mutual aid for haiti
stu o'neill, 19.01.2010 14:41
(rogue imc editor note- stu o'neill is a long time activist & community organizer in southern oregon)
hi friends,
i know folks are probably feeling inundated with requests to support the relief effort in Haiti, but i wanted to direct your attention to a project that is seeking support right now. a good friend of mine is helping pull together this group and they could really use your help. these are folks who were on the ground in New Orleans after Katrina and were a part of the Common Ground Relief effort that has served so many people in that city. please check out their website and consider sending your contributions to this crew. feel free to share this with your friends and family. i may be sending out periodic updates as they come in. if you are not interested in receiving those, please let me know and i will make sure to remove you from future emails.
in solidarity with the people of Haiti, stu o'neill
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief in Haiti 
http://www.mutualaiddisasterrelief.com/
* * * Haitian Flag * * *
MISSION & OBJECTIVES
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief in Haiti is a diverse collective working in solidarity with the people of Haiti during this time of crisis. The collective consist of many different skilled volunteers including, health workers, nurses, acupuncturists, construction specialists, cooks, communication technicians, and community organizers. We come from many different backgrounds and professions but are bound together by our common belief in providing solidarity and not charity.
We will:
Provide direct medical aid, medical and social advocacy
Document the developing situation on the ground and provide an alternative media source
Establish a grassroots structure that allows the effective distribution of aid
NEED & SOLUTION
Currently hospitals, clinics and triage centers in and around the Port-Au-Prince area are overrun with casualties. Due to the overwhelming destruction the removal and burial of bodies has become difficult if not impossible. With an increasing militarization of Haiti the distribution of medical supplies and food and water has become bogged down and grossly time consuming.
It is imperative that relief groups adapt to the developing situation in order to provide the help that the Haitian community needs during this crisis. Large non-profit organizations and international assistance are crucial to Haiti’s recovery but often fail to be nimble and adaptive to day to day changes in a disaster zone. The delays in emergency medical attention, food and water are costing lives every hour.
With assistance from various organizations based in Haiti, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief in Haiti has organized teams of 10-15 volunteers that can swiftly mobilize and set up triage centers and distribute medical services. As the situation develops and changes the collective can evolve to meet the on the ground needs on a day-to-day basis.
TIMELINE AND IMPLEMENTATION
Since the news of the disaster, we have assembled teams that include medical personnel (EMT-B and P’s, an herbalist), translators, communications directors, journalists, search and rescue, construction and mechanics, and community organizers. This highly organized and well-experienced eight-person team will arrive in Port-au-Prince from Miami on the morning of Tuesday, January 19.
Our group consists of people that have lived and worked in Haiti as well as those that have worked in other disaster zones such as those in post-Katrina New Orleans, LA. In the United States, we have a team of fundraisers, medical professionals and logisticians that will provide support to the volunteers in Haiti.
WE NEED YOUR HELP
We need your help. Please make a monetary donation today. We are currently mobilizing our first team to arrive in Port-Au-Prince early next week and urgently need to raise $10-15K to pay for transportation and basic expenses of the ten-person team. Through working closely with existing Haitian organizations and community organizers our smaller independent teams will be able to effectively navigate through the disaster areas as well as the developing bureaucracy to provide immediate relief.
To Donate to Mutual Aid go to Herbs4Orphans website http://www.herbs4orphans.org
*All check or wire transfer donations are
tax-deductible and can be made out to:
Artistic Evolution Inc///Dedicated Haiti Relief Account (Mutual Aid's 501c3 fiscal sponsor)
account # 7922720508 routing #026013673
is attached to TD BANK and a Visa Check Card that will be used to purchase immediate emergency relief supplies.
Please be sure to tell donors to write Mutual Aid Disaster Relief in the memo so we can invoice donations.
WHO WE ARE & ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief in Haiti is formally partnered with Herbs for Orphans ( http://herbs4orphans.org/) in the hard-hit Delma 33 area of Port-Au-Prince and Common ground Health Clinic ( http://www.commongroundclinic.org/) in New Orleans, Louisiana, and is informally partnered with other assorted NGOs already mobilized in the Port-Au-Prince area. Continue reading for further information about these partnerships.
Being Able to Move Heaven and Earth for Haiti and Mutual Aid Disaster Relief in Haiti are organizations that are currently deploying highly mobile medical teams and shipping containers that can effectively reach community contacts in places that other aid structures may declare unsafe or not secured.
MADR in Haiti receives on-the-ground and stateside support from its institutional partnership with Common Ground Health Clinic. Many of the founders of MADR in Haiti have been intimately involved with Common Ground Health Clinic, the first health care in New Orleans post-Katrina, founded nine days after the storm. It saw 20,000 people in its first year and remains open.
Herbs for Orphans is also an institutional partner of MADR in Haiti. The founder of Herbs for Orphans was involved in developing MADR in Haiti Team One in order to check on the children at five orphanages in the hard-hit Delma area of Port-au-Prince. The children have all been moved into one of the orphanages. Herbs for Orphans has provided nutritional supplements to the children of the five orphanages and immune boosting and anti-viral supplements to the only dedicated HIV orphanage in Haiti for two years.
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief in Haiti http://www.mutualaiddisasterrelief.com/
FURTHER INFORMATION http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=274212548553&ref=mf http://groups.google.com/group/mutual-aid-disaster-relief-in-haiti?pli=1 http://www.herbs4orphans.org
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Food Not Troops-End U.S. Military Occupation 19.01.2010 - 15:10 Food Not Troops - End the U.S. Military Occupation Send a message to President Obama, former Presidents Clinton and Bush: "The People of Haiti need food, water, and medical aid, not military occupation" Sign the Petition at http://iacenter.org/haitipetition/ According to news reports the Pentagon has been given complete control over the Port-au-Prince airport and is responsible for all air traffic control. There are increasing reports that aid organizations have accused the U.S. military "of focusing their efforts on getting their people and troops installed and lifting their citizens out." (New York Times, Jan. 17, 2010) Under the pretext of stopping alleged looting, the U.S. has now forced the government of President Rene Preval to pass emergency measures that would delegate all security to the Pentagon. The U.S. military presence has expanded from 3,500 soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division, 2,200 U.S. Marines, to an estimated 10,000 troops. It is outrageous that the Haitian people are being forced to endure even greater hardship so that the U.S. can expand their military occupation. According to Jarry Emmanuel, air logistics officer for World Food Organization: "There are 200 flights going in and out every day, which is an incredible amount for a country like Haiti. But most of those flights are for the U.S. military. Their priorities are to secure the country. Ours are to feed." A plane from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontiéres (MSF) carrying medical supplies was denied permission to land on Jan. 16. After Red Cross flights were continually diverted they choose to attempt to enter with a truck convoy via the Dominican Republic. The news media has reported that France, Brazil and Italy along with major international relief agencies were so upset by having aid shipments diverted that they have lodged formal complaints. Argentine, Peruvian and Mexican flights filled with rescuers and supplies were also turned back. The Caricom, the Caribbean Community's emergency aid mission to Haiti, was refused landing. French Secretary of State for Cooperation Alain Joyandet told reporters he had lodged a complaint with the United States over its handling of the Port-au-Prince airport. "I have made an official protest to the Americans through the U.S. embassy," he said at the Haitian airport after a French plane carrying a field hospital was turned away. (AFP Jan. 17) After two relief flights were turned away the French ambassador to Haiti, Didier Le Bret, said that the Port-au-Prince airport has become "not an airport for the international community. It is an annex of Washington." (The Guardian UK Jan. 17) Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on Jan. 17 said the United States was using the earthquake in Haiti as a pretext to occupy the devastated country and offered to send fuel. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega says that the United States has taken advantage of the massive quake in Haiti and deployed troops in the country. Haiti is the poorest and least developed country in the hemisphere, everyone repeats. That is true, but it is because Haiti has been occupied by U.S. military forces again and again. This is what makes the latest U.S. troop deployment to Haiti so ominous. As in the past, it will not help Haiti. >From 1804, when the first successful slave revolution in history drove out the French colonialists and slave masters, until the present, Washington has continually imposed sanctions, debt repayments and military intervention in an attempt to crush Haitian independence. The U.S. directly occupied the country from 1915 to 1934 and again in the last 20 years. In 2004 in a coup, planned from Washington and supported by troops from France and Canada, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a president democratically elected by over 90 percent of the vote in the last election was kidnapped and removed. The U.S. still prevents President Aristide from returning to Haiti from South Africa, where he is exiled. The U.S. set up an occupation of Haiti under UN command. Six years of this UN occupation has done nothing to develop Haiti or improve its infrastructure. Instead it has led to still greater poverty and hunger and unsustainable debt. This is an important time to oppose to all forms of U.S. military occupation of Haiti. The peoples movement must demand that Haiti's airport be used for flights carrying desperately needed medical aid, food and water, not U.S. troops. Your message to U.S. officials, U.S. and international media and to UN officials is an important step to call for international humanitarian assistance and to show international opposition to continued U.S. occupation of Haiti. PETITION To President Barack Obama, former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush: The People of Haiti need food, water, and medical aid, not military occupation. According to news reports, the Pentagon has been given complete control over the Port Au Prince airport and is responsible for all air traffic control. There are increasing reports that aid organizations have accused the U.S. military "of focusing their efforts on getting their people and troops installed and lifting their citizens out." (New York Times, Jan. 17) Under the pretext of stopping alleged looting, the U.S. has now forced the government of President Rene Preval to pass emergency measures that would delegate all security to the Pentagon. The U.S. military presence has expanded from 3,500 soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division, 2,200 U.S. Marines, to an estimated 10,000 troops. It is outrageous that the Haitian people are being forced to endure even greater hardship so that the U.S. can expand their military occupation. Haiti's airport must be devoted to humanitarian relief flights. Haiti needs food water and medical aid, not a U.S. military occupation. Haiti's sovereignty and democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide must be restored. Sign the Petition at http://iacenter.org/haitipetition/
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