Sybellah:
lol dude? I am study hard to become spanky rich and go back there to invest and create a few jobs,this would be my contribution to civ
I want to create a blog about political issues in africa however i dun have much time, ya wanna help with this? u seem quite knowledgeable

I can help you build a website/blog and register it if you can update it regularly by yourself, I'm too busy for that atm...

bermuda1:
Most of the ones with mainly English (Scottish) names were usually those who came via Sierra Leone. They could have been people repatriated from the UK, USA or Jamaica or people who were freed from slave ships and taken to freetown Sierra leone

These are names like Macaulay, Crowther, Johnson, Babbington, Williams (Sapara), Dove-Edwin, Garrick, Thomas, Taylor etc

One notable difference is while the Afro brazillians were mainly artisans, the Saros went into the clergy and education.

I hear that...

shymexx:

I can help you build a website/blog and register it if you can update it regularly by yourself, I'm too busy for that atm...

Yup me neither, plus i have to gather loads of info on other countries cuz i am only well informed about CIV issues, and about Libya to some extent.
I ll probably have more time next summer to put this in application, and when i ll be ready i ll let u know

Sybellah:

Yup me neither, plus i have to gather loads of info on other countries cuz i am only well informed about CIV issues, and about Libya to some extent.
I ll probably have more time next summer to put this in application, and when i ll be ready i ll let u know

Just hit me up when you're ready...

shymexx:

Just hit me up when you're ready...

Good! Very good. Soon it will be visa free to Haiti been citizens of Nigeria.

What will they gain from joining a useless union like African union? It will do absolutely nothing for them.
What did the African union do when oyinbo men enter African with planes and bombs,kill an African leader (ghaddafi- a former african union leader) and loot the resources in the country. Did the african leaders in the African union not just say 'yes sir, no problem' to their slave masters? Only Jacob Zuma was trying to do something, but the other mumu African union leaders had been warned by Hilary not to get involved or else they will stop foreign aid.

AU and HAITI a case of two blind men leading themselves, Africa is a sleeping continent

Haiti is a very poor country. What contribution would it make to the AU?

SO WILL THEY TRAVELL FROM THEIR CONTINENT TO AFRICA TO PLAY THE AFRICAN NATIONS CUP IF THEY QUALIFY? I JUST WONDER

trent9002: Haiti is a very poor country. What contribution would it make to the AU?

A huge contribution, Haiti has larger oil reserves than Venezuela (read article below)

Source: http://www.worldoil.com/haiti_could_have_larger_oil_reserves_than_venezuela.html

Lmao what a funny and mockery news. Hola at me when Trinidad and Tobago join African Union

The country is very pathetic (sorry to say) its becoming fast uninhabitable. This movement might prove positive if the haitians can consider migrating if the situation becomes overwhelming. being hit with all sorts of natural disasters can not be part of life

^^^^^^^^migrating wher u dey craze? it certainly WONT be Africa.

thy are not in Africa....dumb and worthless move anyway

Haiti Joins African Union, yet there's no sugar in my garri.

Suny Bobo, I thank you for that wonderful news which you brought to my awareness, well I just signed up now not quite long meaning I am new member to you Nairaland forum, and I will also use this time to congratulate you new female S U G president, may are days belong, I will highly like to be very current with you guys for I am personally having a similar vision of the great step which Haiti has taken, I belong to solidarity group here in Denmark and the motive is possitive and relatively to what we are facing in Africa, I shall expain in details when next I visit you web. Mean while there are some write up to this effect I shall sent when ready. Please keep Nig. a great nation I thank you all.

OSD OMOREGBE

Idi-Amin:
What will they gain from joining a useless union like African union? It will do absolutely nothing for them.
What did the African union do when oyinbo men enter African with planes and bombs,kill an African leader (ghaddafi- a former african union leader) and loot the resources in the country. Did the african leaders in the African union not just say 'yes sir, no problem' to their slave masters? Only Jacob Zuma was trying to do something, but the other mumu African union leaders had been warned by Hilary not to get involved or else they will stop foreign aid.

Totally agree with that piont.

France and US lied to get AU including Nigerian and South African support for a no fly zone over Libya then did a u-turn and bomb the country.

The AU has a new leader who is not particulary liked by France and its former african colonies because of her stance on foreign interference on the continent. I just hope that there will be a change on the continent especially the puppet AU member states.

The reason why most african nations remain poor and the disfunctional AU is because most countries are still corrupt and rely on AID an this cannot get out of there begging bowl syndrome that's why western powers use africa as a training ground for there newly built military hardware.

Haiti was the first black nation that gained its freedom from its colonial masters yet its today the poorest of all. The problem with Haiti is its link to France and the looting of the countries taxes by politicians(not different from african all countries).

I don't see what they can gain from the AU cause they certaintly won't contribute other then being another basket-case

I agree with Idi Amin (above) that Haiti has nothing to benefit from the African Union. The African Union is a stooge and a beggar before the same Western powers that raped and abandoned the Haitians.What were the African Union leaders doing when the Western powers invaded Libya and toppled the government of a fellow African leader whose economy ranks among the best on the continent? Because Ghaddafi did not allow transition from monarchy to democracy? In which of the African nations is democracy working? Haiti has come because it has no choice. Now that it has come, we wait to see what the AU will do to give them the support they need.

Hello my people, I strongly believe that if African can come together there will be crisis in the Europe zone, I like people that say some thing the way it is, it is not time for we to start discouraging ourselves we should do some thing more better than that, it clear to the world that every black man you see around the world is from Africa, Africanism is gradually take place if Haiti can come back home that means some of our lost black brothers and sister can also one day come back home, African! it is time for we to stand up and let reation be our motive of attack we have being seating down for so long and we have being fooling around for too long, how long are we go to stand aside waltching the evile and devlish African leaders mis-leading us by force while we kept on smiling and surfring full with fear while the leader are fearless, I stand to tell you, we African are the only people that can fight against this mennes no body around the world should we expect to help us for those one belived we can take cear of ourselve, let me give reference to two people`s write-up like; Papilo and Sunny bobo I believe these guys knows the need of coming together as all Africans as one, together we can.

Well like I said before I shall send our write-up when the time is due, for we are putting things together to see how many people that really wnat Africa to be a better place for our childre.

Welcome back home !

cheddarking: What does Haiti have to offer Africa?
What does the African Union have to offer Haiti?

This is just criminally minded black leaders banding together to optimize theft efficiency...

Game must always recognize game...

true.
there should be a caribbean union instead.

cheddarking: What does Haiti have to offer Africa?
What does the African Union have to offer Haiti?

This is just criminally minded black leaders banding together to optimize theft efficiency...
Game must always recognize game...

You certainly know why you are upset by the lack of vision of our crooked african leaders. But on the other hand let's not forget the fact that as crooked as european leaders are,they agree to work against us at the international level.

why are people so dumb? haiti the poorest country? is this not the same haiti that just discovered vast amounts of crude oil recently? and who is that fool who says haitians say they originate from dahomey?

HAITIANS ARE GOOD PEOPLE I MET SOME RECENTLY AND THE SECURITY GUARDS OF MY SCHOOL ARE HAITIANS, I SWEAR THOSE PEOPLE REALLY FANCY AFRICANS,AND RESPECT US, THEY VALUE OUR CULTURES, THEREFORE I SOLELY DELETE MY FIRST COMMENT ON THIS THREAD ....WELCOME HOME HAITIANS <WELCOME HAITI HOPE YOU WILL HAVE FUN.
FURTHERMORE WE GUYS SHOULDN'T FORGET THAT THEY WERE THE FIRST TO MAKE A REVOLUTION AND START FIGHTING AGAINST WHITE OPPRESSION .KUDO AND RESPECT TO THE HAITIANS PEOPLE, I JUST WISH THEY HAD BETTER NEIGHBORS BECAUSE DOMINICANS ARE JUST AZZHOLE

Let's hope haitians are not bring General Raoul Cedras with them, we have enough coup leaders in power already


[img]http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSl4r8oB9H3gVO42GDcLN4VznfWS-ktO5aF3i8EbpwyGOUDNz2nxg[/img]
General Raoul Cedras. Read more @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_C%C3%A9dras

[b]news & info .....


River of Haitians march to stop the attacks on former President Aristide and the Lavalas movement

Friday, January 11, 2013 0:50


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxqsoJ-ddg4

[In this video, titled “Une Grande Confrontation Inevitable,” the crowd is initially shown protesting on Jan. 9 outside the Port au Prince courthouse. From 2:47 minutes in, they begin to march to President Aristide’s home, harassed by the police as thousands more join in along the way. – ed.]

Not well reported by the mainstream media, on Wednesday, Jan. 9, there were MASSIVE demonstrations throughout Haiti to support former President Aristide, who the Martelly-Lamothe government summoned to court on frivolous and specious charges his supporters see as political persecution. People came out in huge numbers in Port au Prince, Cap Haitian, Gonaives, Central Plateau, Hinche, Les Cayes, other cities and even in the Island of La Gonave to tell the government that putting Aristide on trial is the same as putting the Haitian masses on trial.

Apparently the people flowing into the streets forced Martelly Prosecutor Lucmane Delille to back-peddle on his court summons, calling Aristide to beseech him not to leave home, saying Delille would come to his house to meet with him and his lawyers.

Many folks who took to the streets yesterday indicated that even if shot down or killed by the U.N. or police, they will not allow the “internationals” to escape accountability for the theft of over $7 billion in charity dollars meant for homeless earthquake victims. Three years after the earthquake, Haitians will not be distracted by the “Aristide-is-corrupt-and-without-support” card to prolong the corruption and tyranny. “2013 will not be the same as 2004,” the year of the coup that forced Aristide into exile, they say. – Ezili Danto, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN), Jan. 10, 2013

by the Haiti Action Committee



Supporters of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide chant and display signs outside the courthouse in Port au Prince on Wednesday, Jan. 9. When they learned that the prosecutor, Lucmane Delille, had gone to Aristide’s home to question him, a river of tens if not hundreds of thousands of people marched to his home, surrounding it protectively as they had when he returned to Haiti. – Photo: Swoan Parker, Reuters

It is nearly two years since the joyous return of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, his wife and colleague Mildred Trouillot, and their two daughters to their homeland of Haiti. Tens of thousands of people followed President Aristide’s car as it drove through the streets to his home and then climbed over the walls to continue an emotional and heart-felt greeting for Haiti’s first democratically elected president. In his speech at the airport, President Aristide focused on education and the importance of inclusion for all Haitians in the process of restoring democracy.

Since his return, President Aristide has done exactly what he promised to do – reopen the University of the Aristide Foundation’s Medical School. On Sept. 26, 2011, the medical school once again opened its doors – this time to a new group of 126 future Haitian doctors. Seven years after the school’s forced closure by the U.S.-orchestrated coup in 2004 and four months after the return of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti, medical education resumed at UNIFA. Just this fall, UNIFA began accepting candidates for a new nursing school. And this is just the beginning of a determined initiative to improve health care for all Haitians, particularly critical with the ravages of the cholera epidemic sweeping the country.

Yet President Aristide is again under attack. He has been summoned to appear in court this Wednesday, Jan. 9, as part of an investigation into Lafanmi Selavi, a home for street children that Aristide organized in 1986. Some former residents of the home now claim that Aristide owes them money, among other unfounded and fabricated charges. The prosecutor in this current investigation was a key member of the GNB, the right-wing network that helped direct the 2004 coup against Aristide’s democratically elected government.



Thousands surround the home of former President Aristide – affectionately called Titid by the people – while he is questioned by prosecutor Lucmane Delille. – Photo: Swoan Parker, Reuters

This court summons is the latest twist in the continuing campaign to undermine both President Aristide and his political party, Fanmi Lavalas. Twenty-one pro-Lavalas activists and musicians have been jailed without charges since Dec. 16 after taking part in a demonstration commemorating the 22nd anniversary of President Aristide’s election in 1990. This was followed by a court summons to seven Lavalas grassroots leaders and activists for speaking out against the arrest of the 21. And now the court summons President Aristide.

This is no surprise. The Haitian government of Michel Martelly came to power after a staged “election” in which Fanmi Lavalas, the most popular political party in Haiti, was banned from participation. Martelly has embraced Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, the brutal former dictator, who lives freely in Haiti and has just been granted a diplomatic passport. Human rights organizations estimate that Duvalier and his father, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, ordered the deaths of 20,000 to 30,000 Haitian citizens during their 29-year rule. While Duvalier has been “cleared” by the Haitian government of human rights charges, Aristide and the Lavalas movement remain targeted.

Enough is enough. We call on the Haitian government to withdraw the summons against President Aristide and to free the 21 activists now jailed in Haiti. We also call on the United Nations occupying forces in Haiti and the U.S. State Department to cease their attacks against President Aristide and the Lavalas movement.

How you can help

Contact the following officials:

Minister of Justice and Public Security Jean Renel Sanon, 18 avenue Charles Summer, Port-au-Prince, Haïti, secretariat.mjsp@yahoo.com (Salutation: Monsieur le Ministre/Dear Minister)

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, United Nations, New York, NY 10017 USA, (212) 963-5012, fax (212) 963-7055, ecu@un.org

Haiti - The crisis, 3 years on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxNngJmXuhQ

Speak out against the Red Cross on the third anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti on Friday, Jan. 11, 4:30-5:30 p.m., outside Red Cross headquarters, 3901 Broadway, near MacArthur BART, Oakland

To mark the third anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Haiti, actions in a number of countries are calling the U.S. government and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) on their rape and pillage of Haiti.

Tens of thousands of people have been demonstrating in Haiti for months. Three years after the earthquake, despite billions donated by a generous public, hundreds of thousands of people are still struggling to survive in tent cities, surrounded by rubble. They are still without clean water or food security or income, still fighting the cholera imported by U.N. troops. And now they face the further devastation of Hurricane Sandy, which destroyed 70 percent of the crops – though only its impact on the U.S. got publicity. See “Disastrous Relief“ in the London Guardian.

Haiti has more NGOs per square mile than any other country in the world, yet it is the most impoverished in the Western Hemisphere. The NGOs have stolen millions intended for earthquake survivors. And joining in the stealing, the corrupt Martelly government, put there by the U.S., represses the mass protests of a people who refuse to be defeated.
Global Women's Strike 'Stop NGO Pillage' rally London 050112

Global Women’s Strike protested NGO corruption in Haiti with a “Stop NGO Pillage” rally in London May 1, 2012

We chose the 11th for the rally rather than the 12th, the actual anniversary of the earthquake, because the Red Cross offices will be closed Saturday.

Some of us spoke out outside the London Red Cross in May 2012. It was one of the biggest beneficiaries of public donations: at least $479 million to the U.S. Red Cross alone – whose CEO earns $600,000 a year. Hardly any of these millions have reached the survivors. Instead the Red Cross is using some of it to build a luxury hotel and conference center in Haiti. We must protest this grand theft. See http://globalwomenstrike.net/content/protest-red-cross-theft-haiti.

Western governments and NGOs have used natural disasters as their opportunity to destroy Haiti’s agriculture and impose sweatshops. At this moment almost everywhere in the world there seems no limit to the plunder by the elites. The burden and the trauma are falling especially on women – the first carers, the poorest and the hardest workers – the main breadwinners in 70 percent of Haitian families. In protesting the rape of Haiti, we refuse the rip-off we are suffering everywhere by the same elite.

What you can do:

Bring your networks to the speakout.
Circulate this call widely. Even those who don’t come will be informed.
Contact your local media, especially radio stations.
Invite a GWS speaker to your school, college, community center, church or organization.
Pledge a regular donation to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, www.haitiemergencyrelief.org. HERF is led by Haitians and every bit goes to those it is intended for, particularly women’s self-help survival initiatives and food co-operatives – there is no overhead.

Visit the Haiti Action Committee at www.haitisolidarity.net and on Facebook. The vigil is called by Global Women’s Strike (GWS) and Women of Color in the GWS and endorsed by the Haiti Action Committee. To contact GWS, call (415) 626-4114 or email sf@allwomencount.net.

Related Posts

Resistance to Martelly regime grows in Haiti
Protest Red Cross theft of Haitian relief on third earthquake anniversary
UPDATE: Haitians protect Aristide from attack on Lavalas
Pierre Labossiere on Haiti: ‘This is criminal’
UN capitalizing on cholera, playing both arsonist and fireman

2013-01-11 00:45:21

Source: http://sfbayview.com/2013/river-of-haitians-march-to-stop-the-attacks-on-president-aristide-and-the-lavalas-movement/

http://beforeitsnews.com/african-american-news/2013/01/river-of-haitians-march-to-stop-the-attacks-on-president-aristide-and-the-lavalas-movement-2445542.html




[/b]

progress report .....


Three years after Haiti earthquake, loss of hope, desperation

By Jacqueline Charles

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/08/3173715/three-years-after-haiti-earthquake.html

The narrow corridor home deep inside the mountain was supposed to be a new beginning, a place where Alexandra Simin could have a fresh shot at life after nearly two years of sleeping on a dirt floor in a fetid tent city.

But 14 months after trading in her small tent for the one-room cinder block shack in the hillside slum called “Jalousie” or Jealousy, the mother of two and survivor of Haiti’s catastrophic Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake was again without a home.

“I always thought that after a year things would be easier; there would be jobs in the country and I could find work,” said Simin, 25, as she faced her second eviction in as many months.

“I really thought life would have gotten better.”

Three years after the monstrous 7.0 quake, and a year after the Haitian government, with help from the international community, began emptying the most visible tent cities and returning dwellers to neighborhoods, the number of displaced quake victims living on public plazas and roadways has dropped significantly.

But in a little-noticed consequence of the removals, many have been forced to return to the capital’s teeming slums. That’s a far cry from what the Haitian government and the international community, which has spent billions here, promised in the quake’s aftermath — to create jobs, build homes and construct a “new Haiti.”

The situation has caused some in the international community to question whether the focus should have been creating jobs rather than housing.

“You’re not going to get a nice housing estate even in a poor area by creating jobs because people will put up what they like and make decisions about how they use their money,’’ said Nigel Fisher, who heads the United Nation’s humanitarian operations in Haiti. “But in the end, at least, they are not being dependent. They are making their own decisions. I think that’s really important. It’s something we missed.”

In trying to rebuild, Simin and other former tent dwellers say stitching back their tattered lives is proving to be as elusive as the lofty promises. They say little has changed since the quake as poverty deepens, reconstruction stalls, political paralysis take root and cholera and chronic disasters become the norm.

“The country is becoming more and more difficult to live in,” said Simin, sitting outside a friend’s one-room home, where she sleeps on the floor with her two children. “We haven’t seen change. People have problems with food, problems with schools, problems with housing. Once you have a problem with finding a place to sleep, you just might as well just die. There’s no living.”

Simin and others say it’s clear that neither the government nor the international community had a plan for what would happen to them once they left the tent cities. Their growing sense of despair comes as the aid groups that flooded Haiti in the aftermath either cut programs or leave as funds dry up — and as half of the promised $5.3 billion in donor pledges remain outstanding.

Meanwhile, Haiti is facing even tougher economic times, according to a recent evaluation by the International Monetary Fund: rising food prices have helped increase inflation almost 2 percent since June to 6.8 percent; the forecast growth in gross domestic product, once projected at 7.8 percent, is now down to 2.5 percent because of the government’s slow execution of public projects; and a spring drought followed by two storms this hurricane season created more than $170 million in crop losses and put an additional 1.5 million Haitians in danger of hunger.

“In a sense, you are no longer talking about the earthquake, you are talking about poverty,” said Fisher, about the ongoing challenges being faced by those leaving the camps. “We are talking about the dearth of resources for taking on the transformation of a country, which has very poor infrastructure, which has most people living in poverty.”

“Even the people in the camps: Why are they there? It’s because they don’t have any alternatives. They don’t have jobs,” Fisher said. “This whole issue: Do you build houses or can you use that money to create jobs so that people can make their own choices, I’ve come more and more to think … shouldn’t we be focusing on jobs?”

Before the quake, Pauline Louis and her husband Wilbert Jean-Louis scraped a living on his carpentry skills and her sidewalk sales of stylish, secondhand American clothes known as pepe. The money wasn’t much but it was just enough to keep a roof over their heads and care for Louis’ two children from a previous relationship.

These days, even pepe is hard to find.

“Some days you go downtown to buy the ‘pepe’ and you return just as you left — empty-handed,” said Louis, 37.

Even Jean-Louis’ hand-made wooden china cabinets and delicately crafted headboards, which sold before the quake, sit for months on a sidewalk along a busy Petionville street.

“There is no money in the streets; no activity. The country is broke,” he said one recent afternoon, carving a flower on a new headboard at the nameless sidewalk workshop.

For months, the couple have been struggling, trying to come up with the $325 to keep their tiny one-room apartment, also in the Jalousie slum, for another year. Initially, the owner asked $625 but Louis, a tough negotiator, got him to drop his price.

FROM TENT TO SLUM, A TRANSFER OF STRESS

The place isn’t much. There’s a small cooking area off the main room where the couple eat, sleep and receive visitors. The inside walls are painted pink; a wall unit, made by Jean-Louis, holds an old model 13-inch television and a few stuffed animals while another is stacked with ceramic dishes and cups. The couple’s twin bed doubles as a couch.

Jean-Louis’ 22-year-old brother, Gerald, and Louis’ 6-year-old cousin, Tracey, whom she recently took in after the girl’s parents died, also live with them — along with the family’s pet cat.

The living conditions are far different from tent living, Louis said. But with no steady income, and only the goodwill of her landlord keeping a roof over their heads, she wonders whether she would have been better with a job instead of the house.

“We were happy when [the International Organization for Migration] came to remove us. We were living under stress,” she said. “But what I see is that we’ve traded one stress for another stress.”

Francois Desruisseaux, IOM’s program manager for camp management, said surveys showed that while living in the camps, people considered shelter as their main priority. But after relocating to neighborhoods, shelter soon becomes a fourth priority. Finding a job, followed by food and education, become their top concerns.

While the average camp resident received $500 in rental subsidy, they also received an additional $150 for moving and other expenses to help them out.

“Considering many Haitians make barely $2 a day, this can represent close to five months’ salary for some,” Desruisseaux said. “We believe the rental subsidy is a much better situation than living in a camp and returning [homeless quake victims] to their pre-earthquake environment; in some cases in a better situation than they were prior to the earthquake.”

After IOM paid the $437 to her new landlord for a year’s rent, Simin invested the rest. She bought $37.50 in candy to resell in hopes of having money come in. She also paid $50 toward her daughters’, ages 5 and 8, school fees. But three months later, school administrators sent the girls home after she failed to come up with the remaining $275, Simin said. Days after Christmas, she hit rock bottom again: the friend and fellow quake victim whom she had temporarily moved in with was packing her things to move out on New Year’s Day after also being unable to renew her lease. “If she leaves, I have no choice but to also leave,” said Simin, who recently moved in with another friend, also living in Jalousie.

An ongoing IOM-led evaluation of returnees won’t be finalized until the end of this month. But preliminary results involving 500 families show that all remain in “some sort of accommodations.” In many cases though, they have either doubled up, moved back in with families or found cheaper housing, those familiar with the survey said.

Those involved in the government’s rebuilding efforts, particularly President Michel Martelly’s relocation and revitalization of six camps attached to 16 neighborhoods, say progress has been made.

In the last few months, the government has opened a state university and industrial park in the north, where it also unveiled a new asphalt runway to accommodate large carriers. The quake-damaged National Palace was finally demolished, and Haiti celebrated the opening of a new international airport arrival lounge and a privately-financed luxury hotel in the capital.

The number of homeless quake residents, which peaked at 1.5 million shortly after the disaster left more than 300,000 dead, has dropped to 347,284 as of December, IOM said.

Since the government launched its returnee program in 2011, some 635,322 people have been helped by the international community to move out of the camps through either rental subsides, transitional shelters or home repairs, IOM said.

“We know there are still camps, but as you drive on a regular day you don’t see much camps,” said Clement Belizaire, director of the government’s camp relocation and neighborhood rehabilitation program who puts the number of quake homeless at 290,000. “The first priority of the government was public squares; the second was schools and then sports infrastructures. We cleared all the major public structures; we cleared all the major sports infrastructures; we cleared all of the major schools.”

‘DISASTER TAKES US BACK TO ZERO’

But with 450 camp sites still dotting Haiti’s hilly terrain, challenges remain. Tackling them, humanitarians say, requires Haiti to not only prioritize and put in strong, accountable government institutions, but to make the transition from short-term humanitarian aid to more sustainable development.

“You cannot continue to implement stopgap measures to deal with specific short-term issues,” said George Ngwa, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs here. “Haiti goes from one emergency to another. Every time it appears, we are making progress. A disaster takes us back to zero — or minus.”

Before the quake, Jean Guerrier Sanon lived with two of his sisters in Port-au-Prince and got by with help from his parents, rural farmers who paid his school fees with the earnings from their beans, yam and banana plantations in the outskirts of Jeremie. After the quake, everyone went their separate ways including him. He took up residence inside a tent on the Champ de Mars, the public square of Haitian independence heroes in front of the now razed presidential palace.

With the lease on the bedroom he rented for $500-a-year inside a private home up next month, Sanon said he’s running out of options. He has been unable to find a job, and any hope of having his parents help out, he said, was washed away in October when Hurricane Sandy left their crops in ruin.

Moving in with any of his eight brothers and sisters, isn’t an option either, he said. “You’re 27 years old, and not working. Even if they used to help you out, it’s not easy to be sitting up in their house doing nothing,” he said.

Looking out at the now empty Champ de Mars from his doorway, Sanon said its clearing was a “big victory” but bittersweet. “Once they uprooted us,” he said, “they should have turned and look back.”