Imagage source
Haiti once a very beautiful and self-sufficient country has taken a turn for the worse. This has largely come from other countries who want to help, but people in Haiti say that it is only making it worse.(
)
No change
Moccia Valley said “The reason there will be no change is because the people who stand to lose from change have all the power, and the people who stand to gain from change have no power” this describes the global aid system. This did not make much sense to me until the video continued. As it continued on it was discussed on how other countries are sending food, digging wells, and giving shoes which was described as broken system. I have to agree with this, if we are treating them as if they are only poor people and just giving them these products and not looking at what they really need are we really helping? No, we are just giving them what we deem necessary to make ourselves feel good.
Farmers Abandoning
According to Marcela Escobari “Large wealthy countries block smaller countries from trading, and when surplus of one product is made it sent to these poor countries and ruins their local markets. I agree with this statement in that when we give our surpluses to them it is flooding their markets to a point at which they can no longer grow and are soon put out of work. Do we see if they need these products? No, we are just sending them and thinking that we are helping make a difference. A rice farmer Jacob Donatien said “the surpluses resulted in the farmers abandoned their farms and moved to the city. These products were intended for personal use and for the market.” This becomes a serious problem for these people, we see that we are actively helping them when we are just making things worse for them. As there is no more demand for a product that is abundant and being given away freely people are put out of work. The people of Haiti say they want to export to other countries and not be exported to. I believe that it is the way it is currently due to governments not actively working with them to see what they truly need and only doing what they think is best.
Image Source
)
Listening to the people
Joel Slatin who was a Virginia farmer and US Delegate to Tera Madre said that when listening to the people they say “you Americans need to butt out, we don’t need your foreign aid. We can feed ourselves.” The Western Dumping that they have endured has truly ruined their economy, they have lost agriculture products because of an abundance that they no longer need their own products they grow themselves. As this foreign aid depresses the prices of their existing products, they are now worse than before. This is because they no longer can sell their products at a profitable price, and they don’t have known of when these surpluses are going to end.
Previous self sufficiency
In the 80’s Haiti was self-sufficient on rice, only eating 2-3 bowls per week, and they are now eating up to three bowels per day according to Kenneth Michel. What was once a luxury item has now been decreased in the market that it is was people now have to live off of largely due to people ruining their economy. With farmers not being able to make a living off of farming they have moved to town and built on top of each other which created more poverty. This is due to more people living in one are that are not able to make any money and have slowly become self-reliant on government aid.
Natural disaster prolonged
In January of 2012 Haiti endured an earthquake that made it even worse for them. This was a natural disaster that turned into a long-term disaster. I agree with this in the way that continual aid was being sent to them when did not necessarily need it. This aid caused people to lose their livelihoods, and they became deeper into poverty. The NGO’s given were making people more reliant to the government aid that was coming in which causes more harm than good. I agree with this, that as people are being given everything they need, and not working to make a living that economy will never recover from this type of a travesty. Instead of giving NGOs of food and donations, they should be giving NGO’s that train people in trades. This not only helps the people, but it helps the economy as its own people are able to do this work and make money. Jobs would be in the process of being reinstalled within the country.
But is it really help?
Secondhand clothing has ruined yet another market within Haiti. With the overabundance of secondhand clothing the countries they receive has caused the textile market to go down. Factories have shut down and put more people out of work. There are numerous other things such as churches sending an overabundance of one item to a country and then moving on to something else the next year, and social entrepreneur’s such as Toms sending shoes. This is slowly hurting the countries more than we realize. This is putting people out of jobs and losing money. I believe that a good solution to fix this problem is to find a way to better communicate with the countries on what they need and not what we think they need.
Being Excluded
According to Muhammad Yunus “Society does not provide them the base.” This means that we are supplying them with things that are not necessary to them. I believe a good example of this is in Kibera, they have lots of temporary structures, which makes it hard to register a business as a temporary structure cannot be registered. I feel as if this is largely controlled within their own governments and should be changed so people who are currently living there don’t pack up and move to somewhere else. They have the ability to make that change but I feel as if it is not due to the fact they will slowly start losing some of their power. In the video it was mentioned that they are being excluded from things they truly need such as cell phones, internet, banks, financial systems, and education systems. Then it clicked with me they don’t need our help with food or clothing, but rather with the necessities so that they can start to develop into more of a first world country.
Conclusion
As we can see Haiti has lots of supports from other Countries, but what these countries do not realize is that we are slowly hurting these people by making them have surpluses over and over again. Instead, we should start listening to them to what they truly need. They have already answered that they can be self-sufficient and live, but if that weren’t excluded from certain things that they can’t afford then they would be able to develop faster.