Haiti after the earthquake, a FORUM event, Feb 1st, 2010. From left to right: Mary Jo Bane, Prof. Ricardo Hausmann, the Hon. Marie St. Fleur, Dr. Allen S. Counter, the Hon. Linda Dorcena Forry. photo by Nadya Peek.
A forum at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government invited prominent Harvard faculty and Massachusetts State representatives involved with Haiti, aid and reform to discuss Haiti after the earthquake. A brief summary:
Dr. Allen S. Counter is the director of the Harvard Foundation, works as a neurophysiologist at Mass General Hospital and has travelled to Haiti twice since the earthquake. With a team of Harvard Medical School faculty, he brought basic medical supplies to Haiti to try to help in any way he can. He represents the amazing help Haiti is getting right now- help with figuring out how to deal with the disaster.
State representatives Marie St. Fleur and Linda Dorcena Forry are Haitian-Americans in the Massachusetts House. They are less involved with the immediate aid, but question how Haiti, a troubled country to start with, is going to be able to rebuild itself now that its infrastructure has been destroyed. Marie St. Fleur hopes that 200 thousand Haitians will not have died in vain, but that we can use this momentum to fundamentally rebuild Haiti. The Haitian government itself needs to function to be able to create a sustainable future for Haiti, and they need to start reform now. How this is going to be done in the short term is still a bit of a chicken and egg problem.
Finally, Ricardo Hausmann, director of Harvard’s Center of International Development, started wondering about the economic future for Haiti, and where jobs can come from in the short term. He stressed that Haiti was only part of the island of Hispaniola, and that the more well-faring Dominican Republic was going to have to be studied closer to figure out how to deal with Haiti. He pointed to short term opportunities in garment manufacturing– perhaps how to kickstart the Haitian economy. The idea of sweatshop jobs saving Haiti was not met with a particularly enthusiastic response.
Watch the full event online here: http://www.iop.harvard.edu/Multimedia-Center/All-Videos/Haiti-After-the-Earthquake
