30225: Roebling (announce) Wycleff Jean and USAID (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Elizabeth Roebling <lizieames@yahoo.com>

14 March 2007
  U.S. Assistance Improving Outlook for Haiti  Funding for repair of Haitian 
school was part of U.S. aid efforts
  By Eric Green
USINFO Staff Writer


  Washington -- The United States is playing a large role in a potential 
turnaround in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, a U.S. official 
tells a congressional panel.
  Adolfo Franco, assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at 
the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), addressed this potential 
March 13 when he said that despite Haiti’s present “bleak picture,” the country 
has reason for hope. Haiti is at a “particularly important junction” in its 
history, because of a combination of factors -– new political leadership, a 
resumption of constitutional governance and support from the United States and 
the international community, he said.
  This mix of positive developments “has the potential to generate a turnaround 
in Haiti’s economic fortunes and improve the well-being of the Haitian people,” 
Franco told the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western 
Hemisphere.
  From 2004 to 2006, the United States provided more than $600 million in aid 
to Haiti, making it the largest single-country donor to Haiti, he said, adding 
that the aid, primarily humanitarian, helped lay the groundwork for a peaceful 
transfer of power in the country to a democratically elected government.
  Franco said that over the past two and a half years, USAID has supported 
programs that work with community groups in violence-prone neighborhoods in 
Haiti.  He said his agency helped to reduce political tensions in several 
Haitian crisis spots with 860 small grants valued at $18.2 million.  In 
addition, Franco said the United States announced on February 1 an additional 
$20 million for a program in Cite Soleil, one of Haiti’s most dangerous 
neighborhoods, that aims to improve access to police and justice, strengthen 
local governance, provide vocational training, and create jobs through public 
works projects.
  Over the next year, Franco said, the United States plans to give priority to 
expanding development and humanitarian programs in the poorest and most 
violence-prone neighborhoods of Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince and other 
towns. USAID also is beginning projects in agriculture, natural resources, 
health and education, said Franco.  (See related article.)
  As an example of U.S. support for Haitian education, the United States 
contributed $18,000 to help renovate a secondary school for more than 5,000 
students in Port-au-Prince.  The United Nations also helped fund the 
refurbishing of the 16-classroom school, called Lycée Daniel Fignolé, which had 
been closed since 2004 because of disrepair and violence in the capital.
  U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Janet Sanderson said at a March 9 ribbon-cutting 
ceremony opening the school that all the sons and daughters of Haiti should 
enjoy the unfettered right to an education.  This fundamental principle is 
enshrined in Haiti’s constitution and laws, said Sanderson, speaking in French.
  Sanderson said in her remarks in the Bel Air section of Port-au-Prince that 
the community for a long time “was a place of rampant criminal acts and abuse. 
But the men and women of this neighborhood decided to join forces with Haiti’s 
national police and a U.N. stabilization force in Haiti [known as MINUSTAH, the 
United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti] in order to put an end to the 
violence.  Progressively, order was restored, the kind of peace that leads to 
stability.  And stability plus good governance will lead to the 
transformational development of Haiti.”
  The United Nations, which also sent officials to the ribbon-cutting, quoted 
one student, Fèdre Lacroix, as saying that since 2004 “I had been tossed around 
from school to school.  Now I’m happy to be back again in my old building.”
  Haitian social activist and musician Wyclef Jean told the House subcommittee 
that he was grateful to the U.S. government for supporting Haitian education. 
Jean said USAID helped rebuild 20 schools in the city of Gonaïves that were 
damaged by Tropical Storm Jeanne in September 2004.
  Jean announced during his prepared testimony that his nonprofit organization, 
Yéle Haiti, which provides educational opportunities for disadvantaged youth, 
has entered into a partnership with a USAID-backed job creation program to 
build five vocational centers in Port-au-Prince, Gonaïves and three other 
Haitian cities -- Petit-Goâve, St. Marc and Cap-Haïtien.
  The prepared statements of Jean and Franco are available on the Web site of 
the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.
  For additional information on U.S. support for Haitian education, see the 
full text of a U.S. Embassy press release.
  For more on U.S. policy, see The Caribbean.
  (USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. 
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
  14 March 2007
  U.S. Assistance Improving Outlook for Haiti  Funding for repair of Haitian 
school was part of U.S. aid efforts
  By Eric Green
USINFO Staff Writer


  Washington -- The United States is playing a large role in a potential 
turnaround in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, a U.S. official 
tells a congressional panel.
  Adolfo Franco, assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at 
the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), addressed this potential 
March 13 when he said that despite Haiti’s present “bleak picture,” the country 
has reason for hope. Haiti is at a “particularly important junction” in its 
history, because of a combination of factors -– new political leadership, a 
resumption of constitutional governance and support from the United States and 
the international community, he said.
  This mix of positive developments “has the potential to generate a turnaround 
in Haiti’s economic fortunes and improve the well-being of the Haitian people,” 
Franco told the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western 
Hemisphere.
  From 2004 to 2006, the United States provided more than $600 million in aid 
to Haiti, making it the largest single-country donor to Haiti, he said, adding 
that the aid, primarily humanitarian, helped lay the groundwork for a peaceful 
transfer of power in the country to a democratically elected government.
  Franco said that over the past two and a half years, USAID has supported 
programs that work with community groups in violence-prone neighborhoods in 
Haiti.  He said his agency helped to reduce political tensions in several 
Haitian crisis spots with 860 small grants valued at $18.2 million.  In 
addition, Franco said the United States announced on February 1 an additional 
$20 million for a program in Cite Soleil, one of Haiti’s most dangerous 
neighborhoods, that aims to improve access to police and justice, strengthen 
local governance, provide vocational training, and create jobs through public 
works projects.
  Over the next year, Franco said, the United States plans to give priority to 
expanding development and humanitarian programs in the poorest and most 
violence-prone neighborhoods of Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince and other 
towns. USAID also is beginning projects in agriculture, natural resources, 
health and education, said Franco.  (See related article.)
  As an example of U.S. support for Haitian education, the United States 
contributed $18,000 to help renovate a secondary school for more than 5,000 
students in Port-au-Prince.  The United Nations also helped fund the 
refurbishing of the 16-classroom school, called Lycée Daniel Fignolé, which had 
been closed since 2004 because of disrepair and violence in the capital.
  U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Janet Sanderson said at a March 9 ribbon-cutting 
ceremony opening the school that all the sons and daughters of Haiti should 
enjoy the unfettered right to an education.  This fundamental principle is 
enshrined in Haiti’s constitution and laws, said Sanderson, speaking in French.
  Sanderson said in her remarks in the Bel Air section of Port-au-Prince that 
the community for a long time “was a place of rampant criminal acts and abuse. 
But the men and women of this neighborhood decided to join forces with Haiti’s 
national police and a U.N. stabilization force in Haiti [known as MINUSTAH, the 
United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti] in order to put an end to the 
violence.  Progressively, order was restored, the kind of peace that leads to 
stability.  And stability plus good governance will lead to the 
transformational development of Haiti.”
  The United Nations, which also sent officials to the ribbon-cutting, quoted 
one student, Fèdre Lacroix, as saying that since 2004 “I had been tossed around 
from school to school.  Now I’m happy to be back again in my old building.”
  Haitian social activist and musician Wyclef Jean told the House subcommittee 
that he was grateful to the U.S. government for supporting Haitian education. 
Jean said USAID helped rebuild 20 schools in the city of Gonaïves that were 
damaged by Tropical Storm Jeanne in September 2004.
  Jean announced during his prepared testimony that his nonprofit organization, 
Yéle Haiti, which provides educational opportunities for disadvantaged youth, 
has entered into a partnership with a USAID-backed job creation program to 
build five vocational centers in Port-au-Prince, Gonaïves and three other 
Haitian cities -- Petit-Goâve, St. Marc and Cap-Haïtien.
  The prepared statements of Jean and Franco are available on the Web site of 
the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.
  For additional information on U.S. support for Haitian education, see the 
full text of a U.S. Embassy press release.
  For more on U.S. policy, see The Caribbean.
  (USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. 
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)


---------------------------------
Don't pick lemons.
See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos.