Tèt Ansanm pou Yon Nouvo Ayiti

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Coalition Members

Coordinating Organizations

• Konbit Pou Ayiti/KONPAY Founded by Melinda Miles and Joe Duplan, KONPAY /Working together for Haiti has supported sustainable, Haitian-led solutions to pressing environmental, social and economic problems since 2004.  KONPAY employs a multi-faceted social justice outreach approach through coalition-building and support of environmental, women’s rights, education, and arts programs.  In the spirit of true solidarity with the Haitian people, KONPAY initiated its work by providing emergency assistance to Haitian human rights and women’s organizations in the wake of the February 2004 coup d’etat. Additionally, KONPAY supported primary education efforts for at-risk and extremely impoverished children in Port-au-Prince’s Martissant neighborhood. Since then, KONPAY has developed innovative, sustainable partnerships and has built essential bridges between grassroots leaders, national non-governmental organizations and international agencies, with a primary focus on direct assistance for environmental projects and coalition-building. Following the landmark 2007 National Environment Initiative, KONPAY launched the Haitian National Coalition for the Environment.

• Beyond Borders Founded in 1993 by Dr Tony Campolo, a sociologist, well-known Christian speaker and author, and strong social justice advocate who sought justice for the poor and liberation of the oppressed, Beyond Border’s mission is to work for justice and peace out of devotion to Christ by fostering, sharing and understanding across cultural and economic borders. We do this to make real the reconciliation and liberation that Christ proclaimed for our world. Beyond Borders has established and grown its programs over its seventeen years of outreach in Haiti, and more recently began outreach to Haitians living in the Dominican Republic. Beyond Borders programs include Campaign to End Child Servitude, Schools Alive!, Living Words, Literacy for Liberation, and Circles of Change.  Beyond Borders also offers opportunities for individuals and groups to reflectively experience through Transformational Travel and Apprenticeship in Shared Living Programs.

• Quixote Center The Quixote Center is a multi-issue social justice center that sponsors diverse programs in the areas of reforestation, women’s rights in Haiti, and promotion of just U.S. policy development.  Haiti Reborn, a program sponsored by the Quixote Center, works in the U.S. to build grassroots support for just U.S. policies toward Haiti, as well as supporting grassroots organizations in Haiti, including the reforestation program in Gros Morne, and the Commission of Women Victims for Victims (KOFAVIV) in Port-au-Prince.

Member Organizations

• Ananda Margra Universal Relief Team – AMURT Originally established in India in 1965 to respond to the needs of regularly occurring disasters on the Indian sub-continent, AMURT is one of the few private voluntary organizations of Third World origin. AMURT’s mission: to help improve the quality of life for the poor and disadvantaged people of the world, and to assist those affected by calamity and conflict.  Since its inception, AMURT has grown to encompass teams in thirty-four countries, to create a network that can meet development and disaster needs almost anywhere in the world, and, since 1985, has broadened the scope of its work to include long-term development.  AMURT’s philosophy is based on the premise that development is about human exchange aimed at helping the poor break the cycle of poverty in order to harness their own resources to meet their basic human needs.  AMURT has more than twenty years’ of relief work experience with in Haiti, and has facilitated many ongoing development projects there.

• Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group – AIDG Founded in 2005 by Peter Haas, Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG)’s mission reads: One in 3 of us, roughly 2 billion people, don’t have basic services such as electricity, sanitation and clean drinking water. Access to these services is essential to breaking the cycle of poverty in developing countries.  The Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG) helps individuals and communities get affordable and environmentally sound access to electricity, sanitation and clean water.  Through a combination of business incubation, education, and outreach, we help people get technology that will better their health and improve their lives. AIDG currently operates in Latin America and the Caribbean with offices in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala and Cap Haitien, Haiti. Through collaborative partnerships with Haitina communities and other non-profits, AIDG Haiti supports program such as AIDG COOPEN (“Coopérative pour la Promotion et l’Exploitation de l’Environnment”) and Community Latrine Project in Cap Haitian.

• Bagay Dwol Haiti Relief Fund empowers hard to reach local Haitian communities throughout the rebuilding process of Haiti with the necessary tools and resources for survival and rehabilitation. We achieve this through the on-the-ground leadership of Haitian-American Regine Zamor, who is working to bridge the gap between the communities and relief organizations and resources through community mobilization to support the fair distribution of aid, work effectively with local orphanages, support the livelihood, protection, safety, and human rights of Haitian children, organize mobile medical clinics in under served areas, and enlist local Haitian community organizers and residents in relief efforts.

• Community Coalition for Haiti – CCH Community Coalition for Haiti (CCH), an interdenominational volunteer organization, states that its mission: As a result of our faith in Christ, CCH is committed to improve the quality of life of the people of Haiti and to fulfill God’s commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves.  CCH strives to build partnerships aimed at improving opportunities for the local population to make sufficient income for food, clean water, education, shelter and healthcare.  CCH supports the goals and objectives of its partner community groups, who determine the priorities for the community’s development and support needs. CCH is devoted to serving with the people of Haiti, with special commitment to supporting Haitian efforts aimed at improving the quality of life for the people of the Northern Plateau.  CCH achieves its mission through partnerships with local community groups, such as Comite Bienfaisance de Pignon, Sonje Ayiti, Ayiti KonseVet, and cooperation with other U.S. organizations that work in Haiti.  CCH partnership areas include Community Outreach/Evangelism, Medical Missions/Healthcare, Education, Economic/Environment, Clean Water, and School Gardening/Agriculture.

• Epple Seed Arts invests in a new Haiti through her artists and artisans.  We believe that the people most implicated in any problem are those who hold the keys to their solutions.  Craft and art are powerful vehicles for expressing and revealing the heart of the Haitian people and are an important sector of Haitian life, culture and economy.  Epple Seed Arts looks for ways to nurture Haiti’s artisans, to reach appreciative audiences and markets for their work in the US, and to facilitate respectful exchanges between North American artists and activists with their counter parts in Haiti through Artists and Activists Pilgrimages of Hope in Haiti.

• Restavèk Freedom: The mission of Restavèk Freedom is to end child slavery in Haiti through offering educational opportunities for restavek children, advocating for these enslaved children, and raising global awareness about the complex situation of the restavek system in Haiti.

• Fondasyon Limyè Lavi (Light of Life Foundation) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to eradicating the resatvek system of childhood slavery in Haiti. Its approach is rooted in the power of grassroots social change through community dialogue.  This organization is working toward building a national grassroots movement against the restavek system. Since the January 12th earthquake, this organization has partnered with other groups to provide humanitarian aid, has helped to mobilize emergency child protection and trafficking prevention programs, and has begun the work of supporting the partners’ in their rebuilding efforts.

• Haitian Sustainable Development Foundation The Haitian Sustainable Development Foundation (HSDF) Mission is to commit to progressively advancing opportunities in sustainably developing communities throughout Haiti. Our non-profit was formed in 2004 by return Haiti Peace Corps Volunteers that made a commitment to continuing the small community development work that we swore on oath to uphold when we became Peace Corps volunteers.  HSDF strives to empower independent, democratically-conscious communities. By allowing the communities to come up with their own projects we give them the confidence and skills needed to finish projects with little outside aid, other than material support and educational seminars on group leadership. HSDF’s philosophy is to allow communities to develop their own projects,  to motivate through collaboration, knowledge-sharing and skill-building.  We maintain close contact with the communities and their projects. HSDF’s main programs have included Permaculture, School Programs and Cultural Exchange through working with artist cooperatives and youth groups.  Our work has been focused in Ferye, Miragoine and Jacmel.

• Health Empowering Humanity The mission of Health Empowering Humanity (HEH) is to empower people by facilitating access to health through community-based programs of clinical services, education, and development.  We will be the premier comprehensive, sustainable, replicable model throughout the developing world.  HEH roots its work in the following four guiding principles: promote health as a basic human right; develop quality community-based health programs; meet needs with resources; Mobilize individuals, organizations, and foundations to support our work.  In collaboration with grassroots organizations, HEH programs are present in Haiti’s Nord Department, just southwest of Cap Haitian, as well as in Haute Guinaudee, Basse Guinaudee and part of Ravine a Charles in the rural commune of Jérémie.

• Honor and Respect Foundation Established in 2007, Honor and Respect Foundation (HRF) aims to raise awareness and financial support for Haitian grassroots groups that are dedicated to achieving social justice, universal education, participatory democracy and economic self-sufficiency.  Rather than create relationships of dependence, HRF endeavors to assist Haitians who are empowering themselves to strengthen their communities and their country. HRF strives to establish alliances of mutual respect and solidarity with Haitian social movements committed to promoting voluntary and cooperative ways of organizing. HRF supports several specific programs envisioned by and carried out by grassroots groups in the poorest neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince: School Creation and Support, Kreyol Literacy Acquisition, Nutrition through School Lunch Program, and a Scholarship Fund.

• Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti The Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), and its U.S.-based affiliate, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), have 14 years of demonstrated success building the rule of law and supporting democracy in Haiti. The organizations employ four program tools: impact litigation, human rights documentation, grassroots advocacy, & capacity building. Successes include spearheading the Raboteau Massacre trial, one of the most important human rights cases in the Americas, and Yvon Neptune v. Haiti, the only Haiti case decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

• International Action Ties is a grassroots community development organization aimed at addressing the root causes of poverty by working towards structural change and community mobilization. IAT works together with marginalized and underserved communities to design and implement minimal exterior-input community based infrastructure development programs. Through the provision of field mobilizers, who work directly alongside community members, IAT’s efforts address the interdependent areas of Education, Environment, Public Health, Social Equities, and Livelihoods. IAT has been working in rural Haiti since 2007, primarily in the Nippes Region, Petite Riviere de Nippes.

• Kledèv – Empowering Economic Development in Haiti:   In Haiti, now more than ever, people struggle each day as a way of life. They struggle from lack of access to basic resources and few opportunities to improve their situations, and from the way things have “always been.” Kledèv works with people in Haiti to envision, nurture and empower a brighter, more prosperous future, beyond the struggle.  Before the January 12, 2010 earthquake, the result of Kledèv is already a growing group of Haitians and Americans working together to develop ideas that fit the lives Haitians said they wanted and needed to live. How we do that is by listening, and by developing inspired leadership to empower communities to make noticeable differences for themselves with whatever they are dealing with.  In light of what is happening in the wake of the quake, the circumstances are deeper than ever, but our commitment and vision remain unchanged.We will continue to create programs that combine providing much-needed basic services NOW with a future vision for creating new infrastructures that support life and attract sustainable commerce. By designing and building structures from the envisioned future, and maintaining mechanisms for supporting daily life, Haitians can break through their current circumstances of hardship – even those caused by the earthquake. By growing our programs to include people currently left out, including children, and by fostering creative partnerships with organizations that have projects that are already working in specific areas (like members of this coalition), our promise is to bring forth a life beyond the struggle for people in Haiti, now and in the future.

• Lambi Fund of Haiti Founded in 1994 by Haitians, Haitian-Americans, and North Americans, the Lambi Fund of Haiti provides financial resources, training and technical assistance to peasant-led community organizations that promote the social and economic empowerment of the Haitian people.  Lambi Fund partners with grassroots organizations in rural Haiti working on economic justice, democracy and sustainable development that are committed to gender equity, non-violence, self-sustainability, non-partisanship, and grassroots democracy. According to a 2005 evaluation of our first ten years of work, studies showed that Lambi Fund projects involved 76,896 entrepreneurial participants whose collective enterprises impacted 1,222,145 Haitians! (Of course in 2010, those numbers have greatly increased). Researchers found well-documented evidence that Lambi Fund projects create change with: improved economic conditions, increased availability of food, reduced soil erosion, improved environment, increased availability of potable water, increased gender equity, improved democratic functioning, increased management capacity of organizations, and increased collaboration among grassroots organizations.

• Li, Li, Li! reads storybooks out loud in Creole to Haiti’s children who became displaced by the January 12, 2010 earthquake. We currently read in several sites including Port-au-Prince, St. Marie mountain, Leogane, Pernier, Delmas, Fontamara, and Croix-des-Bouquets. We provide an engaging, interactive, and fun hour-long activity to ease the trauma and anxiety children are suffering since the earthquake. Li, Li, Li! also encourages literacy, and contributes to job creation. We translate donated storybooks into Creole and use puppets and dolls to animate the stories as well. Our teams of trained readers are dispatched to various tent (or sheet) camps, hospitals, and other transitional settings.

• Mennonite Central Committee – MCC A ministry of Anabaptist churches serving in more than fifty countries worldwide, MCC responds to basic human needs and commits to working for justice and peace in the name of Christ.  In Haiti’s Artibonite Valley, MCC focuses its efforts in reforestation and environmental education, human rights and advocacy for food security.  MCC also supports partner organizations through education, job training, literacy, conflict resolution and microfinance programs. MCC supports the Christian Center for Integrated Development and Micah Challenge, which, in partnership with Haitian churches, works to realize a biblical vision of social justice.

• Nouvelle Vie Haiti The International Association for Human Values (IAHV) has launched a mission to Haiti to address the challenges of the post-acute phase of the Haitian earthquake disaster. Our focus: to build Haitian youth leadership capacity to re-build Haiti. IAHV will recruit, train, and support the Nouvelle Vie Youth Corps, a cadre of Haitian young adults ages 20-30 who will commit to two years of service in camps and communities in and around Port au Prince.
  The Nouvelle Vie Youth Corps is a network of Haitian young adults trained to sustainably serve Haiti’s needs and to identify and create agents of change within Haitian communities.  The Youth Corps will deliver programs in three areas: 1) community empowerment and trauma relief; 2) child psychosocial support and life skills training; and 3) community-driven development through food security and waste management projects.

• Partenariat pour le Développement Local / Groundswell International Founded and directed by Cantave Jean-Baptiste, Partenariat pour le Développement Local (PDL, Partnership for Local Development), is a Haitian NGO established in 2009 by a team of Haitians with decades of experience in people-centered rural development.  PDL strengthens the capacity of peasant organizations in Haiti to manage their own process of development and social change, including sustainably improving their agricultural production, income generation, food security, savings and credit systems, health and natural resources management. PDL is a founding member of Groundswell International, a global partnership of local organizations and individuals supporting rural people to transform their communities, overcome poverty, and create a supportive context for people-centered development.  Steve Brescia is Groundswell’s International Director.

• PURE WATER for Haiti Pure Water for the World began its outreach in Haiti in 2008 with a national campaign that focuses on providing clean and safe water to Haiti’s schools, orphanages and clinics. The main program components include providing hygiene education materials and teacher training, installing water systems, monitoring and inspecting water filtration and storage systems.  Pure Water’s work is focused in areas that are underserved, such as Cite Soleil and four communes on the Haitian/Dominican border.

• Sirona Cares A fuel company with a dual purpose:  fuel diesel engines and human lives. Sirona refines and sells biodiesel using the production of this fuel to improve the lives of people in developing countries and to improve the environment at the same time.  Sirona Fuels has partnered with orphanages, philanthropic organizations and Haitian farmers to initiate production of diesel fuel from a plant called Jatropha, which grows and thrives in poor soil around the world with need of little irrigation.  The development of the Jatropha program has the potential to improve the economy and ecology of these developing communities.

• Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods – SOIL Founded in 2006, Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting soil resources, empowering communities and transforming wastes into resources in Haiti. Rooted in the belief that the path to sustainability is transformation of both disempowered people and discarded materials, SOIL promotes integrated approaches to problems of poverty, poor public health, agricultural productivity, and environmental destruction. SOIL attempts to nurture collective creativity through developing collaborative relationships between community organizations in Haiti and academics and activists internationally, bringing these interdependent resources together through the following programs:  ecological sanitation, composting, technology centers and creative activities to engage youth in efforts to transform waste into environmental resource. SOIL also coordinates ongoing service-learning and international collaboration, thus connecting resources, skill, and knowledge to help Haitian communities respond to their own needs.

• TransAfrica Forum Since 1977, the Washington DC based nonprofit organization TransAfrica Forum, has worked to foster alliances among African Americans, Africans in the continent of Africa and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean and Latin America.  Through its educational programs and activities that promote political awareness, TransAfrica Forum advocates for just U.S. foreign policy. TransAfrica Forum works with civil society groups in Latin America that struggle for constitutional rights and representation. TransAfrica Forum opposes discriminatory U.S. immigration policies and the racialized impact of the U.S. Drug War that has devastated Afro-Descendants both in the U.S. and in Latin America.  Today, TransAfrica Forum campaigns focus on ending the debt burden on the countries of Africa and the Caribbean. TransAfrica Forum also works toward an international economic system that promotes sustainable growth and development.