Duke Haiti Lab Kreyòl (Creole) Blog

Please read the following report on conditions and distribution of aid in Port-au-Prince’s Cite Soleil shantytown after the January 12 earthquake. 

http://inured.org/docs/Voices%20from%20the%20Shanties_INURED2010.pdf

This grows out of the Interuniversity Institute for Research and Development’s ongoing participatory research with young people from Cite Soleil, which I’ve been privileged to be affiliated with since 2008.

The traumatic origins of the Haitian nation are incontestable, as portrayed in our blog banner image, Edouard Duval-Carrié’s “Little Crippled Haiti.” Despite the victory over colonial rule and slavery represented by the Independence of 1804, the founding fathers who signed the Acte d’indépendance all had ancestral ties to the Middle Passage and slavery. This genesis of a new nation presents fundamental differences to that of Haiti’s neighbor and contemporary in the crafting of Independence, the U.S.. Scholars including Colin Dayan and Robert Fatton have made convincing cases for the instrumentality of traumatic origins in Haiti, without necessarily pinpointing strategies for remedial action; the discourse of mental health, or global health, remains uneasily aligned with discourses of history and politics.

In the wake of the sekous or quake of 2010, mental health and disaster paradigms align much more directly for proactive health initiatives–but tragically, the infrastructure for ongoing trauma healing is as shaken as the rest of the institutional structures of Haiti. The New York Times notes also that “mental health has never been a priority in Haiti,” as psychiatrists involved in the recovery are discovering. Part of the problem is that in a landscape of NGOs and short bursts of international interventions in humanitarian medical aid, the intensive communicative interface necessary to psychological or psychiatric consultations, and the sustained assessment necessary to successful pharmacological treatment, have often remained just out of reach.

Haitian psychologist Marie Geolnarol-Archer has been walking the streets and alleyways of the disaster zone, patting backs and rubbing shoulders as a prelude to discussion of passer-bys’ trauma symptoms. Her work indicates a new and singular openness to recognition of traumatic symptoms and the need for mental health assistance.

Global health needs around trauma arguably epitomize the inseparability of medical initiatives and linguistic and cultural education–plus staying power–for successful intervention.

http://www.globalhealth.duke.edu/news-events/general-announcements/duke-global-health-case-competition

2010 Global Health Case Competition

What is the Duke Global Health Case Competition?
Do you want to find a way to contribute to the discussion about the earthquake aftermath in Haiti?  Use your experience to generate innovative ideas that can translate into action on the ground through participating in the first annual Duke Global Health Case Competition.

This competition is a unique opportunity for Duke graduate and undergraduate students from multiple schools and disciplines to come together to promote awareness of and develop innovative solutions for 21st century global health issues. Common across U.S. business schools, a case competition features teams of four to six students working through a real-life case scenario with the goal of providing helpful strategic recommendations to move the case subject forward efficiently and effectively. The competition is centered on team presentations to judges, who then score student recommendations and award prizes.

Developed and driven by it the Duke Global Health Institute Student Council, the global health case competition focuses on a global health-related case that will require an interdisciplinary approach to formulate recommendations regarding the case that may involve issues such as health care policy, public health implementation and planning, business partnership/investment, medical research, logistics management, faith/cultural understanding, and international law.

Who can participate?
Students (graduate and undergraduate) from across Duke University are encouraged to participate in multidisciplinary, multi-school teams to ensure that interdisciplinary skills are represented on each team. Teams will be comprised of three to five studentsfrom three or more Duke schools. Students can sign up as individuals or in a team.  Students who register as individuals will be grouped together to form interdisciplinary teams.

Space is limited so sign up now!  Team Registration, Individual Registration

UNESCO had created international coordination committees (ICCs) in the past for Cambodia, Aghanistan, and Iraq. It is now proposing an ICC for Haiti, with a mission, according to the Haitian Minister of Culture and Communication Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassègue, “to inventory, safeguard and rehabilitate all the assets and remains linked to Haitian heritage.” Inventorying alone could bring a radical adjustment in the international sphere’s comprehension of the historical and artistic treasures of Haitian civilization.

Unesco cites 150 participants on the proposed ICC, including “representatives from UNESCO Member States and organizations including Interpol, Blue Shield, the World Customs Organization, the International Council of Museums (ICOM), International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), and museums including the Quai Branly (France) and the Smithsonian Institution (United States).”

Where is the money going? Relief Web provides FTS (Financial Tracking Service) for global humanitarian funding, which you can break down for specific countries and emergencies. Research for Haiti provides further digestion of financial flow information.

Relief Web also provides detailed Latest Updates on relief efforts in Haiti, which you can break down by sector, to learn of breaking news in your relief area, such as Health or Education. Relief Web details work Vacancies by Emergency for those seeking recruitment information.

Do you have skills for pediatric mental health work in the disaster zone?

The Haitian-American Psychiatric Association is working on trauma recovery initiatives for children in Haiti:

http://www.hapa84.com/

Childrens’ Hospitals Volunteer Teams and NACHRI Coordination Center:

http://www.childrenshospitals.net/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Emergency_Response&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=49877&cmpid=spot_haiti