Jeff Lail

Everyone has been circling the wagons after the destruction of much of Haiti due to an epic earthquake.  While this is important and consequential work, I feel it’s an important time to reflect on the silly way we view natural disaster.  Over the next few weeks, money will literally begin pouring into Haiti.  But literally two months after the disaster, everyone will have moved on to the next thing that our news cycle feeds us as a tragedy.  It’s a joke and shows how little we are concerned with others and how much we are concerned with ourselves.

I ask you, when did the real tragedy happen in Haiti?

Before the earthquake, Haiti was:

• One of the poorest countries on earth.  Comparative social and economic indicators show Haiti falling behind other low-income developing countries (particularly in the hemisphere) since the 1980s. Haiti now ranks 149th of 182 countries in the United Nations Human Development Index (2006).
• About 80% of the population were estimated to be living in poverty in 2003. Most Haitians live on $2 or less per day.
• Haiti has 50% illiteracy, and over 80% of college graduates from Haiti have emigrated, mostly to the United States.
• Poverty has forced at least 225,000 children in Haiti’s cities into slavery, working as unpaid household servants.
• Haiti has consistently ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world on the Corruption Perceptions Index. Since the day of “Papa Doc” Duvalier, Haiti’s government has been notorious for its corruption. Haitian dictator ”Baby Doc” Duvalier, his wifeMichelle, and three other people are believed to have taken $504 million from the Haitian public treasury between 1971 and 1986
• The enrollment rate for primary school is 67%, and fewer than 30% reach 6th grade. Secondary schools enroll 20% of eligible-age children.
• In 1925, Haiti was lush, with 60% of its original forest covering the lands and mountainous regions. Since then, the population has cut down an estimated 98% of its original forest cover for use as fuel for cookstoves, and in the process has destroyed fertile farmland soils, contributing todesertification
• Cité Soleil, Haiti’s largest slum in the capital of Port-au-Prince, has been called “the most dangerous place on Earth” by the United Nations

I’ll admit I pulled this information from Wikipedia, but I wanted to use it to illustrate a point.  No one would argue that the devastation of the earthquake was not bad.  However, if you want to really help the people of Haiti, it requires constant giving to causes that actually help the Haitian people not $20 given out of an emotional response to deaths from a natural disaster.

If you’re interested in learning more, I recommend looking into the following

• Charity:Water – does projects to provide clean water to the billion people on earth that don’t have access to clean water (think about that for a minute).  All donations go to directly fund water projects
• Kiva – connection between low income entrepreneurs around the world and those with money in other parts of the world.  I’m currently being paid back on a loan I made to a group of women doing retail in Bolivia.