Over the course of the week, participants will volunteer at the pre-school at Miami’s Haitian Youth & Community Center of Florida. Not only will the Barry students and teachers help out with the kids in the daycare program, they’ll also help the center’s staff sort and pack donations going to Haiti.

But that won’t be their only project. On Wednesday, March 3rd, they plan to join other volunteers in painting the interior and exterior of the Notre Dame D’Haiti Catholic Church in Little Haiti.

source: Miami CBS4

Click here to view the embedded video.

Organizers donated $1.00 from each combo lunch sold to the Red Cross Haitian Relief Fund. “Mini-Haitian” flags were created that could be purchased for $1.00 and customized with a special tribute message for a loved one affected by the earthquake.

The authentic Haitian menu included: Haitian Broiled White Fish, Queue De Boeuf Braisee (Braised Ox Tail), Groit (Fried Pork), Broccoli Haricot Vert (Green Beans), Diri Jon Jon (Rice Mushrooms), Sucre Bannanna (Sweet Plantain), and Macaroni Au Gratin, to be devoured.

The event raised $256.00, and Morrison’s Food Service matched the amount for a grand total of over $500 that was donated to the American Red Cross Haitian Relief Fund. West Boca Medical Center employees and the general public were all invited and encouraged to enjoy the food in the West Boca Café.

source: dBusiness News

OTTAWA — Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean will make an emotional visit to her hometown of Jacmel, Haiti next week to bear witness to the devastation of January’s earthquake. Jean will arrive in the capital city of Port-au-Prince Monday and travel Tuesday to Jacmel, a town also ravaged by the quake that killed more than 200,000 and left thousands more homeless.

Prime Minister Stephen visited Haiti last month, surveying the devastation by helicopter, meeting with President Rene Preval and pledging Canada’s help for the long haul.

source: Toronoto Sun

135+ speakers over 3 days at the Miami Beach Convention Center, from Wednesday, March 17th- Friday, March 19th, 2010.

Sustainable Haiti Conference is the largest, most comprehensive conference on economic/development on Haiti in history.

Sustainable Haiti Conference is a ‘conference within a conference’, a part of Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference, Miami-2010 (www.connectionmiami.com) which features 275 speakers from 32 countries around the world. The overall Conference focuses on the region of Latin America, the Caribbean, and US/European connection to the region in context of Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise. It is the largest conference of its kind in the region.

John Rosser
Founder
Sustainable Haiti Conference (www.haiticonference.com)
Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference (www.connectionmiami.com)
(561) 251-9941

A few reasons. First and most obvious, the construction in Chile is far better than construction in Haiti. A popular saying among seismologists is that “earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do.” Chile’s buildings are better built, with better materials, higher-skilled laborers, and an eye toward earthquake resistance. They are therefore more earthquake-resistant. Many fewer of them collapsed, so fewer people died.

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“It will be war – open war,” Max Beauvoir, supreme head of Haitian voodoo, told AFP in an interview at his home and temple outside the capital. “It’s unfortunate that at this moment where everybody’s suffering, that they have to go into war. But if that is what they need, I think that is what they’ll get.”

The quake also left more than a million homeless and much of the capital and surrounding areas in ruins in this Caribbean nation of more than nine million.

Police said a pastor urged followers to attack the Cite Soleil ceremony. A crowd of people threw rocks at the voodoo followers. Rosemond Aristide, a police inspector in Cite Soleil, said he had spoken with the pastor, who agreed to allow voodoo ceremonies there. But he would not explain why no arrests were made.

Beauvoir claimed the Protestant Evangelicals attacked the ceremony along with other people they hired. He also accused Evangelical denominations of using aid supplies to try to “buy souls”. “I would like to see each one of them tied up in ropes and thrown in the sea, and I hope the best of them will be able to catch a plane and run away and leave in peace,” the voodoo priest said. “Because this is what we need right now – peace.” Asked whether he would encourage voodoo followers to respond with the same kind of violence, Beauvoir said he would. “They have not been aggressors,” he said of voodooists. “I think they are aggressive (attacked), and they will have to answer with the same type of aggression. I don’t mean for (Evangelicals) to die. I am not out to kill them.”

About half of Haiti’s population is believed to practice voodoo in some form, although many follow other religious beliefs at the same time. The religion – whose practitioners often use the vodou spelling – evolved out of beliefs slaves from West Africa brought to Haiti. It is now deeply rooted in Haitian culture.

A voodoo priest named Boukman has been credited with setting off the country’s slave rebellion in the late 18th century, which led to the creation of the world’s first black republic. But Evangelicals have been making inroads lately. One Evangelical priest in the middle-class Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville claimed more than 200 people came to his church to convert after the January 12 quake.

“They say that God struck the country,” said Sainvoyus Raymond of the First Baptist Church of Petionville, adding that some converts were previously voodooists. Raymond, however, condemned the attack in Cite Soleil, saying violence should not be condoned and anyone was free to worship in whatever way they chose. Raymond said the disaster was God’s response to all evil in Haiti, including violence and kidnapping.

Beauvoir said the government had brought the earthquake onto itself by denying the country’s roots in favour of the beliefs and habits of “settlers”, referring to Haiti’s colonial past.

The attack halted a ceremony meant to honor victims of last month’s earthquake. Voodoo believers gathered in a seaside slum where thousands of earthquake survivors are living in tents and depending on food aid. Praying and singing, the group was trying to conjure spirits to guide lost souls when a crowd of evangelicals started shouting.

Some threw rocks while others urinated on Voodoo symbols. When police left, the crowd destroyed the altars and Voodoo offerings of food and rum. Religious tension has increased since the earthquake and some Voodoo practitioners say they’ve converted to Christianity, fearing that the quake was a warning from God or that they’ll lose out on the aid they need to survive.