23802: (letter) Blanchet: Fw: The start of the Haiti summit (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>
From: "Ethan Casey" <ecasey@blueear.com>


> Dear colleagues,
>
> Hello from Haiti's Central Plateau! The Fonkoze/Zanmi Lasante summit has
> finally begun! The team of four global expert practitioners, two
> facilitators, two communications specialists, Fonkoze director Anne
> Hastings, and others arrived in Thomonde on Saturday from as far away as
> Bangladesh, Cameroon, and Bolivia.
>
> Scarcely had everyone arrived when the discussions began. Summit
participant
> Rabeya Yasmin went straight from the airport to our meeting in
> Port-au-Prince with Fonkoze's founder, Father Joseph Philippe, who told
us:
> "Fonkoze is an organization that wants to learn from others' experience. I
> think that from the experience of all of you here and from the experience
of
> Fonkoze in Haiti, we can get something done."
>
> Fonkoze chartered a 13-seat airplane to fly most of us to the remote
> mountain town of Hinche, and the rest came by dirt road over treacherous
> mountain roads, six hours from Port-au-Prince. Saturday evening we met in
> Cange with Zanmi Lasante founder Dr. Paul Farmer, who offered drinks and
> launched our fruitful and stimulating two-hour meeting with a toast:
"Cheers
> to poverty reduction!"
>
> As he always does, Dr. Farmer cut to the heart of things: "How do you ask
> poor women who are sick or just recovering from sickness to go out and
> succeed in a faltering economy?"
>
> Rabeya Yasmin of BRAC replied, "You cannot - not with microcredit alone.
> They need far more than that, but we do know what they need."
>
> Tune in tomorrow and every day this week for more reports from on the
ground
> here on the Central Plateau, where local and global practitioners are
> learning from each other how to apply models that work to the challenge of
> eliminating extreme poverty in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Ethan Casey
>
> Zanmi Lasante/Fonkoze summit publicity
>
> http://www.fonkoze.org/summit.htm
>
>
>
> ________________________________________________
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>
>