Haiti Political Blog

According to the 2003 General Population and Housing Census, Haiti’s annual population growth rate was 2.5%.According to
that same census, the country has a population of 8,373,750 persons and a population density of 302 inhabitants per km2. Three
departments account for almost two-thirds of the population:

Ouest, for 37%; Artibonite, for 16%; and Nord, for 10%. About 40% of the population is urban.

Haiti’s population is young—60% was under 24 years old in 2003 and 36.5% was under the age of 15. Analysis of death certificates from 2003 shows that 4% of deaths in the country were in the age group 0–24 years old.

The birth rate remains relatively high, at 25 per 1,000 in urban areas; 30 per 1,000 in rural areas; and 28 per 1,000 for the country
as a whole. The average number of children per woman has declined from 4.7 to 4.0, averaging 5 in rural areas, 3 in urban areas,
and 2.4 in the capital. Life expectancy at birth is 52.7 years for males and 56.8 years for females.Around half of the population is
single.

Women represent 51.8% of the population (86 men per 100 women in urban areas and 98 men per 100 women in rural areas),
a situation explained by factors related to population shifts— overwhelmingly, women migrate from rural areas to the cities,
while the reverse is true for men. (See Figure 1 for the country’s population structure.)

Out-migration is significant in Haiti, be it temporary or permanent, legal or illegal, or what is termed “brain drain.”The Ministry
for Haitians Living Abroad estimates that the total number of émigrés is 1.5 million: 700,000 are in the United States of
America, 550,000 in the Dominican Republic, 100,000 in Canada, 70,000 in neighboring French overseas departments and territories, and 40,000 in the Bahamas.Many Haitian professionals and skilled technicians who live outside Haiti provide an important source of revenue for the country.

The first published analysis of death certificates in Haiti dealt with deaths in 1997. At that time, death certificates were filled
out for only 6.3% of deaths. Coverage increased to 10% in 2003. However, a precipitous drop in death certificate coverage occurred in 2004 and 2005. At the same time, the way in which death certificates are completed improved (the percentage of
death certificates with an ill-defined cause of death fell from 48% in 1999 to 26% in 2002). Immediate and effective feedback
was put in place at the central and departmental levels. Given this poor coverage, mortality data should be interpreted with
caution. Table 1 shows the 10 leading causes of death in 2003. The data come from an analysis of death certificates from the
country’s 10 departments.

Haitian native Jules Walter, started a company called Bagazo to sell low-cost charcoal briquettes made from plant waste to his countrymen. Bagazo is Spanish for “bagasse,” or sugar cane waste, but corncobs and banana leaves can also be used in Walter’s process. His company emerged from an MIT class called Development Lab, which encourages students

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Haitian native Jules Walter, started a company called Bagazo to sell low-cost charcoal briquettes made from plant waste to his countrymen. Bagazo is Spanish for “bagasse,” or sugar cane waste, but corncobs and banana leaves can also be used in Walter’s process. His company emerged from an MIT class called Development Lab, which encourages students

The Full Story

Pan American Health Organisation, released a report “Health in the Americas 2007” in which they exposed the health situation in Haiti. Archivex Haiti is presenting the 18 page report on Haiti and plans to go deeper into the health situation particularly in rural Haiti.

GENERAL CONTEXT AND HEALTH DETERMINANTS

Social, Political, and Economic Determinants In 2004, Haiti—the first black nation and the first country to gain independence in Latin America—celebrated its independence bicentennial.After nearly two centuries of dictatorship and intermittent attempts at democracy beginning in the late 1980s, the country has suffered recurrent periods of political instability.

To summarize political events in the period under review, Jean Bertrand Aristide returned to Haiti in 2001. He again left the
country in February 2004, and in March 2004 a transitional government was installed with the support of the United Nations
Stabilization Mission, paving the way to normalization and efforts to strengthen the country’s institutions and to presidential
and parliamentary elections in February 2006.

The vast majority of Haitians continue to live under precarious conditions, in poverty and marginalization. Haiti is considered
to be the poorest country in the Americas.The country’s unequal income distribution (4% of the population has 66% of the
nation’s wealth, while 10% has practically nothing) forces the poor to turn to nature for survival.Deficient farming practices on
steep terrain have accelerated soil erosion, as the run-off from tropical rains flushes arable land toward the sea, obstructing
urban drainage systems in its wake. Surface water is polluted by ineffective excreta and household waste management.
According to the 2001 Haiti Living Conditions Survey, 55% of the population lives in households that are below the extreme
poverty line of US$ 1 per person per day,and 71%—more than six million people—live below the poverty line of US$ 2 per person
per day. That same survey shows that poverty is far worse in the country’s rural areas and involves 82% of the country’s population.

According to the 2003 General Population and Housing Census, more than 61% of the population aged 10 and older is literate
(53.8% of females and 63.8% of males), a figure that is much higher in urban areas (80.5%) than in rural ones (47.1%).
According to the 2001 Haiti Living Conditions Survey, the gross primary-school enrollment ratio is 120%, a figure that indicates
that many overaged students are still enrolled in primary school.

The net enrollment rate in primary school for children 6–11 years old is 60% nationwide. Slightly more than one of every two children in this age group attends primary school in rural areas, compared with upwards of 7 of every 10 in urban areas. There is
no important difference in net primary enrollment rates for girls and boys.
This is not the case with secondary-school enrollment, where the gross enrollment ratio for girls is 37%, while that for boys is
45%. There is a wide gap in the gross secondary-school enrollment ratios of children from more affluent households (71%)
compared with those from households in the lowest income quintile (23%). The country’s official languages are Creole and
French, but only 10% of the population speaks French, mainly those who have completed secondary schooling.
Access to basic health care is inadequate.

According to the 2005–2010 National Strategic Plan for Health Sector Reform published
in November 2005, less than 40% of the population has access to basic health services in certain departments (among them,
Ouest,Nord, and Nord-Est); 80% seeks care from traditional healers.

For many Haitians, the need to pay before receiving treatment precludes their getting any health care. Some organizations are
promoting the idea of offering free services to increase access to treatment. Health costs (consultations, hospitalization, medical
care, and drug purchases), too, have risen precipitously and can no longer be borne by people of limited means.
Forty-seven percent of the population lacks access to basic health care; 50% lacks access to basic drugs. A medical consultation
that cost 25 Haitian Gourdes (HTG) in the late 1980s now costs 1,200 HTG—48 times more.

Get your PDF copy now or wait for the next post to share more info on the health situation in haiti…!

By Jean H Charles

Some twenty years ago, the US Food and Drug Administration Service, as well as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), listed the Haitian people as suis generis carriers of the AIDS virus. This ill-conceived classification angered the Haitian Community in the United States to the bone. I was at that time, Assistant Dean of Students at the City College of the City University of New York. I called in a group of Haitian student leaders, they included Gilbert Hyppolite, Mario Jean, and Mildred Trouillot “Aristide”.

We planned together a strategy to organize a march to demonstrate against that ruling. The movement was taken over by the larger community. The rest was history.

Jean H Charles MSW, JD is Executive Director of AINDOH Inc a non profit organization dedicated to build a kinder and gentle Caribbean zone for all. He can be reached at: jeanhcharles@aol.com
On April 20, 1990, some three hundred thousand Haitians and their American and Caribbean friends marched from Brooklyn to City Hall and Battery Park through the Brooklyn Bridge in a frenzy that is still felt today with the recall of the memory.

The CDC retreated from that classification the same evening, advising the world that some Americans, like some Haitians or Jamaicans or Trinidadians might be the victims of a virus that can be contacted when sexual relations occurred with a person who was already an AIDS carrier.

Some twenty years later, Dr Michael Worobey of Arizona State University and Dr Arthur Pichenik came with a new twist to the old story. Patient zero, the first AIDS carrier might have been a Haitian resident, who had acquired the virus in the Congo, Africa.

This so called scientific finding appears on its face without foundation…

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Ultimately, what you do to another you do to yourself, because you are virtually the other ~
that is the essence of voodoo, writes Monideepa Chatterjee

The term ‘Voodoo’ is usually associated with gruesome rituals, zombies and the living dead. This paranormal phenomenon is often regarded as the origin of religion. In fact, many consider it to be one of the world’s oldest known religions prevalent in Africa since the beginning of human civilisation. Some conservatives estimate that these civilisations and religions to be over 10,000 years old. These then identify voodoo as probably the best example of African syncretism (fusion) in America.

Although its essential wisdom originated in different parts of Africa long before the Europeans started the slave trade, the structure of voodoo, as we know it today, was born in Haiti during the European colonisation of Hispaniola. Ironically, it was the obligatory immigration of enslaved African from different ethnic groups that provided the circumstances for the development of voodoo. European colonists thought that by desolating the ethnic groups, these could not come together as a community.
However, in the anguish of slavery, the shuffled Africans found in their faith a common cord. They began to summon not only their own Gods but to practice rites other than their own. In this process, they co-mingled and modified rituals of various ethnic groups. The result of such fusion was that the different religious groups integrated their beliefs leading to the birth of a new religion: Voodoo.

Faith, derivation and tradition

Historically, from its inception, the word “voodoo” was deliberately employed to mock and disparage what most American media, and popular culture believed was a malevolent, superstitious, irrational, primitive African belief system. Also, it was typically the ceremonial facet, particularly healing, and protection rituals, which were known as “the work.”

Voodoo, (Vodun or Vudun in Benin and Togo; also Vodou in Haiti) has a varied ancestry. According to some ethnographers, these comprise Fon, Ewe, Mina, Yoruba and Kabye people of West Africa, from western Nigeria to eastern Ghana. While the word “Vudu” (in Ewe) and “Vodou” (in Fon) are ancient words still existing in West Africa, some western scholars have speculated that the word “voodoo” is a transliteration of the French words vous tous (pronounced voo-too), meaning ‘you all’.

Like most faith systems, the core function of voodoo is to explain the forces of the universe, forces that influence those forces and in turn influence human behaviour. Its oral tradition of faith stories carries forebears, record of the bygone times and fables to succeeding generations. Devotees honour deities and revere ancient and recent ancestors. Folklore and fallacy
Voodoo has been associated with the teachings of zombies, voodoo dolls and Satanism. The common practice of inserting pins in dolls can be traced back to European folk magic. The myth behind this belief, commonly known as a celebrated method of cursing an individual of what is presently known as New Orleans-Voodoo, which is a limited deviation, is a mystery. Some researchers view it as a means of self-protection to coerce credulous slave owners.

Read the full story from www.thestatesman.net

Ultimately, what you do to another you do to yourself, because you are virtually the other ~
that is the essence of voodoo, writes Monideepa Chatterjee

The term ‘Voodoo’ is usually associated with gruesome rituals, zombies and the living dead. This paranormal phenomenon is often regarded as the origin of religion. In fact, many consider it to be one of the world’s oldest known religions prevalent in Africa since the beginning of human civilisation. Some conservatives estimate that these civilisations and religions to be over 10,000 years old. These then identify voodoo as probably the best example of African syncretism (fusion) in America.

Although its essential wisdom originated in different parts of Africa long before the Europeans started the slave trade, the structure of voodoo, as we know it today, was born in Haiti during the European colonisation of Hispaniola. Ironically, it was the obligatory immigration of enslaved African from different ethnic groups that provided the circumstances for the development of voodoo. European colonists thought that by desolating the ethnic groups, these could not come together as a community.
However, in the anguish of slavery, the shuffled Africans found in their faith a common cord. They began to summon not only their own Gods but to practice rites other than their own. In this process, they co-mingled and modified rituals of various ethnic groups. The result of such fusion was that the different religious groups integrated their beliefs leading to the birth of a new religion: Voodoo.

Faith, derivation and tradition

Historically, from its inception, the word “voodoo” was deliberately employed to mock and disparage what most American media, and popular culture believed was a malevolent, superstitious, irrational, primitive African belief system. Also, it was typically the ceremonial facet, particularly healing, and protection rituals, which were known as “the work.”

Voodoo, (Vodun or Vudun in Benin and Togo; also Vodou in Haiti) has a varied ancestry. According to some ethnographers, these comprise Fon, Ewe, Mina, Yoruba and Kabye people of West Africa, from western Nigeria to eastern Ghana. While the word “Vudu” (in Ewe) and “Vodou” (in Fon) are ancient words still existing in West Africa, some western scholars have speculated that the word “voodoo” is a transliteration of the French words vous tous (pronounced voo-too), meaning ‘you all’.

Like most faith systems, the core function of voodoo is to explain the forces of the universe, forces that influence those forces and in turn influence human behaviour. Its oral tradition of faith stories carries forebears, record of the bygone times and fables to succeeding generations. Devotees honour deities and revere ancient and recent ancestors. Folklore and fallacy
Voodoo has been associated with the teachings of zombies, voodoo dolls and Satanism. The common practice of inserting pins in dolls can be traced back to European folk magic. The myth behind this belief, commonly known as a celebrated method of cursing an individual of what is presently known as New Orleans-Voodoo, which is a limited deviation, is a mystery. Some researchers view it as a means of self-protection to coerce credulous slave owners.

Read the full story from www.thestatesman.net

A year and a half ago, most Haitians couldn’t afford a cell phone but a company called Digicell has changed all that, selling affordable phones and sparking a communications rennaissance in the process. It used to take hours of walking to see friends and family or to do business in this country, but now cell phones have brought much-needed convenience and connectivity to the lives of many Haitians. Ghida Fakhry reports

How to tap into “Yahoo! Answers” 60+ Million highly responsive users & start pulling them to your own website within the next 5 minutes completely free…

read more | digg story

How to tap into “Yahoo! Answers” 60+ Million highly responsive users & start pulling them to your own website within the next 5 minutes completely free…

read more | digg story