Haiti Place “We need one small victory to start believing"

Article Information

  • ARTICLE_POSTED_BY: Haiti Place Staff
  • ARTICLE_POSTED_ON: Jul 17, 2015
  • Views : 1081
  • Likes : 3
  • Category : Other
  • Description : <strong>Gerthy Lahens is an activist, grassroots community organizer, delegate and church leader, and a passionate supporter of her native Haiti. For many years she has been working with youth and adults in Haiti on education, reforestation, housing, and other initiatives</strong>.

Overview

  • Gerthy LahensGerthy Lahens

    Gerthy Lahens is an activist, grassroots community organizer, delegate and church leader, and a passionate supporter of her native Haiti. For many years she has been working with youth and adults in Haiti on education, reforestation, housing, and other initiatives.

    Gerthy, in partnership with MIT professor Jan Wampler, is also the co-founder of the Renaissance Project: Hope for Haiti - an ambitious project that aims to build a self-sustainable village in Arcahaie, 20 km North from Port-au-Prince, to accommodate 1,000 people.

    This innovative project would provide shelter to the displaced people of Port-au-Prince, and everything a modern community needs to be sustainable: school, sustainable resources for food, water, and energy, as well as training in farming and other skills so that this community can produce goods for itself and sell to others.

    The Renaissance Project The Renaissance Project

    To realize the Renaissance Project, Gerthy and Professor Wampler have brought together students from MIT, youth from Haiti, volunteers, and supporters. They have defined the concept, communicated with people in Haiti to take into accounts their needs and preferences, built the mockups, found the land, and took care of other logistics.

    They needed $500,000 and 100 days to build the facilities and make this vision a reality.

    However, raising the funds turned out to be difficult. They have yet to find donors to start this sustainable community that can later be replicated anywhere in Haiti, and around the world. Gerthy and her team will continue to look for resources to bring the Renaissance Project to life.

    "We need one small victory to make Haitians believe in themselves," says Gerthy.

    That success story may or may not be the Renaissance project, but Gerthy believes that Haitians needs to know and be proud of its small victories to have the confidence to do more.

    "We have to change our mentality"

    Gerthy is certain that the only way to improve the situation of Haiti is through education.

    "We have to change our mentality, because no one will do better for you than what you can do for yourself. I don't believe in charity. Charity is a way to keep us where we are. We have to educate our kids into citizens. We have to know who we are, and what this country has meant for all of us, because this is our home," noted Gerthy.

    "Everybody is running everywhere, in all directions. They need to be able to take a break, to sit down and catch up with themselves so they can think clearly."

    She continued:

    "We have to start over from the basics and create jobs and opportunity for the people. And appreciate them, give them the value that they have.

    I don't think money is going to do it. We have to get everybody involved in the solution making and get the youth at the table, because they are more than half the country. They have to be more involved in what the country is going to be tomorrow because they are the future of the country."

    "We are warriors and extremely smart people"

    Gerthy has complete faith in the Haitian people. She believes they have everything they need to come back stronger and build better lives for themselves and a more prosperous country.

    "I feel that we have been eternally oppressed and we've been called The Third World. They teach our people not to trust each other, they teach our people to believe in the white men. But whenever they oppress us, the more messed up they think we are, the more we bounce back, because we are innovators and we will find a way to bounce back. You cannot shut down any Haitian that I know because they will find a way to survive. We are leaders in the world. We are warriors and extremely smart people," said Gerthy Lahens.

    She concluded:

    "I hope we will be able to sit together with the Haitians in Haiti, because we in the Diaspora cannot bring the solution, we have to do it in Haiti or talk to people in Haiti and include everybody. Everybody should be part of the solution and this is the only way. It's in our hands. It's nobody's problem. We have to be the solution, and we are the solution."