Source : http://haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com/20engCroix-des-Bouquets, HAITI, July 10, 2012 – For the past eight months, a giant housing project of at least 3,000 homes has been quietly under construction in the desert near Morne à Cabri about 15 kilometers east of the capital. The little houses are there, visible to all. But that is perhaps the only aspect of the project that is clear. Everything else remains a mystery.
Aldy Castor, MD, President, Haiti Resource Development Foundation 29 Oct. 2012
In August Tropical storm Isaac exposed the latest step backward in Haiti rebuilding. The storm, not even a hurricane, blew off many roofs at a new Inter-American Development Bank funded housing project in Zoranje. Fortunately, no injuries were reported, most likely because only around 25 of the 400 houses were occupied – and many months after their completion.
And now Haiti is cleaning up after Hurricane Sandy. Sandy’s eye passed well away from Haiti, but nevertheless over 40 Haitians lost their lives, and damage is extensive. We hope that GoH uses this tragic event to clearly define floodplains, and stipulate where it is safe to build.
Miami Herald, 4 June, 2012
By Jacqueline Charles jcharles@MiamiHerald.com
Braving the heat, Fanilia Prospère took a break from pushing her wheelbarrow of imported used clothing to look around. Then she smiled.
In Haiti, where so many promises of change turn to dust, the evolving landscape was worth the moment of contemplation: warehouse-sized factory shells rising from fertile soil, bulldozers rumbling distantly as they cleared farmland to build hundreds of homes and unemployed young men chattering under a mango tree about the change that was coming to Caracol.
“Caracol is getting another image,” said Prospère, 30, a mother of three. “There are a lot of people who weren’t working, but they are now working. And a lot of people who want to work and who I believe will be soon working.”
The New York Times, 5 July, 2012
A Factory Grows in Haiti: The showcase project for Haiti’s earthquake reconstruction is being built far outside the disaster zone, in an area that could jeopardize the country’s key conservation effort.
By DEBORAH SONTAG Published: July 5, 2012
The New York Times
CARACOL, Haiti — On the first anniversary of the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake, in a sleepy corner of northeast Haiti far from the disaster zone, the Haitian government began the process of evicting 366 farmers from a large, fertile tract of land to clear the way for a new industrial park.
The farmers did not understand why the authorities wanted to replace productive agricultural land with factories in a rural country that had trouble feeding itself. But, promised compensation, they did not protest a strange twist of fate that left them displaced by an earthquake that had not affected them.
“We watched, voiceless,” Jean-Louis Saint Thomas, an elderly farmer, said. “The government paid us to shut us up.”
