(Kevin Gray & Joseph Guyler Delva/Reuters)
If there is hope in Haiti, it can be found in Mertilus Aland. The 18-year-old eight-grader is flourishing in a new school built after Haiti’s devastating earthquake, dreaming of one day becoming a doctor in the violent Haitian slum he calls home. “Who knows where I’d be if it wasn’t for this place,” he said.
Bankrolled by a roster of Hollywood celebrities, the Academy of Peace and Justice is Haiti’s first free secondary school and draws hundreds of children from Port-au-Prince’s biggest slums. Its success stands out in Haiti, which is still struggling to lift itself from the rubble left by an earthquake two years ago that killed roughly 300,000 people and left more than 1.5 million homeless.
Despite billions of dollars pledged by donors to help Haiti rebuild, reconstruction efforts remain painstakingly slow, with only incipient signs some progress may be taking hold.
The recovery effort, one of the world’s biggest humanitarian and reconstruction operations involving more than 12,000 aid groups, has faced intense criticism that the international aid community has been too slow to shift gears from emergency aid to helping develop one of the world’s poorest countries.
The dusty streets of the Haitian capital offer a glimpse of the work that remains. More than a half a million people still live in a critical situation in crowded tent camps, many without running water or electricity. Few new or renovated buildings can be seen. And throngs of Haitians line the streets every day in a jarring reminder that 70 percent of the population is either unemployed or underemployed.
(Read the full story at Reuters)
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- Survey: Most Money Raised for Haiti Recovery Has Been Spent, but Needs Continue (Chronicle of Philanthropy)
- Haitian Diaspora Reaches Back Home (Global Post)
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OPINION:
- Laurent Dubois & Deborah Jenson: Haiti Can Be Rich Again (New York Times)
- Romesh Ratnesar: Who Failed on Haiti’s Recovery? (Time Magazine)