AUSJ plans third mission to Haiti

Starting to plan the latest mission to Haiti with Jarret Lovell in November. Jarret has been a real friend for AUSJ publicizing the non-profit on his radio station and announcing our events. Jarret is a professor of Criminal Justice at CSU and will be helping me to locate enslaved children in Haiti and then placing them in safe shelters in Port au Prince. We will be bringing in teddy bears and medical supplies again to be distributed to those children and clinics who need them the most. CNN did several news segments on the 6 month anniversary of the earthquake and continued to echo everyone's sentiments about the money and relief supplies never getting to the people who need them the most. To quote Sanjay Gupta "Success in Haiti is not measured by getting money and supplies to Haiti, but is measured by getting them to the people who need them." There's a difference. Sean Penn, who has remained in Haiti, said the same thing. That is why AUSJ goes there - so we know our supplies have gotten into the right hands. Please help us with a donation so that we are able to help more people in camps and those enslaved.

Excerpt of University of Miami Communications publication

Two weeks after the quake struck Haiti, Sandra Kirkpatrick, Executive Director of Artists United for Social Justice, www.ausj.org, teamed up with UM to provide medical supplies, and teddy bears, while helping at the UM field hospital in Port au Prince. Teddy bears may seem like a strange relief cargo, but after viewing images of kids in makeshift clinics with nothing but the clothes on their backs, Sandra decided the kids needed something to hang on to. "I wanted to put something soft and cuddly into those tiny hands so they could curl up with some sense of comfort. When I was giving out the bears about half the parents in the pediatric hospital wanted bears too. So I gave them bears also. The next day when I was going to go to some orphanages to distribute bears, I was sorry I gave bears to the parents as there weren't so many left to give to the orphans. One of the nurses overheard me expressing that thought and told me, 'Those parents are just as attached to those bears as the kids are!' So I knew I had done the right thing after all."
Through AUSJ Sandra is also working with UNICEF to stop child trafficking in Haiti. AUSJ's focus is on preventing child trafficking through investigating and exposing trafficking, and changing laws and attitudes that have allowed human trafficking to grow. Sandy noted "Working with UNICEF allows us to have input at the top level of government to shape policy and programs impacting the trafficking issue in Haiti, but the thrust of our work is prevention through media." AUSJ has produced 2 films, Svetlana's Journey, which won the 2005 Hollywood Film Festival, and Cargo: Innocence Lost. The films have been shown internationally and Svetlana's Journey was viewed by over 2 million people in Bulgaria alone. It was also honored at the Cairo Film Festival and is used as part of the curriculum in universities. AUSJ also produced 5 public service announcements at the request of the National Foundation of Women Legislators for national TV spots.
"We've chosen to work through media to combat human trafficking because there are over 27 million people enslaved worldwide and the problem is growing. Only mass media can reach the numbers necessary and turn the tide by causing people to make a conscious decision to not tolerate slavery in any form. Slavery has to become socially unacceptable; it has to be as much of a taboo as cannibalism so that people simply do not do it, regardless of whatever laws there are." AUSJ is working on a third film about human trafficking in the USA, and new PSAs geared to the audience targeted by traffickers, namely youth.

CNN special on orphanage I stayed at in Haiti

I stayed at this orphanage the last time I was in Haiti and delivered medical supplies to their clinic. Please watch the CNN special that airs May 8 at 8pm. I took Glen Megill and Rabbi Shumley there with me to see the orphanage the first time I was in Haiti staying at the UM field hospital. The directors are doing an incredible job at Child Hope.
The photo is of a little girl (seated in front of Glen) who was pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building and who is now staying at the orphanage.

Return to Haiti

I spent the night in an orphanage in Port au Prince Thurs. I had first been to this orphanage to ask the director about child trafficking in their area which is known as Delmas. She told me that she would see the trafficked and street children behind the house using the gully there as a path. She would invite some of these children in to play with the orphanage children and give them something to eat before they left. The orphanage is always full so she is not able to keep those children, but is able to feed them when they come. She said it is extremely difficult for children to exist on their own without any help on the street so usually they do have an adult in their life, and often that adult expects them to earn money. They are often taught to beg, steal or prostitute themselves to earn that money.

Many children are given away by their parents in Haiti because they can not afford to provide for them. They may give them up hoping the child is able to find a better life with the person they are being entrusted to, but all too often this is not the case. The orphanage director and other directors told me they were frequently asked to take in children by parents who can not afford to keep them.

This time when I came I found a mattress had been put on the living room floor for a mother and her 2 day old baby. Dominese, the mother, lost her husband in the quake in Haiti. She and their child were spared. Dominese was 6 months pregnant and now had no home to live in. Dominese's sister also died in the quake, but her 2 children lived. So Dominese took in both of her sister's children so she now had to provide for herself and 3 children with no place to go. The orphanage director gave her a tent and allowed her to put it up on the orphanage grounds.

On Tues. night it rained very hard in Port au Prince and Dominese's tent flooded. She went to the clinic that the orphanage maintains and went into labor. Fortunately, a new team of volunteers had just arrived that day and there was a doctor and nurse at the clinic. Although they did not have any medicine to ease the pain of labor for Dominese, the birth was normal and they were able to assist in a successful delivery for the mother and her new daughter.

written by Sandra Kirkpatrick to be continued

Mission to Haiti

Fittingly we arrived in Port au Prince, Haiti, at midnight under a full moon. And that was about the only light we saw. The electrical system had been destroyed by the earthquake in most of the city so the airport terminal was dark and there were no lights on the tarmac. We unloaded our cargo in the dark with only the surgeon's hand lamps and a few flashlights to illuminate our bags and boxes of medical supplies.

I had gone to Haiti to investigate human trafficking and to bring medical supplies, funds, and teddy bears, to people who had lost everything in the worst natural disaster I'd ever seen. While Artists United for Social Justice, www.AUSJ.org, is focused on combating trafficking, we are also involved in humanitarian relief work. I flew down with the medical teams volunteering at the University of Miami field hospital and stayed with them for 10 days. I had worried about including teddy bears in the precious cargo space, but after seeing news reports showing tiny children with only the clothes on their backs trying to sleep in tent hospitals, I just wanted to give them something cuddly to hold on to so they could fall asleep. When I distributed the bears to the kids in the pediatric field hospital the smiles I got in return were worth the whole trip.

The human trafficking problem in Haiti has a unique twist in that there is a socially accepted system whereby children from poor families are often given to wealthier families with the understanding that the wealthier family will provide for the child in exchange for the child working for them. These children are known as restavecs. This well established "minding the child" system was brought over from Africa and initially seems to have served its purpose and was benign. However, over time the system evolved into an abusive one where the children are not educated and are simply unpaid child labor. In addition to working long, sometimes 20 hours long, days, many children are beaten and sexually abused. Sometimes children are sold into the restavec system and blatantly trafficked.

I was able to speak with people at UNICEF, World Vision and other NGOs about measures to stop the child trafficking. AUSJ is part of the UNICEF Child Protection sub-cluster working group on trafficking and abduction. I met with the Chief of Police at the JOTC headquarters in the UN compound to discuss what he was doing to protect the children and orphanages. He gave me the hot line number which is manned 24/7 for emergencies. While the Chief assured me they would respond to any emergency he also told me he had lost more than 75% of the police force to the earthquake, and they are now partnered with the UN peace keeping force in order to be able to respond. I was able to give the hot line number to the orphanages, but obviously much more is needed on all fronts. AUSJ is returning to investigate solutions to trafficking, implement training and tracking programs and will continue relief efforts. Please support our efforts to make a difference where it's need most.

Sandra Kirkpatrick
Executive Director, Artists United for Social Justice