An appeal for help for Haitian
grassroots women
From Andaiye, Red Thread (Guyana)
While Red Thread is supporting Guyana’s national drive for resources for Haiti following the
earthquake on Tuesday, January 12, 2010, we are continuing with the appeal we began on the
night of the earthquake as part of the Global Women’s Strike, which works with grassroots
women and men in Haiti. We want to get money into the hands of Haitian grassroots women.
Depending on what is best for you, donations may either be made directly to the Haiti
Emergency Relief Fund (see below), or sent to us for transmission to the Fund - please take or
send them to the Red Thread Centre, 72 Princes & Adelaide Sts., Georgetown, Guyana, or to the
account we’ve set up: Account name: Red Thread/Haiti Emergency Fund for Grassroots
Women and Families; Signatories: Andaiye and Joy Marcus; Bank: Citizens Bank, 201
Camp Street, Georgetown, Guyana; Account number: 0218 567806. Money received will be
promptly acknowledged.
Urgent Haiti Earthquake Appeal
Donate to grassroots women.
Support the return of President Aristide.
Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, many appeals have gone out, many promises of
help made. But as with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, help is not arriving. If you want your money
to go to grassroots women and their families rather than to thieving elites and their corrupt NGOs
Donate Here!
Your donation will go to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund which was established long before
this latest disaster and has been helping grassroots people. Please send us an email at
womenstrike8m@server101.com telling us when and what you have donated so we can inform
the Fund administrators that you wish to prioritise grassroots women. Experience everywhere
shows that resources in women’s hands go straight to help children and other vulnerable people.
As you’ll have seen in the news, tens of thousands – maybe hundreds of thousands - are
feared dead after Haiti was hit by a 7.0 earthquake, the largest ever recorded in the region, 10
miles from its capital Port-au-Prince. Thousands of homes have been crushed along with
hospitals, the National Palace and the UN’s HQ. At least three million people, a third of the
population, have been affected. Survivors are increasingly desperate, and angry that despite
promises the aid is not getting there. People looking for loved ones and struggling with their
bare hands to free trapped survivors have received no help.
These devastating effects could have been avoided. In 2008 experts warned of this kind of
catastrophe. The US and the UN have occupied Haiti for years, but they prioritise military
occupation over survival – unlike Cuba, which has been able to weather similar natural disasters
with hardly any loss of life.
After environmental disasters, governments pledge help which they may never send; and what
the public sends is often siphoned off before reaching those it was intended to help.
Since 12 January people have been calling for emergency relief. They are also calling for
the return of their democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was
removed in a US coup. Haitians feel he is the only guarantee that funds will be used to save
lives and rebuild homes, hospitals, schools. Aristide, ready to go back, has been prevented from
returning so far.
o In 2004 a US military coup removed
Haiti’s democratically elected president,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The US was backed
by Canada and France. UN forces have
occupied Haiti ever since.
o In 2008 four consecutive hurricanes
devastated Haiti, killing over 1,000 people.
Many more later died because two-thirds of the
population were left homeless and starving.
o UN troops did not help hurricane victims.
Despite their technology and a $535m yearly
budget, saving lives from drowning,
homelessness and starvation was not part of
their mandate. Well-funded NGOs also did
little.
The extent of this catastrophe is being blamed
on Haitians having a ‘failed state’. But who
failed? Not the people of Haiti who have
shown extraordinary courage and resilience.
For over two centuries Haitians have faced
much more than natural disasters. They
have been demonised and robbed for their
1804 revolution in which they freed
themselves from the imperial powers. Their
enormous contribution to humanity as the
first to abolish slavery remains largely
hidden. With gunships in the harbour,
France imposed a crippling ‘debt’ to
‘compensate’ its slave owners; while the US
invaded and occupied, imposing economic
blockades and dictatorships.
But people have never given up. In 1991 and
again in 2000 they elected Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, a liberation theology priest, with a
60% and 91.8% mandate; they have been
campaigning for his return from forced exile
o The Free Market has devastated Haiti.
98% is deforested. Even fruit trees were cut
down. Soil is then washed away in floods and
mudslides. US-subsidized rice destroyed local
farms which had sustained Haitians for
centuries. When the price of staples went up in
2008, people starved. Women made ‘mud
cakes’ to stave off hunger.
o 78% of Haitians live on less than $2 a
day. US and Canadian corporations and Haiti’s
elite profit from sweatshops, as people are
forced to work for slave wages. Before the
earthquake Bill Clinton, UN special envoy to
Haiti, was promoting yet more sweatshops as
the route to ‘development’.
in South Africa, and an end to the occupation.
Under Aristide food security, health and
education were prioritised, reforestation and
agricultural co-operatives were encouraged.
Even before the present crisis, Haitians have
made it clear that they want Aristide back. In
2009, they boycotted elections which banned
Aristide’s party Fanmi Lavalas from standing
– only 3% of people voted!
The Global Women’s Strike holds regular
Vigils and other actions for Haiti in London,
Guyana, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
With the Haitian grassroots, we have been
demanding the return of disappeared human
rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine who
worked tirelessly with women and children
who have least, and of President Aristide.
Once again the revolutionary people of Haiti are being punished for their ongoing refusal
to submit to foreign intervention. Help stop this genocide. Your support is needed now.
We send financial contributions to grassroots women, the main carers on whose work
community survival depends. Big or small, your donations are needed now more than ever.
They will go directly to those in immediate need – no NGO takes an “administrative cut”.
For more info please visit: www.globalwomenstrike.net or call Red Thread at 592 227 7010