L’etat, L’ecole et L’eglise

Posted on | July 14, 2010 | No Comments

Right now, Haiti is news. But how long will it last? In this day and age of the 24-hour, 7-days-a-week news cycle, how long will it take for us to become bored and tired of yet another Haiti story? … Last Monday, almost no one was talking about Haiti. In the week since, it’s been in the headlines constantly… If I had to guess, I’d bet that, a month from now, some other story will be in the spotlight…And when Haiti slowly fades from the fronts of our minds, who will still be around to care?

Maybe I’m psychic, but when I wrote those words on this very blog almost 6 months ago, I had a feeling I would ultimately be proven correct.

This week marks the 6-month anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti. At the risk of sounding cynical and/or jaded, how many of you knew that without the help of a news headline? True, we’re all consumed with the BP oil spill, the World Cup and a hundred other little things, but for all the promises we collectively made, it seems there’s still a lot to be desired when it comes to following through.

We may have moved on, but Haiti hasn’t. The destruction and devastation are still there, still just as bad as they were six months ago. As I mentioned in my January post, Haiti suffered so much because it had so little to begin with. The arduous tasks of rebuilding are stalled by a lack of infrastructures and a government that is inefficient at best and criminally corrupt at worst.

Without effective leadership, Haiti is at a loss for what to do. According to the online news magazine, The Grio:

In Haiti, people refer to the destruction of the three L’s. L’etat, L’ecole and L’eglise: the state, the school and the church. These institutions suffered disproportionately in death and destruction… These institutions were the bedrock of Haitian society and culture and their destruction was as much a psychological blow as it was physical.

Even clean-up efforts – which naturally must be completed before rebuilding can begin – remain sluggish, stymied both by the sheer undertaking of such a task and the bureaucracy of the government. While officials sit around and try to figure out how to help and what to do, ordinary Haitian citizens are simply trying to reclaim some small piece of normalcy.

I wanted to be wrong. I wanted the outpouring of support and concern for Haiti to last longer than the standard 15 minutes. But fewer and fewer qualified Americans are volunteering to help, the surge in financial support has slowed to a trickle (and most rebuilding donations remain stuck in limbo anyway), and according to President Clinton, who has been heading up the Haiti relief efforts, only 10% of international pledges have been paid.

More than anything, I wanted to be wrong. But I wasn’t.

How to help: more than anything, Haiti needs qualified volunteers (doctors, nurses, dentists, etc) to help care for the millions of Haitians who are still homeless and to help with clean-up and rebuilding efforts. As for monetary donations, stick with reputable organizations that have already have an established presence in the country, like the World Food Program, UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders.

Extra Bonus: Rachel Maddow’s blog has a heartbreaking, but eye-opening photo slide-show of images from Haiti, 6 months after the earthquake.

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