The Sustainable Leadership Forum

Haiti

Material on our Haiti initiative is now being posted at http://SustainableHaitiCoalition.org. Please visit this site and contact us if you are interested in being involved.

Along with other organizations, the Sustainable Leadership Forum has been taking taking steps to help foster a conversation for the sustainable reconstruction of Haiti. This page will list and summarize some of the actions we and others are taking. We are looking for additional partners and volunteers to support this effort—please email us at jcloud@sustainablehaiticoalition.org.

Here was our first post on this topic: Toward a Sustainable Future for Haiti (February 5, 2010).

The discussion paper mentioned in that article is here: Haiti-AWayForward-Feb2010 (February 20, 2010), and a follow-up conference call was held Sunday, February 28, 2010, at 6 p.m. EST. (See the latest posting for dial-in and access information.)

I followed up the original article with Further Defining Our Role in Developing a Sustainable Future for Haiti, which was sent out as an email on February 13 to our discussion group.

We also added our Haiti initiative to the agenda on February 13 and covered the following points:

• Extent of Devastation • Previous Conditions • History of Our Initiative: Mitch Erickson, ISE, Green Planet, UN • One step at a time – posting at SLForum.org – TMP telcom • FWA & E&Co, GE, Bunge, EcoSecurities • Treehugger • Global Green • UN Association Haiti  • Miami Conference • Challenges

Challenges: • Immediate Recovery • Coordination • Special interests vs. public interest • History and political culture • Local engagement • Time frames • Investments & ROI • Leverage • Funding

Since then we’ve added Investing in Haiti, a brief article on Vin Vajjhala’s microfinance initiatives, and Haiti – A Way Forward, which provides the Working Group’s discussion paper and access information for the February 28 conference call.

Prior to this call we participated in the UNAHaiti conference – “Haiti Re-Building Against All Odds: Fostering Partnerships,”  http://unahaiti.org/our_events – on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 in NYC, and posted a report on that.

Here’s information on the Miami conference that we have attended and facilitated discussions at: http://www.haiticonference.com.

According to a Washington Post story at the time, the earthquake was believed to have caused little or no further damage to Haiti’s ecosystem: Haitian earthquake seems to have had little impact on country’s ecosystem. But of course this ecosystem is in need of extensive regenerative efforts.

Here are some of the important links we uncovered:

• Rick Steves article in USA Today – http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/02/column-haiti-behind-door-no-3-difficult-questions-await-.html
• F. William Engdahl: The Fateful Geological Prize Called Haiti – http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17287
• Haiti Permaculture site: http://www.permaculturehaiti.org/ (recently moved to http://www.permaculturerelief.org/
• Permaculture and related organizations in Haiti:  http://www.permaculturerelief.org/links
• Global Green USA: http://www.globalgreen.org/
• Treehugger interview with Matt Petersen: http://www.globalgreen.org/news/415 and http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/02/building-a-new-sustainable-haiti.php
• PBS coverage: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/haiti.html
• NPR stories: http://www.npr.org/search/index.php?searchinput=haiti
• UNEP: Major environmental issues arising for Haiti recovery
• MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti): http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minustah/

Some of the key things we are interested in are

• infrastructure, esp. waste and sewage treatment
• clean water
• energy generation
• ecosystem regeneration
• entrepreneurship
• microfinance
• carbon credits and other clean development mechanisms
• using permaculture design principles
• fostering both local economic development and sustainability
• balancing environmental regeneration principles and local socio-cultural demands and needs

Some interesting discussions of the role of microfinance generally, and specifically in Haiti:

• http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2010/02/09/microfinance-will-not-end-poverty-microfinance-institutions-will/
• http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2005/01/25/loans_seen_as_no_solution_for_haitis_poorest/
• http://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-microfinance-institutions-launch-fundraising-efforts-to-help-haitian-earthquake-victims/
• http://www.cgap.org/p/site/c/template.rc/1.26.12613/
• http://www.globalgiving.org/dy/v2/content/search.html?q=haiti
• http://www.csrwire.com/press/press_release/20285-Oklahoma-Bank-Partners-with-Haitian-Microfinance-Institution-to-Fight-Poverty
• http://www.microfinancefocus.com/news/2010/01/30/microfinance-institutions-step-forward-to-lend-a-helping-hand-to-quake-hit-haiti/
• http://www.microfinance.com/#Haiti
• http://www.microfinancegateway.org/p/site/m/template.rc/1.1.4138/
• http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/02/podcast_entrepreneurship_in_ha.html

We have a growing email list of those interested in playing a role in this initiative. If you would like to be added to this list, please email me at jcloud@slforum.org.

Finally, we warned people at the time to beware of scams. We had just received this email and reported it to Snopes for investigation, but “Help Haiti Foundation International” is not a recognized charity or NGO, and the following is most likely a “phishing” attack (an attempt to get your information in order to subsequently perpetrate a scam):

Envelope-to: jcloud@gotco.com
Reply-To: <foundationhaiti@yahoo.com.ph>
From: “Haiti Foundation”<haiti2victims@yahoo.com.ph>
Subject: Haiti Victims
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:59:30 +0100
X-Priority: 3

Hello,

My name is Kelvin Richardson of Help Haiti Foundation International. Our NGO has been taking care of a group of children and pregnant women who have been victims of the recent Haiti Earthquake disaster, by providing food, drug clothing and treatment to victims in our temporary emergency camp in South West Haiti. We have been doing everything in our capacity to fend for the victims of the disaster and we have been soliciting for funds to meet up with the need of the victims in our custody in addition to private donations from generous donors worldwide. We have been running enlightenment campaigns and we have some donors who are willing to make donations to assist this project.

We have donors who have been making generous donations to our organization for assist as relief materials to victims of this disaster.  Due to the lack of available time and different forms of donations, from our American and European donors, we hereby need you as a collector in USA who would act as a representative, collecting payments on our behalf.

Job Specifics:

1. Collection of Donations / Payments
2. Cashing of Donations / Payments
3. Sending cashed donation/payments to our organization following Our Instructions.
4. Keeping Record of each donation / payment received and sent.

Note that your commission for being our representative is 10% per payment received and cashed. If you are interested in working with us, reply to specifically to __ (with the following details):

Full Names:
Address:
Mailing Address/Zip Code:
Telephone Number and Mobile Number:
Country:
Age:
Present Occupation:

After two months of working with us, you would be invited on our own expense paid trip to the disaster site and visitation to the rehabilitated victims.

Yours Faithfully,
Dr. Kelvin Richardson

Snopes’ response was here.

The details are different, but the story is the same. (Page posted February 14, 2010; last updated June 10, 2012)