Haiti Action Alerts
Call Your Congress Person: Tell Her to Support Debt Relief for Haiti!
(If you are pressed for time, just saying the first paragraph will help. If you can, go through the whole script). If your Representative has not co-sponsored H.Res. 241, ask her or him to do that too!
My name is XXX and I live in YYYY. I support debt cancellation to release resources to fight poverty in Haiti. I am calling to encourage Representative XXX to sign on to the bi-partisan letter to the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, urging the immediate cancellation of Haiti's debt.
Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western hemisphere. Close to one in four children are chronically malnourished. People are forced to eat cakes made of dirt, because they have nothing else. At the same time, the government is forced to send almost $1 million per week to the World Bank and other banks that were set up to fight poverty.
The bi-partisan letter was issued by Representatives Spencer Bachus and Maxine Waters. To sign on or for more information, please contact Kathleen Sengstock in Representative Maxine Waters’ office at (202) 225-2201.
Thank you for your time!
HELP SAVE LOVINSKY PIERRE-ANTOINE!
HALF-HOUR FOR HAITI ALERT FROM THE INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY IN HAITI Last Friday, October 12, was the two-month anniversary of the abduction of Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine. Lovinsky has been one of Haiti’s most persistent and effective human rights activists in Haiti for almost 20 years. He founded several organizations, including the September 30th Foundation, which has maintained weekly vigils for justice in Haiti for over a decade, through hurricanes, coup d’états and economic privation. For more information about Lovinsky, his disappearance, and taking action to save Lovinsky's life, see our website, www.HaitiJustice.org.
Help Save Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine!
HALF-HOUR FOR HAITI ALERT FROM THE INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY IN HAITI Last Friday, October 12, was the two-month anniversary of the abduction of Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine. Lovinsky has been one of Haiti’s most persistent and effective human rights activists in Haiti for almost 20 years. He founded several organizations, including the September 30th Foundation, which has maintained weekly vigils for justice in Haiti for over a decade, through hurricanes, coup d’états and economic privation. For more information about Lovinsky, his disappearance, and taking action to save Lovinsky's life, see our website, www.HaitiJustice.org.
INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY IN HAITI WEEKLY ALERT - CANCELLATION OF HAITI’S DEBT, AUGUST 3, 2007
FIRST – FAST FOR DEBT CANCELLATION
The Jubilee USA Network (IJDH is a member) is organizing a 40-day fast for debt cancellation and economic justice from September 6 to October 15. There will be events focused on Haiti, including a lobby/call-in day, the first week of October. Jubilee USA is looking for organizations to commit to participating in the one-day fast on September 6. Joining the fast will help get the mobilization off to a good start, while also demonstrating that you care particularly about Haiti (we’ll be fasting at IJDH). For more information, see http://www.canceldebtfast.org/.
HAITI ACTION ALERT: If a picture is worth a thousand words . . .
April 5, 2007
Updated: 2008-02-20
(from the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti)
This week’s action: If a picture is worth a thousand words, videos (including films) are a treasure-trove. So this week we are featuring video resources for Haiti advocacy that you can watch to inform yourself and show to your network. Videos are especially important to the Haiti solidarity movement because the large organizations we often target- especially the U.S. government and the United Nations- have sophisticated PR systems that effortlessly turn out thousands of words denying the reality that our Haitian collaborators keep describing to us. Videos can overcome the PR mismatch by bringing poor Haitians’ reality, and their words, directly to us.
Half-Hour for Haiti: Ask Congress to Break Haiti's Chains of Debt
March 15, 2007
Update on Last Week's Haiti Action Alert: Thanks to everyone who wrote last week in support of the Kolektif Fanmi Prizonye Politik (Political Prisoners' Families' Collective). For photos and a report-back on the Kolektif's March 8 Press Conference, as well as other International Women's Day events for Haiti including an interview with So Anne, click here. If you have not written there's still time, see last week's alert.Update on Legislative Initiatives: Good news on debt relief: Rep. Maxine Waters filed the Haiti Debt Relief Bill in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday. The bill calls for the complete and immediate cancellation of Haiti's multilateral debt (more on that below). As the bill notes, Haiti sends $56 million in debt service payments each year to International Financial Institutions that were founded to fight poverty, money that could be better spent on providing clean water, education and healthcare to Haiti's poor. Over half of the loans were given to the Duvaliers or other dictatorships, much of it never reached the poor.
Half Hour for Haiti Action Alert, March 8th 2007
For International Women's Day, KOLEKTIF FANMI PRIZONYE POLITIK (Political Prisoner's Family Collective) are asking for support in their appeals to President Preval.
This Week’s Action(Half Hour for Haiti.):
When we discuss political prisoners in Haiti, we usually just talk about the harm to the prisoners themselves, most of whom are men. The women from the Kolektif Fanmi Prizonye Politik (Political Prisoners’ Families’ Collective) remind us on International Women’s Day that political imprisonment also imposes a heavy punishment on the prisoners’ partners and children. Kolektif members are forced to struggle to keep their families alive and together without their partner’s financial contribution, their help raising the children and their company. In most cases, the partners also need to bring the prisoners food every day, and work for their release. In some cases, the family’s house and belongings were destroyed in the violence following the February 2004 coup d’etat. Some women have now carried this burden for three years.
HALF-HOUR FOR HAITI ACTION ALERT, FEBRUARY 22, 2007
