Koumbit offers assistance to the Haïtian community
Update: Koumbit has gotten in touch with several associations and individuals within the Montreal Haitian community in order to discuss the way in which our organisation could assist the victims of the recent quakes. Following these exchanges, we have decided to postpone our meeting on this theme, which we originally planned for January 29th. This delay will allow us to better coordinate with the different concerned parties. We'll let you know the new date as soon as it has been set.
Today one of our workers brought up the question about the present situation in Haiti and about how and if Koumbit could help.
Our discussions revealed that it isn't easy to identify the best strategies for helping. There are no shortage of disasters in the world today - something we are all too aware of, and most of them are man-made. We're worried that, in a few weeks, the country will disappear from the mainstream media and we won't hear about it again until the next natural disaster or coup d'état. Some concerns were raised about how reconstruction efforts in response to crises such as this are often used by opportunistic states and organisations to advance their interests at the cost of those of the local populations.
We also have friends, neighbours and peers, either in the country at the time of the earthquake or close to someone who was. And that's no coincidence. A huge proportion of the Haitian diaspora lives here in Montreal. We have even borrowed a word from Creole to name our organisation.
For the time being we are cautiously checking out avenues for action. The Workers Comittee and the Board have decided to sign up to a registry of organisations ready to offer assistance.
The primary outcome of our discussion was to get started by reaching out to the local Haitian community to identify ways Koumbit could contribute usefully. We wish to act according to the needs of the community, not to what we think the community needs or, worse, according to our own needs.
Koumbit would therefore like to invite people, particularly members of the haitian community, to Koumbit's office on Friday the 29th, to have this discussion. We are also open to hearing from people over e-mail and phone if they can't make the discussion.
"What are we? Since that's your question, I'm going to answer you. We're this country, and it wouldn't be a thing without us, nothing at all. Who does the planting? Who does the watering? Who does the harvesting? Coffee, cotton, rice, sugar cane, cacao, corn, bananas, vegetables, and all the fruits, who's going to grow them if we don't? Yet with all that, we're poor, that's true. We're out of luck, that's true. We're miserable, that's true. But do you know why, brother? Because of our ignorance. We don't know yet what a force we are, what a single force - all the peasants, all the Negroes of the plain and hill, all united. Some day, when we get wise to that, we'll rise up from one end of the country to the other. Then we'll call a General Assembly of the Masters of the Dew, a great big coumbite of farmers and we'll clear out poverty and plant a new life". -- Jacques Roumain, Gouverneur de la Rosée
