Haiti

Haitians continue to live amongst the rubble in Port-Au-Prince (Photo © Natasha Fillion/Progressio)

My name is Alice Auradou and I have been a Progressio development worker in Haiti and the Dominican Republic for many years. I feel passionately connected to Hispaniola. I lived and worked alongside people from both sides of the island and witnessed their struggles and successes first hand.

Progressio asked me to return to Haiti just a day or two after the earthquake hit in January 2010. I was devastated by what happened – I have many Haitian friends and so I was determined to use my knowledge about the challenges facing the country and its people to help achieve some good in the aftermath of the disaster.

I am a development specialist. In my experience, development can involve very many things depending on the context of the country in question. Haiti has its own complex reality. The earthquake was a disaster of unprecedented proportions. People couldn’t have imagined the force of it, the scale of it. Everyone was touched, friends, colleagues, rich, poor, old, young.

Read the stories of three people affected by the earthquake: Coq's story, Fr Felix's story and Marcelin's story.

Of course, there have always been problems in Port-au-Prince, but not like this. There are so many things to do now. Binational cooperation, between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, is vital. They share the same island and so need to work together to tackle issues around Haitian migration, employment of Haitian migrants in the DR and their shared responsibilities towards the environment. An ongoing dialogue between the two countries is vital.

But for me, the key to Haiti’s future has to be ‘decentralisation’. At the moment, everything in this country happens through, or in, or via the capital city, Port-au-Prince – everything is centered around the capital. It is no coincidence that the vast majority of people who died were here in Port-au-Prince on that day.

How can a country prosper if everyone has to go to the capital every time they need a document, or a passport, or an ID card, or car insurance? I believe Progressio is helping to show people why tackling this issue is so vital. We are already working to support communities in the vulnerable border areas with the Dominican Republic, a long way from Port-au-Prince, and an area that has long been overlooked. Over time, decentralisation will help build services and infrastructure across the nation, so that all Haitians, wherever they live, can build a better life.

Alice Auradou also coordinates Solid'Hispaniola, a French NGO which promotes international solidarity with the Dominican Republic and Haiti.