Why Haiti?

It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with an average annual income of $300. Poverty, malnutrition, starvation, disease, substandard housing, unemployment and illiteracy are a way of life.

Though an impoverished country, Haitians are proud and desire to achieve to preserve their dignity and provide for their families.

Located approximately 200 miles Southeast of the United States, on the western third of the island of Hispaniola, Haiti boasts one of the most pleasant climates in the Caribbean, yet is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with an average income of only $300 a year...or less than $1 per person per day. Haiti is also one of the world's most densely populated countries, with approximately 650 people per square mile, and a total population of 8 million crowded into an area the size of the state of Maryland.

Needless to say, things that we in the US take for granted - like food, pure drinking water, adequate health care, a basic education - are always in short supply, and in many areas, non-existent in Haiti. For the people of this small republic, founded in 1804 (and second oldest only to the United States), poverty, malnutrition, substandard housing, disease, and starvation are common in their daily lives. Unemployment and illiteracy are a way of life.

Since Haiti has few natural resources, agriculture in the country's main industry, producing coffee, sugarcane, rice, corn, and various fruits. Most years, however, the few crops a Haitian farmer can raise on his 1 or 1 1/2 acre farm is not enough to adequately provide for his family leaving them to subsist on one meal of rice and beans a day - or even every other day!

Lack of fresh drinking water is a terrible problem. Some Haitians must walk 5 or more miles to gather up a bucket of pure water each day. In areas where there is no fresh water, people must gather it from polluted streams and rivers shared with animals, then take it home to boil...if they have enough charcoal to do so.

Given all this, it's little wonder that the infant mortality rate in Haiti is 1 in 10. Life expectancy is just 57 years. Lack of medical facilities and trained physicians severely limits the amount and quality of health care available. Electrical power is found only in major cities. Public education is not readily available, and few can afford the $135 to send a child to school for one year, which is why less than half of Haitian school-aged children attend school. Add to this natural disasters like hurricane and drought, and it's easy to see why the citizens of Haiti desperately need our help.

Thankfully, however, there is hope for these resilient people, who are determined to make democracy work, and in the process, better their own lives. All they need is a little help, so they can help themselves along the way.

The current crisis in Haiti means that we need your help now more than ever...

Emails with stories and pictures have been coming in since mid-August, 2008. Each more overwhelming than the last. Hurricanes FAY, GUSTAV, HANNA and IKE have very relentlessly pounded the island and have left over 800,000 Haitians in dire need of help.

There's a Haitian proverb that says:
"Sak vid pa kape: - An empty sack cannot stand up....(nor a hungry person).

Houses, personal belongings, clothing and the lives of family members have been lost. A good friend sent an article from OCHA (UN Relief Co-ord Office) Excerpts follow: ""The scale of the disaster cannot yet be determined. It was NOT a disaster that was here one day and gone the next (as they often are). What we know about the food situation in Haiti, even before the hurricane (as far back as January) people were being squeezed by high food prices. More than half of Haiti's population subsists on $1 a day." Imagine buying food AND trying to replace needed lost goods now. CROPS WIPED OUT!

"An estimated 80% of Haiti's agriculture has been destroyed which is indeed extremely serious. The hurricanes came at a very bad time because crops like rice and maize (corn) were seedlings and it has washed them all away. And cash crop trees like mango and banana have suffered terrible devastation."

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