami Beach. If
her sons balk at playing with dolls, Bastien explains to them that men also
have to take care of their children.

“You have to educate them from the crib,” she said. “Male chauvinists were
all raised by women.”

Bastien also seems to be passing on the family tradition of social
consciousness, taking the boys to her meetings and rallies. Sometimes they
help out at FANM by stamping and sealing envelopes.

Philippe Bastien, who now lives in Boynton Beach, said he is proud of his
daughter.

“She helps people in Miami,” he said. “People respect her.”

Despite the numerous awards she and FANM have received, Bastien will not
rest.

“Believe it or not, it’s like a boost each time,” she said of the accolades.
“You have to work harder, fight harder, do not give up, continue to give
hope.”

Madeline Baró Diaz can be reached at mbaro@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5007.



Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel


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