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from Photographers Blog:
Voodoo alive and well
Souvenance, Haiti
By Marie Arago
There is much beauty in Haiti. There are mountains, the countryside, the sea and beaches, but what I find most beautiful is the culture of this country. There are many elements that contribute to Haiti's rich culture and Voodoo (also spelled Vodou and Voudou) is definitely one of them.
This past week I spent three days documenting the annual Voodoo festival at Souvenance, a small village outside of Gonaives. Souvenance was formed by escaped and freed slaves from Dahomey (present day Benin) about two hundred years ago. During this week at Souvenance all of the Rada Iwa, or Voodoo spirits of Dahomey origin, are honored through different ceremonies, song and dance.
The first day begins with a ceremony that leads into a dance for the lwa, or spirit, named Legba. The dancing is led by three drums and the song lyrics are a mix of the Kreyol and Dahomey languages. These songs and dances have been passed on for generations and, judging by all of the children who were singing along, the traditions are not in danger of being lost.
The second day at Souvenance was of various ceremonies that included dancing and the sacrifice of goats, a bull and a chicken, and visits to two trees. One of the trees, called the "Sèp" tree, is where people entangle themselves in the roots to ask for forgiveness for their wrongdoings.
from Photographers Blog:
Fashion forward Haiti
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
By Swoan Parker
For anyone who loves fashion, an announcement of Fashion Week brings to mind runways in New York, Paris, and Milan, but never Haiti. So when my editor requested that I cover Haiti’s first Fashion Week, I was pretty intrigued.
I immediately began researching Haitian designers who live and produce their creations on the island. I first contacted Michel Chataigne, who I learned was very accomplished in his own right, having shown internationally and with his ready-to-wear lines already selling in major U.S. stores.
from The Human Impact:
Storm Isaac puts spotlight on Haiti’s homeless
BOGOTA (AlertNet) - Couples strolling through parks and squares now empty of makeshift tents, crowds enjoying football matches and voodoo and hip hop summer festivals, rubble-free streets.
These were signs of normality that I saw during a trip to Haiti last week, returning to the Caribbean nation two and a half years after a massive earthquake flattened the capital Port-au-Prince.
from Photographers Blog:
Fishing to survive in Cité Soleil
By Swoan Parker
“I’m living in a bad place and didn’t want to get involved in any bad things”, is what 27-year-old Wilkens Sinar told me. His neighborhood, Cité Soleil, is one of the poorest and most dangerous slums in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and just 500 miles from the United States. This densely populated area located near the capital of Port-au-Prince houses families who mostly migrated from the countryside in search of work. Unable to afford the rents in most of the capital, they have no other choice but to settle here where powerful gangs operate rampantly.
As I walked through the endless maze of shanty homes built of pieces of concrete or junk metal latched together, the smell of raw sewage permeated the air. I found myself at the seacoast where small boats were docked and fishermen were either setting off or returning with their catch of mostly small crabs and fish.
from The Human Impact:
Director hopes Haiti cholera film will pressure UN
An American filmmaker is hoping to use the power of viral video to raise awareness about Haiti’s cholera epidemic in much the same way the surprise Internet sensation Kony 2012 got the world talking about the plight of child soldiers under Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony.
If David Darg’s award-winning documentary, “Baseball in the time of Cholera”, gets even a fraction of the 100 million hits the Kony video received, there could soon be a lot more people demanding action on Haiti’s epidemic.
from The Human Impact:
Rape hotline a lifeline for Haitian women
BOGOTA (TrustLaw) - A 24-hour hotline for survivors of sexual assaults and rape is proving a lifeline for Haitian women and girls, in a country known for its high levels of sexual violence.
Thousands of woman and girls are sexually abused and raped every year in the Caribbean nation.
from Photographers Blog:
Dream of gold
By Swoan Parker
Gold in Haiti should no longer be just a dream. Even before prospective mining begins in the country's northern hills, the realization of it all could be little more than one month away. Without investing millions and weighing only 52 kg (114 pounds), 21-year-old Linouse Desravines, the country’s only judoka to qualify for the London 2012 Olympics, is all it might take for Haiti to acquire gold.
Being a fan of the martial arts with secret fantasies of being a Ninja when I was a young child, I wanted to meet the country’s only athlete who is also female and would represent them in judo. I made a few calls and was put in touch with coaches Ulrick Louis-Charles and Andres Ramos Franco, both former Olympians at the 1992 Barcelona Games. Louis-Charles returned to the Games more recently as coach in Beijing.
from Photographers Blog:
A lucky heart
By Swoan Parker
Beating on average 72 times a minute some two and a half billion times during a lifetime, the human heart fascinates me. At just 14 years old, Fabien Destine’s heart still has a long way to go. She was born with a hole in hers, but was one of the few lucky patients in Haiti to be accepted by the international medical mission to fix it.
Of the 40 hopeful Haitian children with serious heart problems waiting in line outside the Clinique Degand where the mission was based, only Fabien and ten others would be admitted for surgery. The others were deemed to have problems too complex to be fixed in Haiti. Some would be referred to other programs through Gift of Life International, and others would await the next mission. Many likely will never be helped.
from The Human Impact:
New MSF emergency health clinic in Haiti an “advance”
Medical aid charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has opened a new emergency health referral centre in Haiti, which will celebrate its official launch on Wednesday in conjunction with Haiti's health ministry.
The move is part of a much-needed campaign to improve conditions in a country where the vast majority of people live below the poverty line.
from The Human Impact:
What good is ‘crowd-sourcing’ when everyone needs help?
In a recent blog post I referred in passing to some of the hype surrounding “crowd-sourcing” projects in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.
That’s not to criticise the volunteers – mostly in the United States – who collectively devoted hundreds of hours to charting the needs of quake survivors on online maps, based on SMS texts sent from the disaster zone.
