Dominican businessmen complaining after mass depart of Haitians.
The border zone was transformed into a ghost town after Haitian migrants, harassed by a group of people after the murder of two Dominicans in the community of Tired Mercedes, left the area.
Big and small shopkeepers are all complaining about the same thing: Business has dropped sharply due to the absence of Haitian migrants who always supported the economy of the region.
Manuel Rufino Medina, of the Association of the fishermen of the Pedernales, declared that there is nothing more to do in the city, because the population depends on trade between Dominicans and Haitians.
The Dominican population does not know what to do to continue to live. Even the sale of fish has seriously slowed down, because people on the ground have no money to buy it.
Here the traders, all what sells edible products, rice, beans, oil, cans of food and all the supermarkets depend on Haitians.
The authorities of Pedernales are afraid that a crime wave will develop in the city because of the lack of jobs, since certain companies began to close their doors.
The Haitians left Pedernales because they were pursued, and made responsible for the murder of two Dominicans.
Sales in Pedernales fell more than 80%.
Why shouldn’t Haiti take advantage of this situation by hiring these people?
The private sector could create enterprises and hire these fellow countrymen who have left the Dominican Republic to return to their country and are in search of employment.
The Court of Appeals cancels Clifford Brandt's judgment
The Court of Appeals of the Republic (Haiti) canceled the judgement to be rendered against Clifford H. Brandt, Carlo Bendel Saint-Fort and Ricot Pierre-Val. It sent the case and the involved individuals back to the Criminal Court of Gonaïves, which doesn’t have a jury, to be judged there.
The accused will remain under arrest, as long as the Court of Gonaïves has not decided on their fate.
The reporter and photographer Vladjimir Legagneur hasn’t been reachable since March 14th
Port-au-Prince, Thursday, March 22nd 2018.- The 2D Kolektif has announced the disappearance of the photo-journalist Vladjimir Legagneur since March 14.
The latter had gone to do some reporting in a neighborhood of Martissant named Grrand Ravine. Since then, he has answered any of the phone calls from his wife and friends.
A missing person report was filed by his wife with the Head office of the Criminal Investigation Department (DCPJ) on Friday, March 16th, 2018. His close friends and relatives are waiting for the preliminary results of the investigation.
Vladjimir Legagneur has been photo-journalist for more than 5 years and collaborated in several printed and online media.
“Reporters Without Borders (RSF) worries about the disappearance of Vladiir Legagneur. It calls upon authorities to lead a thorough investigation on the disappearance of the photo-journalist,” declares Emmanuel Colombié, who is in charge of the Latin American office of the organization. “It is extremely disturbing that, 10 days after its disappearance, the police was able to bring no new element."
Vladjimir Legagneur left his home on March 14th at 9 am and never returned. His wife indicated her disappearance on March 16th with the Head office of the Criminal Investigation Department (DCPJ), which asserts having opened an inquiry. Without news from her husband since then, the wife of the photographer returned in the office of the DCPJ on March 22nd, without obtaining from additional information.
Haiti occupies the 53rd place on 180 countries in the Classification of the freedom of the media established by RSF in 2017.
Daphne Campbell
SB 382 Signed into Law by Governor Rick Scott on March 23, 2018
(Miami, FL) -Today is a great day for many in Senate District 38. Senate bill 382: Transportation Facility Designations was a bill that was co-introduced by Senator Campbell has been signed into law. This bill honors those individuals who have done exemplary work within the community by providing them with a specific road designation. These individuals and the streets where their names will be placed have been included below for your reference:
Joseph Emmanuel "Manno" Charlemagne Street is designated as the portion of 5th Street between Euclid Avenue and Lenox Avenue in Miami-Dade County. Mr. Charlemagne was a Haitian political folk singer, songwriter and acoustic guitarist, political activist and politician. He recorded his political chansons in both French and in Creole. He took up guitar and singing at the age of 16 where he formed a band. He later organized a youth group and choir in his old neighborhood in Carrefour, Haiti. Mr. Charlemagne died of cancer in Miami Beach, Florida on December 10, 2017 at the age of 69.
Senator Campbell is honored and extremely proud that these deserving individuals will receive this lifetime commemoration for their involvement in the community and for their genuine spirit.
This will become effective July 1, 2018.
Trump didn’t want to give Haiti $11 million for cholera. So Congress found another way
Included in the $1.3 trillion spending package that was passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump on Friday, are $10 million to help Haiti fight cholera.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, who unsuccessfully tried to get the Trump administration last year to turn over $11 million in unspent Haiti peacekeeping money to the United Nations’ cholera plan, led the charge on getting the appropriation for small, locally based projects in communities severely impacted by the deadly waterborne epidemic.
The disease has killed more than 9,000 people and sickened more than 1 million since 2010.
“What happened in Haiti was a humanitarian disaster and not something we should walk away from,” said Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “The amount we are contributing is small, but it shows that we want to help the families that were the worst affected by the cholera epidemic. It’s not enough to work only on improving access to clean water and sanitation, which we will continue to do.”
(The Miami Herald – Jacqueline Charles)
These Boots Are Made From Old Plastic Bottles Recovered In Haiti
Timberland’s latest man-boots have an interesting backstory. Their canvas-like uppers are recycled from plastic bottles picked up from the beaches of Haiti.
The outdoor apparel brand gets the material from a social impact startup named Thread, which works with about 1,300 bottle pickers in Haiti. Timberland’s four boots, which build on a previous set of Thread-infused products, range from the Men’s 6-inch Canvas(price $150) to the more sporty Newport Bay Thread Canvas Chukka Boots ($75).
Thread breaks down the bottles into flakes, heats up the mixture, then passes it through an extruder, like water passing through a showerhead. It then rolls and bales up the threads, so they can be spun into fabric. The material is like polyester–after all, PET plastic, like polyester, comes from oil.
Colleen Vien, Timberland’s sustainability director, says Thread’s material is a little more expensive than a comparable fabric. But the expense is worth it as it allows the brand to tell a compelling story about the product’s provenance (see the video above featuring three trash-pickers).
Timberland has a long association with Haiti. Working with the Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA) and the Clinton Global Initiative, it’s planted millions of trees across the island, helping farmers increase incomes and lay down sustainable seed banks. Recently, it committed to buying organic cotton from Haiti in a unique blockchain-powered project.
“It gives us an opportunity to have a conversation with our consumers that we definitely feel it’s well worth the price,” she says. “We are an outdoor company and customers expect us to do things that minimize our footprint and protect the environment. Improving people’s lives is beyond what’s expected–that’s what gets people’s attention.”BS
TIMBERLAND is Helping Rebuild Haiti’s Cotton Industry
Can using blockchain to verify cotton as organic help revive the industry in Haiti?
Haiti hasn’t grown cotton in decades. Its once-abundant industry collapsed in the 1970s due to government corruption, economic mismanagement, and U.S. embargoes. But now, thanks to a project involving thousands of smallholder farmers, apparel brands like Timberland, and a blockchain network, it could be set for a comeback. Within a few years, if all goes to plan, the island will be supplying millions of pounds of organic cotton for shoes, shirts, and other clothing sold in U.S. stores.
The Blockchain Cotton Project in Haiti is one of several around the world looking to use a distributed digital ledger for supply chain management. The same technology that tracks transactions of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can also track commodities and products as they leave fields and move through factories and distribution centers. Blockchains have the potential to boost transparency and lower the cost of authenticating the origin of products, particularly those of an organic and fair trade variety, say supply chain experts.
“The promise of blockchain is that we can trace the purchase back to the farmer and the field. That not only increases the visibility of our supply chain but also enables us to share more robust stories with our consumers,” says Atlanta McIlwraith, Timberland’s senior manager for community engagement and relations, in an interview.
The blockchain project is led by the nonprofit Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA) and isn’t the first that Timberland has been involved with on the island. Starting in 2010, Timberland, the SFA, and the Clinton Global Initiative started planting millions of trees across 19 nurseries, hoping to avert serious deforestation. They encouraged farmers to tend to the trees by offering “tree currency”: seeds, tools, and training that allow farmers to increase their own yields. The project has doubled household incomes, according to the SFA, and is now self-sustaining without corporate sponsorship. The trees produce enough seeds to create recurring seed banks, as well as food, like moringa, a “superfood” which is sold to a company in California called Kuli Kuli.
In 2015, the SFA and Timberland started exploring the idea of the brand becoming not just a sponsor of Haiti’s agriculture, but also a customer. Cotton was the obvious candidate, as it had been grown there before. “We were thinking about what sustainability looks like for smallholder farmers,” says Hugh Locke, cofounder of the SFA. “They said, ‘you know, it’s been great sponsoring you guys, but what if we became a client?’ We felt that was a better basis for sustainability in the long-run because it creates a market.”
Timberland has committed to meeting up to a third of its global cotton needs from Haiti–2,750 metric tons a year–assuming the project can meet quality and cost targets. The SFA recently planted the first cotton trees using funding from Timberland and Vans, which is part of the same retail group, VF Corporation (Patagonia has also expressed interest in being involved). Better Sourcing Program, a supply chain technology provider, and RCS Global, a supply chain advisory firm, are helping to develop the concept, along with students from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. For now, the project only involves a handful of farmers, but, once ramped up, it could see up to 17,000 onboard within five years, Locke says.
Blockchains create permanent ledgers of transactions as they occur. They are viewable and updatable by multiple parties who join together to ensure the record is accurate. As such, Locke hopes the system will help to cut the cost of certifying Haiti’s cotton as organic–for instance, proving that no pesticides were used during growing and harvesting. Rather than outside inspectors coming in and certifying farms one by one, the system will instead allow farmers to create their own consensus version of the authentication process.
“Most systems for tracking input and outputs, yields and net profit are very expensive and proprietary,” Locke tells Fast Company. “We want something open source. We’re still figuring out how the farmers do the live reporting. But we hope it will replace the normal organic or fair trade certification through a radical transparency approach.”
McIlwraith sees an opportunity in blockchain to improve the way brands talk about their products. She says many consumers want to purchase from companies that take a stand on social issues like ethical sourcing. Blockchains can open up supply chains and potentially take consumers down to the farmer level, by proving products have arrived in-store as advertised.
“Consumers want to purchase from brands that they trust and one of the things that helps build that trust with consumers is this transparency and the ability to tell stories about your product that aren’t just fizzle,” McIlwraith says. “They want real stories about real people and this helps make our products more relatable.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben Schiller is a New York staff writer for Fast Company. Previously, he edited a European management magazine and was a reporter in San Francisco, Prague, and Brussels.