22935: Wucker: Westchester voter outreach (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Michele Wucker <wuckerm@yahoo.com>

County group vows to aid Haiti

By SUZAN CLARKE
THE JOURNAL NEWS
thejournalnes.com(Westchester, Rockland and Putnam
counties)
(Original publication: August 11, 2004)

A local delegation that visited Haiti last week will
perform voter outreach efforts to Haitian-Americans
who are bound for Haiti and will raise funds for
destitute Haitians, members said yesterday.

During the five-day mission that ended Sunday, the
delegates pledged to increase fund raising for
impoverished Haitians and voter registration and
participation in U.S. and Haitian elections, in talks
with government officials and American diplomats, said
the Rev. Jacques O.D'I. Michel, the delegation's
leader.

The group included former U.S. Rep. Benjamin Gilman
and his wife, Georgia, as well as Jeffrey Millman, an
attorney from the Stony Point firm of Phillips &
Millman. They met with government leaders, including
Prime Minister Gerard Latortue and Interior Minister
Herard Abraham, and American diplomats, including U.S.
Ambassador James B. Foley, Michel said.

Michel, a Haitian community leader in Rockland and
head of Haitian-American Voters and Entrepreneurs,
described the trip as a success.

Speaking of the plan to inform Haitian-Americans
living in Haiti that they could vote by absentee
ballot in American elections, Michel and Jeffrey
Millman, who serves as HAVEN's attorney, said Foley's
staff welcomed the chance to use HAVEN's chapters in
the United States to spread the word.

Millman said the need to publicize an American's right
to vote in local elections while abroad was apparent.

"While we were touring the countryside, we met many
Haitian-Americans who were down there who did not
realize they had that right and we put them in touch
with the right people," Millman said.

Michel added that Haitian officials were receptive to
the group's suggestion that Haitians in America be
allowed to vote in elections in their home country,
much as citizens of the Dominican Republic who were
living here did in their homeland's presidential
elections in May.

"I talked to some representatives and one of the
things that we're going to do is present them with a
model," Michel said.

Haitians do not take the right to vote for granted,
Michel said.

"The Haitian people have been — and this is very
serious now — have been disenfranchised for so long
that they're not educated as far as democracy is
concerned," he said. "You take me, for example. I
never, ever had a chance in my life to vote for any
Haitian election."

Michel also said he would seek to increase American
business investment in Haiti, adding that a half-ton
of goodwill items were being prepared locally for
shipment to Haiti, where they would be distributed to
the neediest people, particularly children.

Medicine, household goods and clothing were among
those items, but Michel said people could still
donate.

Toys are welcome, he said, "because few kids in Haiti
have a good toy."

Michel said he would lead another group to Haiti soon
to present the shipment.

Millman said his firsthand view of poverty left a
lasting impact and led him to make a $1,000 personal
contribution to a children's charity in Haiti.

He also said he planned to coordinate fund-raising
efforts in the United States for children's charities
in Haiti, considered the poorest country in the
Western Hemisphere.

"We toured the countryside," Millman said. "We saw
poverty that I hope Americans never have the occasion
to see, although it's important to know it exists."

What left the greatest impression on him, he said, was
"notwithstanding what I would consider to be the dire
straits of the Haitian people, they still manage to
work their day to put food on their table and they did
it with a smile and it really showed the soul of the
Haitian people."

Reach Suzan Clarke at snclarke@thejournalnews.com or
845-578-2414.Reach Suzan Clarke at
snclarke@thejournalnews.com or 845-578-2414.



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail