I came across a youth art program run by a community clinic called the Association for the Promotion of Family Integrated Health (APROSIFA). Beverly Bell reports in today’s Huffington Post: “APROSIFA’s youth art program began in 2009 in a couple of cement-block rooms in the back of the clinic. A few professional artists donated their time to teach. Today, 68 youth from ages 8 to early 20s are painting and sculpting. A few of the youth who began learning two years ago are now teaching the others.”

This is so wonderful to learn about, and while I’m certainly prone to negative visceral reactions to anecdotal stories as proxies for success, even I have a weakness for this sort of messaging. This quote is from 22-year-old art student Islande Henry. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was her muse as she prepared for an art show in Port-au-Prince last month.

To me, CEDAW is a beautiful thing. It speaks to the restavèk [child slavery] system and how those kids have no rights. It speaks to violence against women, and how women are mistreated in society, and how there are so many things they can’t do from serving in Parliament to playing ball.

Our artwork says, ‘No! Women can do anything. Women must have access to everything this society offers.

I love the combination of social commentary, youth engagement, and using art to express ambition for a country’s future, and I wonder what opportunities there are to engage women in artful expression while waiting for a doctor’s visit…

Because it’s remarkable bordering on absurd, let’s take a minute to walk through the past two months in Haitian democracy. On November 28th, 18 candidates lined up and the Haitian people were asked to choose who would succeed Mr. Preval as the country’s president. According to the Haitian electoral process, in order to win outright, one of the candidates would have had to win a majority vote, which – with that spread – was never going to happen. So, the top two vote-earning candidates were announced and would go on to a run-off election on January 16.

When the results of the first round were announced on Dec 7, the process suffered its first set-back (second if we’re including all the fraud on Nov 28, but that’s details, details). Mirlande Manigat, former first lady, won the plurality with 31% and so advanced to the runoff, which apparently no one was especially offended by. In second, Mr. Preval’s party’s candidate and son-in-law, Jude Celestin, provoked a significantly more heated reaction: Unité – Preval’s party – is unpopular these days, mostly because it has demonstrated little productivity in the twelve months since the earthquake and represents the status quo of a depressed economy, widespread sickness and abject poverty. Not an especially strong platform for Celestin to run on, and yet he found himself in the run-off as the second-most successful candidate. Michelle Martelly, a popular Haitian musician known for cross-dressing and exposing himself on stage, came in third by a 1% margin. This is the man most Haitians say they prefer to see in the runoff with Manigat. Take a leap of faith and just believe me on this.

In response to outrage about Celestin beating out Martelly, the OAS conducted a third-party evaluation of the results, somehow without actually doing a recount (I don’t portend to have all the answers. This makes as little sense to you as it does to me). Their recommendation was sent in something of a white paper to Mr. Preval last week and, in paraphrase: a change of position in the ranking of the second and third candidates in the list published during the preliminary results should be considered. In effect, they recommended that Preval pull his candidate from the race. Who wants to take the over-under on the odds of this working out (it’s a binary betting system…)?

The case now lies in the hands of the CEP – the Provisional Electoral Council (also appointed by Mr. Preval) – who will announce the path forward early next week.

Needless to say, the runoff election date – January 16 – came and went this weekend, and Haitians are no closer to a new regime. Meanwhile, Mr. Preval has announced he won’t abdicate on Feb 7, which he’s constitutionally required to do but admittedly doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when there’s no successor. And, it gets better…

January 16 wasn’t a total wash. While Haiti didn’t get any closer to identifying the new head of state, it did welcome back an old favorite: Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier who ruled Haiti from 1971-86 as more of a playboy, profligate, and despot than as a man in any way concerned about Haitian development.. although- notably – he was a step up from his father’s (“Papa Doc”) legitimate insanity. Focus on the little victories.

So, Baby Doc showed up at the International Airport in Port-au-Prince on Sunday and told reporters that he’s come back after 25 years of exile in France to help his country through this especially difficult time. Whatever his actual reasons were for returning (perhaps penury after a divorce settlement left him posting employment ads in a local newspaper), it’s now clear that the Haitian government is taking the opportunity to question him and decide whether to move toward a trial that seeks justice for Baby Doc’s brutal and corrupt regime. Really? One could argue that there are a few too many crises in Haiti right now, and pursuing a man for crimes committed over 25 years ago – no matter how egregious – isn’t really on what we’ll call “the critical path”. Counterpoint: some justice is better than no justice at all. Maybe, but I’m not convinced.

There’s no more closure around the Baby Doc drama than about the next steps of the electoral process, but one thing’s for sure – there’s a lot of irony flying around here. Out of the ruins of the old Duvalier torture prison, Fort Dimanche, now abandoned, grew a slum. Its residents called it Village Demokrasi. Democracy Village.

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Nearly one year after the catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti, aid organizations and donors find progress continuously slow, if at all.  The complexity of Haiti’s problems has humbled the international aid apparatus and sobered expectations for near-term progress. Having experienced first-hand Haiti’s slow road to recovery, C2C is more convinced today than ever that we must re-focus the world’s attention on our neighbor’s struggles. As we approach the disaster’s anniversary, rather than make excuses for our fatigue, it is the responsibility of those in the aid community to recommit to hope for Haiti and the possibility for improvement.

In Port-au-Prince, we’re working hand-in-hand with local institutions to provide health care to vulnerable women. We’re providing a clinical platform that has treated over 1,000 women in just several months, and we’re on track to provide treatment to over 12,000 additional patients in 2011.

And while our immediate priorities focus on Haiti, the C2C model is poised to scale to dozens of communities in multiple countries. Above all, the C2C clinical model is agile: a modular clinical facility, paired with robust capacity-building support, training for clinicians, and essential health education for patients. This is a model that works in Port-au-Prince and can work in other under-resourced areas of the world.

As an organization, we owe our successes to all those who have believed in and invested in this idea. C2C “champions” have brought their energy and creativity to bear on our growth. There are so many ways that you can continue to provide your invaluable support to C2C. Let’s begin 2011 with an optimistic and supportive eye towards Haiti.

Uncertainty around the presidential election and the pace of reconstruction is valid reason for concern. But we’re focusing our efforts on our patients and on our support for the Haitian clinicians who provide them with high-quality care.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Haitian people on this anniversary; and, for C2C, we will continue our work in Haiti by mobilizing additional clinic units in the months ahead. Please stay tuned to our website and blog – we’re keeping our content dynamic and it is the best source of news on our deployment of more C2C clinics.

Warmly,

Liz

This is stirring up a bit of heat in the green building and Haiti city planning blogospheres. From architect E. Kevin Schopfer and Tangram 3DS, this plan envisions a new Haiti to have a floating city on which people could “produce food and promote industry”. I don’t know what that last part means, but they call it Harvest City – a collection of islands for 30,000 residents based on the principle of Arcology (a mix of architecture and ecology), and “could be a key player in Haiti’s recovery”.

This seems impractical, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it.

Actually, yeah, it does. First of all: hurricane proof? I’m not convinced. Second of all, there already are islands in the Gulfe de la Gonâve. And thirdly, I’m going out on a limb here to say a community for 30,000 doesn’t even begin to respond to the critical issues of overpopulation and severely sub-standard living conditions threatening to exist in perpetuity in Port-au-Prince, with or without arcology.

Love the portmanteau, though. (Fun fact: a portmanteau is a blend of two (or more) words or morphemes and their meanings into one new word, usually combining specifically the beginning syllables of one word with the end syllables of another. e.g. arcology.)