Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Wrap Up Thoughts from Melia

             Overall, our ABST to Haiti was an extremely positive and powerful experience. However, to call our time in Haiti a “service trip” would be self-serving and inaccurate. Through our experiences this week, we were able to learn far more than ever gave.

                Our learning experiences began as soon as we walked out of the airport and packed into the vans. We noticed minimal traffic laws, people selling things on the street, incredible amounts of garbage on the ground, and crowded tent cities as we drove through the bustling city of Port-au-Prince. These were some of the problems in Haitian society that were glaringly obvious, and some of the reasons that so many people from around the world come to Haiti for service and mission trips. At reflection our first night, we considered ways to make our time in Haiti a beneficial, and possibly transformative, experience for ourselves and the people we were to encounter.
By the end of our trip, we were able to realize that spending a week in Haiti would never lead to long-term changes in the communities. The issues of poverty, education, and healthcare are too complex to be solved in just a week! However, many groups come into Haiti and donate supplies or whatever they think the community will need, in hopes of making a significant difference. Our community partner, Kim, referred to these trips as “band-aid solutions” because it covers up the problem for a time. This type of charity is ultimately ineffective and creates dependency because it does not attack the root of the problem so the problem continues to occur. Just Haiti strives to do the opposite in that it has created a model that allows for accompaniment and sustainability. In this way, the growers in KDB (KafĂ© Development of Baraderes) are able to grow coffee and sell it at a “fair trade plus” price so that the growers can actually receive living wages for their hard work.
                One of the most interesting aspects of the trip was sitting in on the growers’ meeting. Some of the growers walked for as long as four hours up and down the mountains of Baraderes to reach Fond Tortue for this meeting. Their passion and commitment to coffee was evident as they explained that coffee is a symbol of hospitality and opportunity because it allows the growers to send their children to school, get loans to grow their business, and build their communities. It was evident in this meeting that the growers were clearly capable of hard work so it makes sense to compensate them for their efforts to produce beans for America’s favorite drink!
                Besides Just Haiti, we saw another developmental model when we visited a clinic within Baraderes. Because we had two physician assistant majors and one respiratory care major on the trip, seeing healthcare in another country was extremely powerful for the group. The clinic that we saw was staffed by only one paid nurse, a doctor who came for one week per month, and a few other volunteers. The lack of personnel caused the hospital to only be able to treat the patients with one specific illness per day. To fill the gaps, the best solution seems like sending in supplies and doctors from the United States. However, this also would be a band-aid solution because after the doctors would leave, the problems would still be present. The only way for the hospital to be able to sustain itself would be to have paying customers, and as of now, many people who need medical attention in this region cannot pay for their care. This was a difficult realization for me because it reinforced the levels of complexity in the society that usually prevent people from making a difference in the long term.
                Sharing these experiences and reflecting deeply upon them created a lot of unity within our group. Together, we tried to overcome a language barrier to create relationships with the people we met. We tried speaking French and some Spanish to the kids of Fond Tortue when our English/Kreyol Dictionary did not seem to be working! Team Haiti shared numerous jokes and games of Phase 10 between activities. Even swatting at bugs or comparing “showering strategies” were funny memories from the trip! By the end of the week, it was easy to see how each of us had grown as individuals and as partners within the group. At the final reflection, we talked about the ways in which this trip has changed our thinking and what we plan to do differently when we return home. We all agree that it will be important to use sustainability as the ultimate goal for charity work in any context, including in Erie. In addition, we hope to continue a relationship with Just Haiti which would involve selling the coffee on campus and promoting the Fair Trade Plus model.
                Before heading to the airport, we took a tour of Port-au-Prince. We drove past the National Palace which had been completely destroyed in the 2010 earthquake. We also found the well-known statue, La Statue du Marron Inconnu, which features a slave blowing a conch shell to symbolize revolution. Although Haiti is free from control by the French, the country is, in some ways, enslaved by other world powers who do not pay fair prices for its exports. Just Haiti is a company that strives to create fairness which in turn, encourages true sustainable development in the Haitian society. Through interactions with Just Haiti, Gannon will work towards promoting equality and justice throughout the world.

Home Stretch Blog from Ruselle

Hello! It’s Ruselle and in less than 24 hours we will back to the U.S.! I bet some of you all are excited and can’t wait to hear about our trip more in-depth. Our 2nd to last day consisted of a 3 hour drive to the guest house where we stayed in Port-au-Prince. We also got a chance to visit a fair trade cooperative where we bought a few souvenirs. Don’t even talk about lunch, it was great! I must say that the best part for me today was the reflection. It was our last reflection and I loved it! The energy in the room was excellent and everyone seemed so relax and engaged. Laura started it off with a guided meditation on the journey we were on. After that, the group were given 3 questions to reflect on while they conducted journaling. We then went around in a circle and shared with the group what each individual wrote down. One of the responses that really stuck with me was Dante’s response. Following that, each person present an object they’ve collected along this journey and shared why they chose that object. We then closed our reflection with a quote.

A Word on JustHaiti's Model From Evan


Hey everyone! It’s Evan. For this blog post, we wanted to catch all of our readers up on JustHaiti’s mission and purpose. JustHaiti is a non-profit, fair trade coffee company that partners with coffee cooperatives in Haiti. JustHaiti buys the coffee in bulk for about 4.25 a pound, 3x as high as for-profit speculators might buy it for. On average, they typical coffee grower will sell about 100 pounds of coffee to JustHaiti: rendering them about $425. To a reader in the United States this may seem meager, but in perhaps the most oppressed and marginalized country in the Western hemisphere, the jump from $140~ a year to $425 a year is tremendous. It’s the difference that allows them to pay for their children’s education, put food on their table, pay for healthcare, and save for the future. In their partnership with the cooperatives, JustHaiti not only buys the growers’ coffee at a ‘just’ price, but they also offer 0% interest loans for equipment, scholarships for agronomics and business students, and consult the growers on methods of maximizing their coffee production and keeping their plants healthy.

Now, you might have yourself thinking – it’s great that they get paid more, but doesn’t that mean JustHaiti’s coffee is going to be that much more expensive than your typical bag of coffee at the grocery store? In fact, a pound of coffee from JustHaiti only costs 12 dollars – very comparable to Starbucks, Peet’s, or any other gourmet brand. And honestly, it tastes a lot better. I like to think I’m a bit of a coffee snob myself (to build my credentials: I take my coffee black, and I own a French press and an espresso machine.) And I don’t think I’ve ever tasted better coffee than what I had in Fon Tor Tu. It was nutty and smooth, with no bitter after taste.

JustHaiit keeps its prices down by consolidating the supply chain of the coffee itself (thus requiring less out-of-country workers to be paid) and, obviously, by being a non-profit. The growers not only produce the cherries that create the coffee, but they also process the beans through wet or dry processes. In doing this work, they add more value to the coffee without the need for others to contribute to the supply chain.

As a model of development, JustHaiti breaks with the traditional forms of aid and intervention. Often, people from developed countries travel to developing states and offer charitable forms of aid: they build schools, give food and clothes, and maybe even construct a water sanitization facility. These are great deeds, with great and selfless intentions. However, somehow these forms of ‘giving’ often do little to sustainably develop local communities. To be sure, they help solve short-term needs: they are quite literally feeding the hungry, and giving shelter to the homeless. But, simply ‘giving’ to somebody in need does not solve the reasons for their hunger, the homelessness, their lack of education, their lack to access to healthcare, or their lack of access safe to water. For too long, we have satiated our moral impulses with the kinds of projects that only address symptoms, and not root causes.

But that’s the beauty of JustHaiti: they address root causes by empowering people to lift themselves out of poverty. The coffee growers’ fair wages allow them to reinvest in themselves and their families. Offering loans – instead of giving – makes the cooperatives make collective decisions about what is best for them and the community. In Fon Tor Tue, we saw how KDB was not only a group of coffee growers, but a community organization that strengthens civil society. Not only are they concerned about coffee, but they look out for one another – after the earthquake, they used funds to help out the coffee growers that were effected most by the damage. By empowering KDB, JustHaiti is empowering the growers and their community to empower themselves.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Louisa's Blog (with a little from Laura)


Today was a long day for us here in Fond Tortue. We had the chance to meet all the coffee growers from other villages in Haiti. The coffee growers held a meeting at the local church to discuss a business meeting about coffee. We had the chance to sit with the coffee growers during meeting and we observed some of their concerns with the business. At the meeting, Joann the coordinator from Just Haiti educated the growers on how to care for the coffee nursery plants as well as how to prevent the coffee trees from dying.  We learned from the coffee growers about the importance of coffee and the movements of coffee. There are three major threats to coffee in Haiti: leaf rust, solit and deforestation. Joann, who is also an agronomist, gave a moving speech to the growers about how they should care for their coffee as they care for their children because coffee is opportunity, it is school and health and advancement.  We also took a walk around the neighborhood with Francois the president of the growers association KDB and Joann to look at the coffee plants.

Overall, based on the meeting and observation we learned from one of the coffee growers that Coffee is a sign of hospitality in Haiti. I believe this statement is actually true because as visitors here in Haiti we enjoy fresh coffee every morning for breakfast.

Hi Friends This is Abby



So yesterday was our first full day in Fond Tortue. Our day started bright and early with a rooster call and the noises of the busy village. We ate a delicious breakfast and then took a walk through the village for the first time. Fond Tortue is beautiful to say the least! We were able to greet and have short conversations with people while on our walk and explore other areas of the village.

After our walk, we had the opportunity to attend a meeting with the board of KDB (Kafe Devlemen Baradare). We saw how they conducted business and learned about their mission and vision. After our meeting, we were able to see one of the coffee nurseries and learn about the long, hard process of coffee production. This gave us a new appreciation for all the hard work that goes into making a cup of coffee that we take for granted.

For the rest of the evening, we had some down time. We went out into the community and met a large group of kids playing. Even with the language barrier we were still able to communicate in other ways. Most of our conversations consisted of just smiling and laughing, but that was just as meaningful. We spent hours singing dancing, talking, and playing games with them. It felt great to connect and be a part of their community.

We can’t wait for the rest of the week and for everything we are going to experience!