Grateful community mourns loss of coach, sports guru Serge Desir

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March 2008
Boston Haitian Reporter
Page BOSTON HAITIAN
REPORTER
Vol. 7, Issue 3
Senseless
March 2008
FREE
Norma’s kin:
“Monster” killed
estranged girlfriend,
hid her body in car’s
trunk
Story, page 2
Above: The accused, Lesley Cheremond. APhoto/Josh London, Pool
Right: Norma “Mama” Dorce Gilles was found murdered in the trunk of her
own car last month. Photo courtesy Pierre Paul-Joas
Four years later,
murder of
Julaine Jules
remains
unsolved
Malden’s Julaine Jules,
26 (left), was murdered in
2004. Is anyone looking
for her killer? Page 2
INSIDE THE BOSTON HAITIAN REPORTER
Grateful community mourns loss
of coach, sports guru Serge Desir
Serge Desir accomplished much in his 54 years. A
soccer coach, entrepreneur, and sports commentator,
Desir lived for 15 years with a heart transplant. He was
best known, though, for his big heart in working with
Boston Haitian kids. Page 3
INSIDE:
Children’s Hospital
helps us make healthy
choices for our family.
Page 9
Student leaders bring message from
Haiti: We need Diaspora’s help
Three student leaders from Balan, a town in northern Haiti,
were in Boston last month for a Tufts University symposium on
international cooperation. Page 7
Serge Desir helped a new generation
of Haitian-Americans discover a love
for his farvoite sport: soccer.
Photo courtesy TeleKreyol
April seminar helps students plug into health careers - Page 4
Page Boston Haitian ReporteR
March 2008
BostonHaitian.com
Ex-boyfriend arrested in killing of Malden woman
By Bill Forry and Martine Louis
Reporter Staff
It has happened again. A Haitian-American
woman from Malden has been brutally killed in
what police and prosecutors say is a case of deadly
domestic violence.
But, this time, police and prosecutors say that
they have the killer in custody.
Lesley Cheremond of Everett was arrested on
Feb. 29 for the murder of 41-year-old Norma Gilles
of Lynn. In a dramatic court appearance on March
3, Cheremond entered a plea of not guilty as prosecutors presented preliminary details of their case
against the 48 year-old man, whom authorities say
murdered his former girlfriend in a jealous rage last
month and then coldly sought to cover his tracks
by saying she was on vacation.
A Middlesex district court judge ordered Cheremond held without bail.
Gilles, a hair dresser who was affectionately
called “Mama” by friends and family, ran her own
shop on Salem Street in Malden. She disappeared
on the afternoon of February 13. Her brother filed
a missing person’s report ten days later with Lynn
police. Her car was later found on Faulkner Street
in Malden and her body was found in the trunk.
An autopsy revealed that Gilles had been choked
to death.
Pierre Paul-Joas, a cousin of Gilles, says that
many of Gilles’ customers became alarmed by her
unexplained absence from the salon.
“They kept calling her family, saying they have
not seen her in days. That’s when the family started
contacting each other and realized that not one of
us had heard from her. That’s what scared us and
that’s when we contacted the authorities,” Joas
told the Reporter.
Jules Andre Dorce, the victim’s older brother,
said he became worried when he called his sister
on Valentine’s Day and she did not answer her
phone.
“ I went to her salon the next day to see if she
was alright,” Dorce told the Reporter. “And Lesley
told me that she left the day before and he didn’t
know when she would be back. There was also a
sign on her salon door, which police also learned
Lesley has put there. “He coldly planned this, he
is sick and he should pay,” Dorce said.
Initial reports about Cheremond’s relationship
with Gilles suggest that the two had split last year
after Cheremond assaulted Gilles in February 2007.
The incident prompted Gilles to seek and obtain a
restraining order against him. Despite the rift, the
two ran businesses next-door to each other on the
same Malden block for the past year.
According to prosecutors from Middlesex District
Attorney Leone’s office, “Cheremond and Gilles had
Norma “Mama” Dorces Gilles, shown above in her
Malden hair salon, was murdered last month. Her
ex-boyfriend Lesley Cheremond has been charged
in the crime. Photo courtesy Pierre Paul-Joas
an argument on the day before she was last seen.
Several hours after Gilles was last seen leaving the
store, Cheremond came into Gilles’ salon and told a
worker that he was taking Gilles’ handbag to her.
Later, police found a key to Gilles’ car — as well as
trash bags that matched the type of bags that Gilles’
body was found wrapped in — in Cheremond’s possession. The DA’s office also said that Cheremond
gave “inconsistent statements to friends and authorities during the weeks she was missing.”
Pierre Paul-Joas says that Gilles’ family has reason
to suspect Cheremond’s involvement.
“Our family tried not to accuse anyone for Mama’s
murder. We wanted the input of law enforcement.
But, Lesley was the closest one to her. There’s no
reason why he wouldn’t be the number one suspect,” Joas said. “Our family had been pre-advised
that there could be revelations [ at the arraignment] that we never knew of and they were right.
Mama’s friends were coming forward and speaking
up about the threats Lesley made against Mama.
The beatings… we (the family) just never knew. It
was emotional.”
Gilles’ brother says he has had run-ins with the
accused in the past.
“They were having money problems. He was stealing from her,” Dorce said. “One time she called me
crying after $2000 went missing from her purse. I
called Lesley immediately and confronted him and
he promised to give the money back. That was
the sort of cat-and-mouse games he played with
my sister.”
Still, Dorce said he never knew the extent of the
physical threat that his sister was living with.
“She never told me what was going on,” Dorce
said. “I’m only just learning what she was going
through. She confided in our mother and she convinced Mama to get a restraining order. But if I had
known what was going on there is no way I would
have let it continue.
“I’m just angry that my sister was in a situation
she felt she couldn’t get out of. I wish she had come
to us,” Dorce said.
The murder of Gilles, despite the swift arrest of
Cheremond, has been another crushing blow to the
local Haitian-American community.
“It’s touched the community,” says Henry Milorin
of Medford, who was a customer at Gilles’ hair salon.
“Everybody knows everybody, regardless of whether
it’s a tight relationship or an acquaintance.”
“None of us were present when this crime was
committed,” Milorin said. “We need to educate
members of our community that there are better ways to communicate. This is no solution. We
have to remind people, too, just because it was two
Haitian people, this happens on a daily basis in all
communities.
“Right now, [Cheremond] is only the accused. Until
the law proves this, I would ask the community to
observe what is going on. Let the prosecutors do
their work and bring him in front of a jury.”
Pierre Paul-Joas is already convinced of Cheremond’s guilt.
“The police had trouble finding Mama’s car and it
was because this monster kept moving it. He was
actually driving around in my cousin’s car with her
body in the trunk. Someone like that deserves to
feel what he caused Mama to feel.
“But if he can’t die for what he did, he deserves
life in a cage. I would hate to see him released in 30
or 40 years. He needs to get life. That won’t replace
Mama, but it’s some kind of justice.”
“The irony of this is that the two of them met
in church,” her brother Jules said. “Norma wrote
songs for the choir and Lesley played the guitar. I
recently went into Mama’s apartment and there
on her kitchen table were three unfinished songs
she had been working on for the church choir. She
was such a religious woman. She did not deserve
this. No one does. This whole thing is just sickening
beyond words.”
Murder of Julaine Jules remains unsolved
Vigil, funeral
planned for Gilles
By Bill Forry
Managing Editor
Carline Desire, director of the Association of
Haitian Women in Boston (AFAB), said that the
murder of Norma Dorce Gilles was yet another
example of the scourge of domestic violence in
the state.
“We are really saddened to have one more woman
die,” Desire said.
A candlelight vigil in memory of Norma Dorce
Gilles was to be held on Thursday, March 6 from
6 to 8 p.m. outside of her salon at 376 Salem
Street in Malden.
“There needs to be an awareness,” Desir added.
“Everyone needs to know about the very real issue
of domestic violence. Unfortunately many women,
especially amongst the Haitian community, in this
situation are ashamed and they feel somehow it
is their fault. And they end up condoning these
criminal acts.
“But, women, it is not your fault and you are
not alone. Besides family and friends there are
many support groups out there such as AFAB.
You need to have a safety plan, think about what
comes after the restraining order, but one thing
you must never do is keep an abusive relationship a secret.
“No one deserves to die this way and our community should come together and advocate for more
resources allocated towards this issue—especially
for immigrants.”
The funeral for Gilles has been tentatively set
for March 15, but may change as her parents and
her sisters, who live in Haiti, are currently working to get visas to come for the funeral. Gilles left
behind four sisters and one brother. The wake
service will be held at the Murphy and O’Hara
on Broadway in Everett.
The horrendous murder of Norma Dorce Gilles
calls to mind the brutal
murder of 26 year-old
Julaine Jules, another
Malden woman. Jules
disappeared after leaving
her job in South Boston
on August 24, 2004. Her
body was discovered
more than a month later
in the Charles River. Her
killer has never been
brought to justice.
Published reports in
the immediate aftermath
of the discovery said that
investigators quickly
focused on a former boyfriend of Jules. But that
man was never arrested
and prosecutors have had
little to say about the
Julaine Jules case since
September 2004.
Born in Cambridge
to Haitian immigrant
parents, Jules was a
graduate of Emmanuel
College in Boston and
was employed at the time
of her disappearance as a
receptionist at a marketing and advertising firm
in Boston.
Four years later, it is
not clear what — if any-
thing— is happening in
the investigation. Jules
was last seen leaving
her job in South Boston,
in Suffolk County. The
burnt-out shell of Jules’
car was found the night
she disappeared on the
town line of Malden
and Revere. Her body,
wrapped in plastic, was
found on the Cambridge
side of the Charles River,
which is in Middlesex
County. Whether the
cross-jurisdictional nature of the crime— or
crimes — may have
complicated the investigation is uncertain.
What is clear is that
the probe into her heinous murder seems to
have hit a dead end,
despite claims from local
authorities that no case
of this nature ever leaves
the “active” file.
In the immediate aftermath of the murder,
Suffolk County District
Attorney Dan Conley
promised that his office would make the
apprehension and prosecution of Jules’ killer a
priority.
“To that family, we
promise today that we
Another victim of domestic violence? Julaine
Jules, 26, was found
murdered in the Charles
River in September 2004.
Reporter file photo.
will not tire, we will
not yield, we will not
stop until we find who
did this,” Conley said
at a press conference in
September 2004.
In a statement made
in response to a Boston
Haitian Reporter Reporter inquiry this week,
Jake Wark, a spokesperson for Conley said:
“Suffolk County Suffolk
and Middlesex homicide
prosecutors continue to
coordinate the investi-
gation into Ms. Jules’
homicide. While we can’t
discuss specific suspects,
leads, or avenues of inquiry, the case remains
open and very active,
and we look forward to
the day when we can
speak for Ms. Jules and
her loved ones in a court
of law.”
Henry Milorin, a Haitian-American community and political activist
from Medford, says its
also past time for the
Haitian community at
large to start asking law
enforcement authorities
and local lawmakers
some probing questions
of their own about the
status of this case.
“One of the weaknesses that exists is that we
have nobody who is willing to go the extra-mile.
We should be able to sit
around table and know
exactly what we are getting from the DA’s office
or the Attorney General’s
office,” says Milorin. “If
we don’t do the follow-up,
we don’t get the answers.
We have to come together
around this.”
BostonHaitian.com
March 2008
Boston Haitian Reporter
Serge Desir, 1953-2008
Page Mentor turned soccer passion into positive pathway for kids
By Wilner Auguste
Special to the
Reporter
The Haitian community of Boston lost one
of its great idols in
Serge Desir, a soccer
coach, entrepreneur, and
sports commentator who
passed away on Friday,
Feb. 15.
Desir, 54, died at the
New England Hospital
where he had been admitted for a month due
to health complications.
Serge was living for the
past fifteen years with a
heart transplant.
Desir had been a soccer coach since his days
in Haiti and was the
founder and manager of
Gigite Catering Services.
He was also a volunteer
to several Haitian-American organizations and a
sports commentator on
several radio and television programs.
Born in Port-au-Prince
on December 4, 1953,
Serge attended elementary classes at L’Ecole
du Sacre Coeur in Portau-Prince and High
School at Lycee Toussaint Louverture. He
volunteered his services
as a teacher at his former
elementary school and
became its principal for
five successful years.
Serge served as a coach
for the boy’s soccer team
at college St. Pierre
and L’Aigle Noir Soccer
Team. He also founded
and coached, Tigressse,
a girl soccer team.
In 1980, Serge migrated to the United States.
He lived in New York for
a short period and then
moved to Boston where
he worked as housekeeper, bus boy, and
chef. His culinary skills
helped him start his own
business Gigite Catering
Services and manage
the Ideal Restaurant on
River Street.
Serge Desir was a familiar face on local TV.
In 1983, Serge married his wife Margarette.
They have four children,
Sara Sergine, Elizabeth,
Gabrielle, and Serge
Desir II.
“Serge had a passion
for sports, but with a
vision and a mission,”
said Jonel Dalexis, cofounder and president
of the 25-year-old radio
program Echo Evangelic
of Boston on 590 AM
and 24/7 –SCA, 92Khz,
88.9FM Radio Echo
Evangelic. “He founded
Haitian American Youth
Soccer (HAYS) to help
the youth not only to
learn how to play soccer,
but at the same time, he
kept them off the street
and out of trouble.”
Serge launched an
annual sports summer
camp and an after school
program for the youth.
He trained and employed several of them at
the Restaurant and the
Catering Services.
“Serge was a dedicated servant of the
Association Missionaire
des Jeunes Chretiens
Haitiens for over the
past 20 years of the organization’s foundation,”
said its president Varnel
Antoine, also manager
and financial advisor
of Grace Community
Financial Solutions, Inc.
Emmanuel Sanon, World
Cup scorer, dies at 56
ORLANDO, Fla. — Emmanuel Sanon, the only
soccer player to score a
World Cup goal for Haiti,
has died. He was 56.
Sanon died of pancreatic
cancer at his Orlando home
on Feb. 21 after a long
treatment, son Emmanuel
Sanon Jr. said.
Known as “Manno,’’
Sanon became a Haitian
legend in 1974. He scored a
go-ahead goal against Italy
in his country’s lone World
Cup appearance, taking
a beautiful lead pass,
outrunning the defender
and leaving stunned goalie
Dino Zoff on the ground.
His kick snapped Zoff’s
record 1,142 minutes over
two years without allowing
a goal. But Italy came back,
scored three straight goals
and won the game.
“Imagine you went to
a bar or restaurant, and
you walked straight to
Mike Tyson and slapped
him on his face in front
of everybody, and you got
him mad,’’ Sanon said
years later to Tele Image,
a New York-based TV program, in describing Italy’s
reaction.
In that same World Cup,
Sanon also scored against
Argentina before Haiti
was eliminated with three
losses.
The tall striker played
for Belgium’s Beerschot
and briefly coached Haiti’s national team in the
1990s.
Haitian Prime Minister
Jacques-Edouard Alexis
called for a moment of silence Friday to remember
Sanon in the southern
town of Jeremie, where
thousands had gathered
for the announcement of a
new highway project.
“He did something very
big in the history of Haitian
sport,’’ Alexis said.
Born in Port-au-Prince
in 1951, Sanon was married with four children.
“He served as treasurer
for the longest time and
was the best in his ability to raise funds to help
the organization execute
multiple projects in the
U.S. and abroad.”
Serge served also in
various Haitian organizations including HAPHI, CCHER, OMAD,
and First Haitian Baptist Church. He was the
treasurer and coordinator of the Social Action
Ministry of the church
he attended, the Tabernacle Baptist Church
of Dr. and Pastor Abede
Alexandre.
Despite his health condition, Serge anchored
the sports segment, Tele
Sports, on Tele Kreyol
for more than five years.
The program was successfully informative
and educational for the
Haitian community of
Boston. He helped found
Radio Concorde 1580 AM
and was its sports com-
mentator. The station
celebrated his life with an
eight-hour live program
where family members,
friends and collaborators
talked about their experiences with Serge.
On Friday, Feb. 22,
despite the weekend
snowstorm, hundreds
of people gathered at
the Tabernacle Baptist
Church on American
Legion Highway for the
celebration of Serge’s life
followed by his funeral on
Saturday, Feb. 23.
In Serge’s memory, the
Echo Evangelic of Boston
has created the Serge
Desir Foundation with
an Economy Checking
bank account at Bank of
America. This will help
continue the work that
Serge started through
the Haitian American
Youth Soccer. The account # is 0046 1572 1754
for those who would like
to contribute.
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Reporter’s
March 2008
Men Nou
Health Career seminar to be
held on April 12
By Martine Louis
Reporter Staff
about contributing to cius continued. “Haitian
the rebuilding of their families new to America
often lack the resources
The Haitian Health societies.”
During previous fo- and support networks
Institute will host its
seventh annual Haitian rums residents have to help their children
Health Career Seminar tackled issues of youth move forward. So we
on Saturday, April 12. violence, cultural issues bring them together
The initiative, launched in health care for Hai- with Haitian professionby Boston Medical Cen- tians and nutritional als in various fields such
ter, reaches out to young problems from hunger to as dentistry, nursing,
p e o p l e — e s p e c i a l l y obesity. Accius says the engineering and health
amongst the Haitian seminar is in response to science research. It’s
community—to engage a controversial AIDS re- a platform for families
them in conversations search article by Dr. Mi- to further connect with
about health issues af- chael Worobey entitled, neighbors and to pair
fecting Haitians in Mas- “The emergence of HIV/ up teens with the grad
sachusetts, the United AIDS in the Americas students in mentoring
and beyond.” The study, relationships —not just
States, and in Haiti.
A number of Boston released last October, for a day, but for longschools such as Brighton linked Haitians to the term, guidance.”
The summit will proHigh, Madison Park, origins of the virus.
“One of the aspects of ceed from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m
West Roxbury High and
Boston Latin School this meeting is to address at Boston University
have joined the initiative how stigmatizations can School of Medicine, 80
to develop leadership affect a community,” said East Concord Street,
and social engagement Accius. “It comes from a Boston. Breakfast and
among youth interested lack of education. There- lunch will be served.
fore, we will focus on For more information,
in health careers.
“This is a place for the educational aspect contact Briane Accius at
them to learn and ex- and how you utilize that (617) 414-7702 or HHI@
change ideas,” said co- knowledge for your self bmc.org.
To view the full article
ordinator Briane Accius and to educate the comof Dr. Michael Worobey’s
of the day-long summit. munity.”
“The door is open to “The emergence of HIV/
“A chance for them to be
inspired by practicing everyone, but Haitian AIDS in the Amerihealth professionals and students more often cas and beyond” go to
network with college and have difficulty finding www.pnas.org/content/
vol104/issue47
to guide
graduate
students. It mentors
08-CCH-007_Slp_IrishRep_MECH
2/25/08
4:00them
PM Page
1
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BostonHaitian.com
News about people
making moves in & around
our community
School kids walk
for Haiti
Over sixty seventh-grade students of the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School
on Columbia Road participated in a 3-mile walk on Friday, Feb. 29The Eye on
Haiti Walk for Hunger was initiated after over two months of cross curricular
study of Hait” by the school’s Academy Four students. Students and their
families along with school staff made a loop from Columbia Road and through
neighborhoods such as Bowdoin Street, Geneva Ave. and back. The walk was
organized to spread awareness and raise donations to help the needy in Haiti.
For more information, contact Melissa Goodrich at 617-635-1650. Image courtesy
Frederick School.
By Martine Louis
Boston youth got some
exercise and flexed their
muscles as potential
leaders last month as
they joined the fight
against poverty abroad.
Over sixty seventh-grade
students of the Lilla G.
Frederick Pilot Middle
School set out on a 3-mile
walk on Friday, Feb. 29
for the Eye on Haiti Walk
for Hunger.
“They are eleven and
twelve year-olds, yet they
have such a determination that shows they will
be the ones to change our
world,” said principal
Deb Socia.
This first annual walk
was initiated after over
two months of a “cross
curricular study of Haiti”
by the school’s Academy Four students. (The
Frederick is broken down
into four learning academies.) Funded through
a grant from the Pilot
School Experiential Edu-
cation Demonstration,
a program that supports experimental and
hands-on education,
Frederick teachers decided to implement the
study of Haiti in their
science, English, social
studies and math curriculums.
“They are working on
video documentaries
called Eye on Haiti,”
explained Melissa Goodrich, history teacher
and head coordinator
of the program. “This is
an opportunity for our
students to get to know
other cultures and learn
their history. They have
learned of the poverty
and the heath disparities of Haiti as well as
its story and art. In the
process they are also
learning to help those
in need.”
Beginning at 11:30
a.m. on Feb. 29, students
and their families along
with school staff made a
loop from Columbia Road
and through neighborhoods such as Bowdoin
Street, Geneva Ave. and
back. The walk was organized to spread awareness and raise donations
for Haiti.
“The more our students
learned about the suffering of millions of Haitian
families they wanted to
know what they could do
to make an impact,” said
Goodrich. “This walk was
their idea. Our goal is to
raise enough money to
sent ration cards (equivalent to food stamps) to
those families in need.”
“This has been a tremendous experience for
our students,” added
Socia. “They have been
given the chance to investigate the challenges of
Haiti as well as celebrate
its beauty.”
Anyone interested in
making a contribution
may contact Melissa Goodrich at 617-635-1650.
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BostonHaitian.com
March 2008
Boston Haitian Reporter
Page Like our kids, parents too can benefit
from mentoring programs
Yolette Ibokette
By Yolette Ibokette
Some people say you don’t need a license to parent. That may be, but many parents at least need
a mentor. One wonders, for example, if the parents of those
Cambridge Haitian teens who were arrested last
month in connection with the killing of their friend
could have benefitted from some mentoring. Cases
like this one have prompted some states to create
parent-mentoring programs. These are community-based initiatives that provide free training
and information to parents. While some programs
focus on infants and toddlers, others assist parents
with special-needs children. Some initiatives help
parents with the challenges of raising adolescents
and teenagers.
In addition to the fact that some of our child-rearing practices are culturally different from those of
this country, Haitian parents living in the United
States sometimes face more serious parenting issues than in Haiti. Gangs, drugs, easy availability
of firearms constantly challenge parents who are
already stressed by their everyday realities. In Haiti,
parents have extended family members, relatives,
and neighbors to help them raise their kids. In this
country parents sometimes feel isolated and alone. Some Haitian parents with special-needs kids or
newborns deal with unique issues and may need
support. Similarly, adolescents present struggles
that are different from teens’.
Parent-mentoring programs’ goals are to support
parents’ ability to provide sensitive and nurturing
care for their children. They also aim to strengthen
families by supporting parents who are overwhelmed
by the pressures of raising children. Through these
programs, parents can improve their parenting
skills or learn alternative parenting techniques that
nurture children’s self-esteem, improve children’s
self-confidence and enhance their children’s sense
of security and overall well-being.
Parent mentors are open-minded, trained individuals who understand the unique challenges
of being a parent. They are also supported and
supervised on an ongoing basis by their training
coordinators. Mentors are compassionate, caring
and patient. Most importantly, parent mentors
provide encouragement and share their experiences
and knowledge with families to empower them to
become a healthier functioning family. They’ll model
behaviors and interactions, demonstrate techniques
and make suggestions. They won’t engage in gossip about children and families. Mentors will also
maintain confidentiality about issues and information about kids and families.
Mentors work with parents for 2-5 hours a week to
help them reach their parenting goals. They teach
families how to love and nurture each other. So
kids are also taught how to relate to their parents
and siblings. In working with Haitian families,
mentors would receive education on Haitian culture
and traditional child-rearing practices.
In order to receive assistance, parents have to
want to strengthen their families and be committed
to change negative behaviors. With their mentors,
these parents will set up goals and develop an action
plan. Mentors then teach parents appropriate child
care and parenting strategies. They also observe
parents in their interactions with their kids to offer
suggestions and guidance. Mentors take time to get
to know the parent and family. Trust is built on clear
expectations about how the parent and mentor will
work together and what each hopes to accomplish
during mentoring sessions. Mentors do not judge
parents or their actions. They don’t demand that
you raise your kids “their” way. Instead, they’ll help
parents meet their own parenting goals and guide
them to provide the best care for their children.
Change takes time and initiating changes means
taking a risk. If Haitian parents understand the
benefits of change, they will work with their mentors despite anxieties and cultural traditions. Further, until Massachusetts communities create If you know a parent who’s struggling with an inparent-mentoring programs, relatives, neighbors fant, adolescent or teen, lend a hand or offer some
and co-workers can be an informal network to sup- guidance now. port parents. Let us not wait for a parent to lose a
child to gun violence or gangs before reaching out. Page Boston Haitian ReporteR
March 2008
BostonHaitian.com
Commentary
Eating Dirt in Haiti and Ireland
By
Brian Concannon, Jr.
Every musical tradition has its sad songs.
One of the saddest from
my own Irish tradition,
The Fields of Athenry,
can bring tears to your
eyes- whether it is sung
softly in the original folk
version or shouted in the
punk rock remake by
Boston’s Dropkick Murphys. The song begins:
By a lonely prison
wall
I
heard
a
young girl calling
Michael, they have
taken you away
For
you
stole
Trevelyn’s
corn
So the young might
see
the
morn
Now a prison ship lies
waiting in the bay.
On one level this is personal tragedy. A young
man being deported from
Ireland (to Australia),
leaving his wife and
young children, perhaps
forever, all because he
stole some food to stave
off starvation. But dig
deeper in the story, and
personal tragedy evolves
first into a natural and
economic disaster. Dig
even deeper, and you find
an outrageous international injustice.
The song’s Trevelyn
is Sir Charles Edward
Trevelyn, a British bureaucrat during the
Great Irish Famine of
1845-1849. By 1845,
Britain had controlled
Ireland for centuries,
and along the way British landowners (and a
few wealthy Irish ones)
had kept taking more
and more land, pushing Irish peasants into
smaller and smaller
parcels. So although
Ireland was a fertile
country that grew more
beef, grain and other food
than it needed, most of
that food was grown on
large estates and exported to Britain. Irish
peasants — the majority
of the population — ate
mostly potatoes because
that was the only crop
they could grow enough
of to feed their families
on their small plots. So
when a natural disaster- a fungus that killed
almost the entire potato
crop- came in 1845, the
peasants had nothing
to eat.
So they ate dirt.
Sir Charles Trevelyn
was responsible for managing the British government’s relief efforts during the Famine, which
were the outrageous
international injustice.
The British government
recognized the tragedy,
and made some efforts,
that certainly saved
lives. But the government refused to take
steps to save lives if the
steps conflicted with its
free-market economic
theories.
“Trevelyn’s corn” was
dried corn that the British government bought
from the U.S. to distribute cheaply to the
hungry. In keeping with
its economic principles
of not interfering with
the private sector, the
government would only
distribute the corn to
people who could prove
that they absolutely
could not buy food. That
meant excluding starving people who were
physically able to work,
even though there were
not enough jobs to go
around. It meant excluding families that owned
as little as a quarter acre
of land, no matter how
hungry they were. So although much of the corn
got to the poor, and saved
lives, much of it stayed
in the warehouses while
people who were not poor
enough starved.
The relief efforts did
not include one measure
that would have quickly
reduced the starvation:
getting the perfectly
good food that was not
touched by the potato
fungus in Ireland to the
Irish. Trevelyn refused
to do this on the grounds
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that government involvement would disrupt
the actions of the free
market. He announced
that “the judgment of
God sent the calamity
to teach the Irish a lesson.” He welcomed the
famine as a “mechanism
for reducing surplus
population.” So Ireland
remained a net exporter
of food throughout the
famine: the British kept
eating Irish beef and
grain, while the Irish ate
Irish dirt.
Trevelyn’s free market
“mechanism” for reducing Ireland’s population
worked. One million
people were reduced to
their graves, starved
to death or killed by
the diseases of hunger.
Another 2 million were
forced to flee the island
— to Boston, New York,
England, wherever they
could go. Ireland lost
over a quarter of its
population.
There is a memorial
to the Irish Famine at
ing loans. The Duvaliers
used the money to buy
warm fur coats and fast
cars, and to fund the
Tonton Macoute death
squads. In return, the international community,
especially the United
States, received a reliable vote against Fidel
Castro in the United Nations and Organization
of American States. The
Haitian people received
very little.
The loans are now
due, so Haiti is sending
almost a million dollars
every week to the wellappointed offices of the
World Bank and the IDB
in Washington. While
Haiti’s government is
exporting money, Haiti’s
citizens are eating dirt
because they do not
have enough money.
About half of school age
kids in Haiti are not in
school, because there
are no public schools for
them and their parents
cannot afford private
school fees. Over half of
The children of Michel
and Marie deserve the
same chance at dignity
and prosperity that the
children of Michael and
Mary received.
Washington and School
Streets in downtown
Boston, made up of two
bronze statues. One
statue portrays a starving family in Ireland,
miserable, thin, in tattered clothes. The other
portrays an Irish family in Boston, still poor,
but adequately fed and
clothed.
The facial features of
the people in the Memorial are from Ireland,
but the clothes, bodies
and misery of the starving family could be from
today’s Haiti. Because
in Haiti people are still
eating dirt in 2008.
Last month, newspapers across the U.S.
—including this one
— carried stories about
people in Cite Soleil
eating cookies made of
salt, butter and dirt. The
stories were reported as
a personal tragedy (a
mother unable to feed
her infant son), then dug
deep enough to explain
the natural and economic
disasters (hurricanes,
high fuel prices).
But the stories did
not dig deep enough to
uncover the outrageous
international injustice.
For decades, leaders
not chosen by the Haitian people were given
loans by the World Bank
and the Inter-America Development Bank
(IDB). Francois and
Jean-Claude Duvalier
received almost half of
Haiti’s current outstand-
all Haitians struggle to
survive on $1 a day or
less. Many of those who
can flee do so, to Boston,
New York, Miami and
other places.
The World Bank and
IDB, like Trevelyn’s office, were actually set up
to fight poverty. Unlike
ordinary banks, they do
not exist to make profits,
but in the World Bank’s
words, are “working for
a world free of poverty.”
Like Trevelyn in Ireland,
the bank bureaucrats
understand they are
faced with a humanitarian disaster, and have
their “relief programs”
to fight it, including programs that will eventually forgive a portion of
Haiti’s debt.
But like the British response to Ireland’s famine, the bank programs
do not rise to the need.
They are too late — they
will not provide relief
for months, perhaps
years. They are too little
— they stop where the
requirements of helping
poor people conflict with
the requirements of the
bureaucrats’ economic
theories. In the meantime, just as Ireland
exported food during a
famine, Haiti will keep
exporting money. So
more Haitians will die of
the diseases of hunger,
and more children will
grow older without going
to school.
One of the theories that
prevent the banks from
just cancelling Haiti’s
unjust debt is the notion
that Haiti’s elected government needs to prove
that it is “accountable.”
The banks, which gave
generously to the Duvaliers knowing how the
money was being spent,
now require Haiti’s government to demonstrate
that it has an economic
plan that satisfies the
bank’s free market theories. Haiti’s plan is not
yet available, but the
banks have required
other poor countries to
demonstrate their “accountability” by slashing
public health and education spending. For now,
accountability means
keeping the $1 million
coming every week.
Some members of the
U.S. House of Representatives understand
the injustice behind
Haiti’s dirt cookies, and
have taken action. They
know that the United
States has the largest
percentage of votes in
both the World Bank
and IDB, and could stop
Haiti’s loan payments if
it wanted to. So in midFebruary, they asked
their colleagues to sign
on to a letter urging the
U.S. Treasury Department to arrange the
immediate suspension of
all debt payments from
Haiti. There is also a
Haiti Debt Cancellation
resolution in the House,
House Resolution 241,
that seeks to permanently cancel Haiti’s IDB and
World Bank debts.
As of press time, 44
members of the House
had signed onto the
letter, and 66 members
had co-sponsored House
Resolution 241. Massachusetts Representatives William Delahunt,
James McGovern and
John Olver had signed
onto both, and Representative Barney Frank
joined the letter. That’s
a good start, but is not
nearly enough to eliminate demand for dirt
cookies in Cite Soleil.
Two of the three Massachusetts Representatives with the most Haitian-Americans in their
disctricts: Rep. Michael
Capuano (Cambridge,
Somerville, Mattapan,
parts of Dorchester);
Rep. Steven Lynch (parts
of Dorchester, Randolph,
Brockton) signed onto
the initiative in late
February.
In The Fields of Athenry, Michael calls out his
final words to his wife
Mary:
Against the famine and the Crown
I rebelled, they
cut
me
down
Now you must raise our
child with dignity.
If his children survived, Michael’s wish
would have eventually
come true. Athenry,
Brian Concannon, Jr.
Ireland, is now a dignified tourist destination
and commuter town,
known for its quaint
medieval buildings and
ruins. People do not flee
Athenry anymore, or
steal corn to feed their
children. Instead, people
move there for jobs and
opportunity — the latest
census classifies one in
five Athenry residents
as “not Irish.”
Ireland itself, after
centuries of being one
of the poorest nations in
Western Europe, is now
one of the wealthiest and
peaceful countries in the
world, the product of an
economic boom fueled
by strong government
investment, especially
in education and infrastructure.
The tragedy of Ireland’s population forced
to flee the homeland
in order to eat also became a blessing. Once
established, especially in
Boston, but also in New
York, Chicago and many
other places, the Irish
organized politically.
They organized for their
rights as Irish-Americans, but they also told
their elected representatives to support just U.S.
policies towards their
home country. Those
policies have played a
strong role in Ireland’s
current prosperity.
The children of Michel
and Marie deserve the
same chance at dignity
and prosperity that the
children of Michael and
Mary received. The international community
needs to let Haiti’s government invest in its
people, their education
and the infrastructure,
rather than in payments
to wealthy banks. For
that to happen, HaitianAmericans in the U.S.
will need to engage with
their elected Representatives just as the IrishAmericans did.
Human rights lawyer
Brian Concannon Jr.,
[email protected], directs
the Institute for Justice
& Democracy in Haiti
(IJDH). More information on the fight to relieve
Haiti’s burden of debt
can be found on IJDH’s
website, www.HaitiJustice.org.
BostonHaitian.com
March 2008
Boston Haitian Reporter
Student leaders from northern Haitian town
press case at Tufts symposium
Page By Martine Louis
Reporter Staff
This past January, four Tufts University students
traveled to Haiti in an attempt to explore and address the issues of poverty and inequality. As part
of the University’s Institute for Global Leadership
program, the students spent one week in Balan, a
town in northern Haiti, working with the community
on improving the educational systems, gender issues,
community organizations and economy.
“Our goal was to learn from a rural community
about its daily strengths and the challenges they
face,” said Patricia Eloizin, one of the Tufts students.
“We also hope to harness the intellectual resources
of our university to support existing initiatives and
nourish a respectful partnership with the Haitian
community.”
For last month’s 23rd annual International Symposium at Tufts, the university sponsored tourist
visas for three Balan students, who were invited
to lead a dialogue on supporting the empowerment
of underprivileged countries and bridging the gap
between ideas and implementation.
Over 200 students gathered in Tufts auditorium
as Adley Petit-Frere, Hudson Rene and Aldophe
Milien kicked off the weekend-long convention on
Feb. 20.
“The fact that we are here means the moment of
deliverance for Haiti has come,” Petit-Frere, 27, told
the Reporter in an interview last week. “I know as
one person we can appear to be small, but we are
all instrumental in the change that needs to come.
As students we all have important roles and as we
continue to learn and raise awareness we will push
forward.”
Rene, 27, a law student at Universite D’ Etat D’
Haiti, says the symposium will begin to influence
real transformation in Haiti.
“This is a very profitable experience for us to be
here and help others see, hear and understand the
poverty of my country,” he said. “Not only that, but
we too are learning through this experience. And
with the knowledge we gain here we will go back
to our home communities and implement more effective initiatives.”
For the 23,000 people who reside in the town of
Balan, there is only one health facility— Nortredom
E’ La Victoirie. It is a small room inside of a Catholic
church with one, scarcely supplied medicine cabinet.
There are no regular doctors or nurses; there is no
equipment with which to run tests and no form of
treatment beyond a couple of pills, Rene says.
“If you want even half-way decent care you have
to go at least an hour out of town to either Justinien
Hospital in Cap Haitien or St. Francois in Vaudreuil,”
said Milien, 37, who studies developmental science
at Universite Polyvalente. “Because so many cannot
even afford treatment, the staff (two part time doctors) is often forced to give away medicine. Father
Acnys Derozin [who runs the clinic] has written
several proposals for a new facility and equipment,
but lack of healthcare remains one of Balan’s biggest challenges.”
Balan has only one public school, which offers six
small classrooms. Of the thousands of youth only an
estimated 3,000 have been officially enrolled. There
are also 18 private schools, but Rene states the cost
of enrollment present barriers to most families.
“What’s worse is all of our schools are primary,
which only go up to the sixth grade. Students must
travel to Cap Haitian in order to attend secondary
school.”
Petit-Frere, an economic science student at
Universite D’ Etat D’ Haiti, includes that schools
in Balan face countless challenges such as lack of
electricity, limited school supplies and not enough
teachers. “Education is one of the most important
investments in human potential and one of the
greatest hopes for our children.”
“Yet, most kids are unable to get to school because
of the broken down, unpaved roads and lack of transportation,” continued Petit-Frere. “And even if you
are lucky enough to make it to school you cannot
learn because you are too hungry.”
Despite the vast amount of people with technical
skills, unemployment in Haiti is extensive. And at
37 Haitian gourdes to a U.S. dollar, 80 percent of the
8.7 million men and women in Haiti, live under the
poverty line of two dollars a day, while 54 percent
From left to right: Adley Petit-frere. Patricia Elzoin (from Tufts University), Hudson Rene and Aldophe
Milien. Photo by Martine Louis
live on less than a dollar a day, according to the
Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook.
“Our resources lay in construction and agriculture,
but we do not have the reinforcements to make that
flourish for our communities,” said Rene. “Farmers
in Balan face many obstacles with lack of seeds
and tools, lack of irrigation and drainage and lack
of technical training. These challenges leave farmers and families longing for both subsistence and
financial means.”
“Americans, our Haitian
brothers and sisters living in
America, have the
opportunity and resources
to support the efforts we are
making back home. We
need to reinforce that
partnership and reflect,
together, on ways to resolve
the suffering.”
- Hudson Rene, law student at
Universite D’ Etat D’ Haiti
The role of women in the Haitian community is
strong, but the students agree women have the
potential to play an even larger role. “They are
merchants and farmers or they are nurturers and
caregivers, not only for their families, but for their
entire community,” said Milien. “The challenge for
these woman is they don’t have the opportunity to
be mom, wife and power woman— like the women
in America.”
“These women are strapped with the entire burden
of parenting, making them less mobile than men
are to seek additional education or employment
opportunities,” continued Milien. “This, in turn,
leaves them depending on men and instills a sense
of powerlessness.”
In hopes of restoring their community, Balan
residents organize associations such as Federations
and Associations and Groupments Community of
Balan (FAG COB), but the students explain that
without the necessary support their progress is
nearly non-existent. “Balan is a highly organized
community,” said Rene. “We have our ideas, but
have no resources to make it happen.”
For example, in 2007 FAG COB began construction on a long-time initiative to build a secondary
school in Balan.
“We are doing our best with this school because
that is what our children deserve. But, alone, our
best is not as efficient as these children need,” said
Milien.
“America makes attempts financially, but we
are a community whose most valuable capital
is human capital,” Rene interjects “We need the
manpower.”
“We need to create a partnership between us and
America that will guide us in our mission to save
lives,” continued Rene. “Americans, our Haitian
brothers and sisters living in America, have the
opportunity and resources to support the efforts
we are making back home. We need to reinforce
that partnership and reflect, together, on ways to
resolve the suffering.”
The students emphasized that though many
fearfully regard Haiti as a dangerous and violent
place — the U.S. State Department still warns
that travel to the island is dangerous and imposes
curfews and restrictions on the movement of U.S.
staff in the country — it is oppression that afflicts
the Haitian people.
“Our goal in being here today is to strengthen
our steps in piecing together our community,” said
Petit-Frere. “We hope to have real facilities for our
healthcare and school systems. Ones that are sufficient in securing the futures of our children. We
hope for independence for our women and a sense
of power over their own bodies. And we are working for justice.”
Adley Petit-Frere, Hudson Rene and Aldophe
Milien returned to Haiti on Monday Feb. 25.
This year’s Global Leadership student participants from Tufts —Patricia Eloizin, Sabina Carlson, Valerie Schenkman and Helaina Stein — will
document their experiences in Haiti, the presentation of the three Balan students and the feedback
from the symposium audience. Their recordings
will be produced into a handbook on agricultural
techniques to ensure even further distribution of
this knowledge.
In previous years, the EPIIC International Symposium has hosted students from various countries
such as Rwanda, China, Singapore and Brazil.
They have addressed issues such as international
terrorism, confronting social and political evil and
the future of democracy.
“Our professors and students are frustrated at
what is going on in these countries. And we feel
bringing international students here to spread
awareness is a tangible way to fix it,” said Eloizin, a
junior at Tufts, double majoring in Peace and Justice
and Community Health. “We have to go beyond the
shock and say ‘What can I do?’ And we need to work
an restoring those broken systems.”
Now: Read the Reporter online
each month at bostonhaitian.com
Page Boston Haitian ReporteR
March 2008
BostonHaitian.com
BostonHaitian.com
March 2008
Boston Haitian Reporter
Page Healthy Children, Healthy Communities
Nutrition and Fitness Tips Provided by Children’s Hospital Boston
How important is breastfeeding and
early childhood nutrition?
Breastfeeding your child for the first six months is ideal. It boosts
a child’s immune system, and babies who are breastfed are less likely
to become overweight. Don’t start solid foods too early and delay starting
fruit juice until 1 year of age.
What are some good tips for school age children
and teenagers?
Aim for at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily. Try to serve whole grain breads and
pastas, which contain fiber. Make sure they are getting enough calcium by giving them low-fat
milk and eating other dairy products. Whenever possible, eat well-balanced, home cooked meals
together as a family and have your children participate in meal preparation.
How can I encourage my children to stay active?
Encourage them to participate in fun activities that will get them up and moving such as walking, dancing,
exercising and playing games and sports. School age children and adolescents should be physically active
for at least one hour every day. Limit TV and videogame time to no more than two hours per day and avoid
putting a TV in your child’s bedroom.
Which types of beverages should my child drink?
Did you Know?
Children’s Hospital Boston
is the largest pediatric center in
New England and one of the
top-ranked pediatric hospitals in
the world. We are also the
largest
providers bottle
of health
care
A 20-ounce
of soda
to
low-income
children
contains the equivalent of
New England.
17inteaspoons
of sugar
Did you Know?
Water and low-fat milk are the healthiest beverages for children and they should be drinking them
regularly with their meals. Avoid sugar-sweetened beverages and sodas. Limit juice to four
ounces a day. Sparkling water with a slice of lime, lemon or orange can be a tasty alternative.
Elsie Taveras, MD, MPH
Director of the One Step Ahead Program
Q: What are your position and responsibilities at Children’s?
A: At Children’s, I am an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and the
Director of the One Step Ahead Program at our Primary Care Center.
The One Step Ahead Program is a multidisciplinary, childhood overweight
prevention clinic.
Q: What is the most rewarding part of your job?
A: Helping families make healthy lifestyle changes that will reduce their risk of
chronic diseases.
Fitness in the City
Children’s Hospital Boston offers programs at the
hospital and in the community to address the growing
obesity epidemic. Our Fitness in the City program provides
Children’s-affiliated community health centers, including
the Martha Eliot Health Center, with access to nutrition
counseling and physical activity opportunities to help
patients lead healthier lives. Patients enrolled in Fitness in
the City at the health centers below may be eligible for a
membership to the Body by Brandy Kidz Gym in Roxbury.
Fitness in the City participating health centers include:
Bowdoin Street, Brookside, Dimock, Joseph Smith, RoxComp, South Cove, South End, Southern Jamaica Plain,
Upham’s Corner and Whittier Street For more information
on this program, please contact [email protected].
Q: What is the most challenging part of your job?
A: Overcoming the common barriers that prevent the families I see from eating
healthy meals and being physically active.
Q: If there is one message you would like to convey to parents of kids who are
obese, what would it be?
A: Small changes can make a world of difference. Many families I see think they
need to replace every food item in their diet and work out at a gym every day.
The truth is that even small changes, such as eliminating soda from your diet
and walking to school, can be beneficial and a good starting point for other
lifestyle changes.
For more helpful health information for your child and family,
visit us at www.childrenshospital.org.
For more helpful health information for your child and family,
visit us at www.childrenshospital.org.
300 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA 02115 | 617-355-6000 | www.childrenshospital.org
Page 10 Boston Haitian ReporteR
March 2008
BostonHaitian.com
Community Health News
Officials alarmed by rise in black infant deaths
By Gintautas Dumcius
Reporter Correspondent
Public health officials at both the local and state
level are fretting over new statistics that show wide
discrepancies in infant mortality rates between white
and black Bostonians.
“It’s been a concern of ours for a long time,” said
Maia BrodyField, chief of staff to the Boston Public
Health Commission. “Specifically for infant deaths,
it’s that it really does serve as an indicator of a
population as a whole.”
A commission analysis of 2006 birth trends, recently released by the state Department of Public
Health and the most recent data available, showed
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that black infants accounted for 29 percent of Boston
births, but 65 percent of all infant deaths.
Latinos saw 2.9 deaths per 1,000 births, contrasted
with 13.2 deaths per 1,000 live births for blacks.
City-wide, the infant mortality rate has been
steadily decreasing to 5.8 deaths per 1,000 live
deaths from 8.4 deaths in 1997.
Statewide, there were 368 infant deaths, defined
as deaths of infants less than one-year-old, down
from 391 infant deaths in 2005.
No simple answer exists as to why there’s such
a gap, health officials say, due to the complicated
nature of pregnancies.
“There’s not a single answer that would explain
why black infants die two-and-a-half times more
than their white counterparts,” said Lauren Smith,
medical director for the state Department of Public
Health.
Officials say they have to look at a woman’s health
before the pregnancy, and track any nutrition issues,
tobacco use and diabetes.
The health disparities remain a “key priority” for
the department, Smith said. “Infant mortality is a
pretty glaring one,” she added.
City Councillor Chuck Turner said he still had to
read through the report.
“I think the fact that they’re taking action and it’s
dropping is good,” he said. But why it’s going down
for some and not others is something that needs to
be looked at, he added.
The commission is planning a more detailed
analysis due out in a few weeks, to get at the causes
and figure out the areas of services that may not
be connecting with women before pregnancy. With
a budget of almost $6 million for birth disparities,
the commission serves 3,000 families every year
through services for pregnant and parenting minority women.
The department is using a pregnancy risk assessment monitoring system to gather data throughout
the system and connecting with local task forces
in Boston, Worcester and Springfield to reduce the
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infant mortality rates, according to Smith.
“It’s really about support services,” said Bill Walczak, head of the Codman Square Health Center,
pointing to homelessness and substance abuse services as examples. “They need to be addressed in
order to ensure a healthy delivery of the baby.”
He added: “A woman who is pregnant needs to
focus on a full package of health issues, not just
the medical visit.”
In Codman Square, the infant mortality rate was
so high twenty years ago the Boston Globe was
prompted to write a series, titled “Births in the
Death Zone.”
“While it’s certainly far from being a great situation, it’s a much better situation than it had been,”
Walczack said.
Meanwhile, local community health centers are
stepping up to the plate.
“We still have a rate that’s double the rate of
Boston,” said Tarma Johnson, director of clinical
health services at Mattapan Community Health
Center and a nurse practitioner.
At the Blue Hill Ave. health center, Johnson says
that a caseworker sees patients and follows them
for two years.
Officials are also focusing on Vitamin D deficiencies. Vitamin D, sometimes manufactured through
sunlight penetrating the skin or through the liver,
maintains normal levels of calcium and phosphorous,
according to the National Institutes of Health.
Through testing that started last year, they found
that many of their patients have low amounts of
Vitamin D, and that 60 percent of black babies
that die were born to women who are Vitamin D
deficient.
It’s going to take a while for them to see the full
link, according to Johnson, but until then they are
offering 2,000 units of Vitamin D a day.
“We have mostly been successful in dealing with
the access to care issue,” Walczack said. “But that
doesn’t mean the problem’s over.”
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BostonHaitian.com
March 2008
Boston Haitian Reporter
Page 11
Community Health News
Project takes aim at Haitian identity in Boston area
By Martine Louis
Reporter Staff
The Twa Zanmi [Three
Friends] project— a
collaboration between
the Haitian American
Public Health Initiative,
Camera Mosaique of the
Haitian Media Network
and Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass
Boston—has set out to
study the immigration
experiences of Boston’s
Haitian community and
their struggle to develop
a new identity in a new
society.
Hoping to illustrate
how social factors such
as poverty, race and
education may impact
health the project will
create a television program chronicling the
lives of three Haitian
immigrants from different walks of life. The
series will feature an
educated and successful
entrepreneur who loses
his independence once
he comes to America; an
elderly couple who cannot find employment due
to language barriers; and
a single parent working
two to three jobs who
have no time for their
children.
“Depression, domestic
violence and even suicide
plague Haitian communities everywhere and
their life circumstances
plays a major role,”
said Oswald Neptune, a
member of HAPHI. “No
matter how poor or how
affluent you were back
home in Haiti, for many
immigrants in only gets
worse in America.”
“Starting with the
language barriers, if
you don’t speak English
there are hardly any opportunities for you,” Neptune continued. “Wages
are unfairly lower for
these people than anyone else leaving them
to work multiple jobs to
make ends meet for their
families. For parents,
especially single parents,
there is always the threat
of DSS (Department of
Social Services). It hurts
to know that you come to
a greater country for opportunities, yet you find
in that greater country
doors are often closed
to you.”
Twa Zanmi is funded by New Routes to
Community Health, a
program that works to
improve the lives of new
immigrants and refugees
using the media. The
project is also partnered
with, the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation,
which supports promising new ideas that address health and health
care disparities.
As the project is currently in development,
Jean Mark Jean Baptiste, executive director
of HAPHI, says they will
host a series of community meetings to get story
ideas from residents.
“We want to produce
something that will express the feelings of
frustration and isolation
many families endure.
Something everyone
can relate to,” said Jean
Baptist. “In a sense this
is a community-directed
project because it is their
voices we will reflect
in these episodes. By
watching or listening
to these programs, men
and women can start a
discussion about mental
health issues in their
own communities.”
The show, which currently has no premiere
date, will air in Creole
on Camera Mosaique
and on Vwa Lakay (radio). Susan Foley, social
policy researcher at
UMass Boston, says
mental health is highly
overlooked amongst the
Haitian community.
“The trauma of starting over in a new world
can be severe and it is a
natural response to want
to isolate yourself,” said
Foley. “There are support groups out there
such as HAPHI. But
Twa Zanmi is not only
talking to the Haitian
community, we hope to
inspire Americans to be
INCOME
TAX
RETURNS
Professionally
prepared by
more welcoming and
receiving to those from
other countries.”
To participate in the
Twa Zanmi project call
Oswald Neptune at 617298-8076 ext.11 or Jean
Mark Jean Baptiste at
ext.25. told us that two
Carolyn
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Page 12 Boston Haitian ReporteR
March 2008
BostonHaitian.com
Music Reviews
“Wake Up” to the latest hits from Shedley Abraham’s arsenal
By Steve Desrosiers
Contributing Editor
post in Tabou Combo. Next up was the band’s lead
guitarist, Laporte, who shortly after the release of
his solo album promptly abandoned ship. It has
been the recent rumor that solo artist Nickenson
Prudhomme is looking to recruit the band’s bassist
for his own upcoming projects.
But enough with the bad news! What does “Abo”
have in store for us? Well, on the good side are
compositions like the melodic “Is it real”, where
Arly sings his heart out with the usual plaintive
passion. Gazzman counters Arly’s performance with
the album’s title track “Abo” where all the Cape-Haitian charm of his voice is on display. The thoughtful “Legacy” ranks among the album’s memorable
pieces both for the quality of its message and what
it showcases about that singer’s ability to carry a
band. Not to be outdone, Arly counters beautifully
in the mid-tempo composition “Notre Histoire”.
“Bon Macho” deserves some mention for its catchy
melody and fine horn arrangements.
“Abo” is a very competent album. The band is in
good form despite its monumental losses in talent
and personnel. One almost feels the restraint of the
new guitarists who have been recruited to fill some
pretty big shoes. Arly’s keyboard sounds definitely
need some updating and outside of some fine mo-
Djazz La 6
Wake Up
Former New York All Star’s drummer, Shedley
Abraham, recently released the latest chapter
of his highly successful “Djazz La” series. “Wake
Up” is a product of Antilles Mizik and features 14
compositions.
Shedley remains among the industry’s most sought
after drummers and producers. He has probably
backed or been a short-lived part of most popular
bands in New York City. The talented performer
is currently gigging with New York’s latest bandwonder, “Do-La”.
Djazz La 6 is a return to the tried and true commercial approach that has served Shedley well so
far. The album starts off strong with the romantic,
“Si Lanmou” featuring Nickenson Prudhomme’s
sensitive touch on vocals and keys. The charm of
this particular song is such that it has Nicky fans
even more anxious for the follow up to his popular
solo work in the album “Premiere Danse”.
Fans of Magnum Band will be very pleased with
Shedley’s medley of the band’s legendary hits, here
manned by the likes of guitarist Makarios Cesaire
who does an astounding job alongside vocalists
Reginald Cange, Armstrong Jeune and Eric Charles.
“Stil” vocalist and former K-Dans front man Jude
Jean also makes an appearance on the tune, “De
temps en temps”, a fine number that was rumored
to have been written for Carimi’s Richard Cave.
“Wake Up” stays true to the spirit of Djazz La releases. The album does its “thing”, as there are about
2 to 3 potential hit tunes, a respectable reworking
of a Konpa classic and the usual experiments with
English laced Konpa tracks. In this spirit Brian
McKnight’s “Anytime” makes an appearance dressed
in our brand of rhythm and sung by a very capable
singer, “Chandlar”.
I’d kick myself twice if I failed to mention Junior
Laporte’s fantastic and original effort on the song
“Don’t go”. I probably don’t need to mention the album
is well mixed and yet another study in what works
for DJs in today’s club scene, but I will mention that
Shedley needs to do a little more with his skillful
drumming on the popular tracks and not leave his
flights to mildly arranged musings cornered at the
end of the releases.
Wake Up is well worth checking out. Get yours
today.
Nu Look
Abo
Miami-based Nu Look is back on the block with
their long awaited studio release. The album, “Abo”
hit shelves a few months back and is a 10-song long
release of Kaliko Productions.
“The Look” has had to deal with a few difficult
setbacks with musicians these past few years and the
skies may remain gray for Gazzman & Co. for some
time. The issues started with the band’s leadership,
Arly Lariviere, who was notorious for showing up
unfashionably late to most of his shows. This lack
of discipline may have trickled down to rhythm
guitarist Ralph Conde, (a triumph of recruitment for
the band given his abilities as a guitarist, composer
and producer) who, in the midst of a Haitian tour
last year decided that he wouldn’t show up at all
to Nu Look gigs and promptly returned to his old
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ments with the horns
throughout the piece,
the album doesn’t do
much instrumentally
and sounds a bit hollow
at times. However, what
isn’t happening instrumentally is definitely
happening with the two
powerful vocalists who
lead the band. Arly and
Gazzman literally carry
this album with their
voices. You’ve heard
me complain about the
wordy choruses these
guys like so much, so I
won’t do it again.
Seasoned fans of the
band should be happy
with this release.
The
Reporter
Thanks:
Patrick St. Germain
of International Perfumes and Discount for
availing the CDs for
review. All releases are
available at 860 Morton
Street Dorchester, MA
(617) 825-6151.
BostonHaitian.com
March 2008
Boston Haitian Reporter
Page 13
News from Haiti
Alexis survives censure vote over handling of country’s economy
By Jonathan M. Katz
Associated Press Writer
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Haiti’s parliament has
overwhelmingly rejected a no-confidence vote against
Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, defeating
critics angry over his government’s handling of the
economy.
The Feb. 28 decision, which followed an all-day
debate in the Chamber of Deputies, was also a victory
for President Rene Preval, who survived a serious
challenge from the opposition to dismiss his secondin-command and dissolve his Cabinet.
But while Preval has brought political stability to
the country, the vote reflected rising discontent with
his government’s failure to create jobs and control
rising food prices.
“We can’t say that everything is going to be done
fast, but we are working,’’ Alexis told legislators
during a grueling question-and-answer session that
lasted about 10 hours. ``Slowly but surely, we are
working.’’
In the end, only the eight legislators who filed
the initial petition for censure and removal voted
against the prime minister.
Opposition member Isidor Mercier told the chamber moments before the vote that the measure was
“based on the cry of distress of the population.’’
Others who supported the prime minister favored
a less drastic government shake up.
“We need a new Cabinet with Alexis as prime
minister,’’ said Deputy Steven Benoit, a member of
Preval’s Lespwa Party.
Hundreds rallied in support of Alexis in front of
the parliament building Thursday afternoon, singing
his name and chanting threats against opposition
leaders.
Many were supporters of former President JeanBertrand Aristide, who has called Preval a ``traitor.’’ But they opposed the censure vote because it
threatened the country’s fragile stability.
“Any disorder in the country is going to be chaos for
us,’’ said Harold Eveillard, a supporter of Artistide’s
Fanmi Lavalas Party.
Under the Haitian Constitution, there cannot be
another censure vote against the government this
year.
(AP)
Dominican merchants close border market to punish
Haiti for banning poultry imports
By Jonathan M. Katz
Associated Press
Writer
PORT-AU-PRINCE
— Dominican merchants
closed a popular border market that caters
to Haitians on Feb. 4,
punishing their impoverished neighbor for banning Dominican poultry
and egg imports following an outbreak of avian
flu.
The market in the Dominican town of Dajabon
will remain shuttered
until Port-au-Prince lifts
a ban on Dominican poultry imposed last month
after 115 chickens tested
positive for the H5N2
strain of bird flu, according to Freddy Morillo,
chief of the Dominican
Association of Egg Distributors.
About a dozen more
chickens tested positive
for the highly contagious
strain, which poses no
threat to humans, and
were killed this week.
Haiti’s government
angered Dominican authorities by seeking in-
dependent confirmation
that the virus has been
eradicated. Officials from
both nations met over the
weekend but failed to
reach an agreement.
The Dajabon market,
a key trading point for
the two countries, which
share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, was
empty on Monday, Feb.
5. Only a few people were
spotted on Massacre
River bridge, which is
normally flooded with
thousands of Haitians
who are allowed to cross
US drug czar: Cocaine
trafficking a “tidal wave”
through Caribbean
By Jonathan M. Katz
PORT-AU-PRINCE
— The U.S. drug czar
warned Tuesday of a
“tidal wave of cocaine’’
moving from Venezuela
through Haiti and the
Dominican Republic,
part of a 40 percent
increase in trafficking
of the drug from South
America through the
region last year.
John Walters, head of
the White House Office
of National Drug Control
Policy, said one-tenth of
the 1,421 metric tons
(1,566 tons) of South
American cocaine bound
for the U.S. and Europe last year traveled
through Hispaniola, the
island shared by Haiti
and the Dominican Republic.
Walters and acting
U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administrator Michele
Leonhart visited the
Dominican Republic last
month to discuss ways of
thwarting the increasingly popular trafficking
route with President
Leonel Fernandez.
“When you have, in a
relatively short amount
of a time, a giant tidal
wave of cocaine descending on the island ...
there’s a very great danger to the citizens who
live here,’’ Walters told
The Associated Press in a
phone interview from the
Dominican capital, Santo
Domingo. “I’m not aware
of another period of time
where the flow has increased so rapidly.’’
Anti-drug agents
seized just 20 percent
of the cocaine trafficked
in 2007, according to
U.S. enforcement data.
More than two-thirds of
cocaine tracked in 2007
went up the eastern Pacific, primarily on boats
launched from Colombia. Another 21 percent
moved through Central
America and the Western
Caribbean.
Local agents seized 99
metric tons (109 tons) of
cocaine in Mexico and
Central America last
year, considerably more
than they had in 2006.
With these increased
drug seizures stifling
established trafficking
routes in Mexico and
Central America, U.S.
authorities are concerned
about an increasing reliance on the route between
Venezuela and Hispaniola, Walters said.
Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez has dismissed Washington criticisms as purely political,
and his officials counter
that they interdict large
quantities of drugs.
But U.S. authorities
say some 250 metric
tons (276 tons) of cocaine
departed Venezuela last
year, almost five times
the amount recorded in
2004. They also cited an
increase in illegal flights
from Venezuela, from
115 to 178.
Walters said that
many of those flights
take off from licensed
municipal airports in
northern Venezuela and
head to Hispaniola.
But even with highprofile joint U.S.-Haitian-Dominican patrols
like last spring’s Operation Rum Punch, the
quantity of drugs seized
in the central Caribbean
fell 40 percent to just 6.4
metric tons (7 tons).
The problem, Walters
said, is that the operations were too short
in duration, allowing
smugglers to wait until
they are finished and
then resume activity.
(AP)
into the Dominican Republic on Mondays and
Fridays to shop. Jolivier
Toussaint, director of imports for Haiti’s Agriculture Ministry, decried the
boycott and said it would
hurt both Dominican
merchants and Haitian
buyers.
“As soon as the Dominicans treat the animals
they have and it is approved by the international community, Haiti
will have no problem’’
lifting the poultry ban,
he said.
The ban has inflated
prices, exacerbating already dire Haitian food
shortages. Customs officials have seized and
destroyed thousands of
eggs, chickens and fighting roosters that Haitian
buyers smuggled across
the porous border.
Meanwhile the Dominican government is
looking for other Latin
American customers for
the roughly 1 million
eggs and hundreds of
thousands of chickens
Haiti usually imports
each day.
The strain, H5N2,
is not a danger to humans, but has caused
outbreaks across Asia,
prompting the killing
of more than 5 million
birds in Japan since
2005. The more virulent
H5N1 strain has killed
216 people worldwide,
mostly in Asia, according to the World Health
Organization.
Associated Press writer Ramon Almanzar contributed to
this story from Santo Domingo,
Dominican Republic.
Page 14 Boston Haitian ReporteR
March 2008
BostonHaitian.com
Ruth’s Recipes
Don’t wait for Sunday to enjoy your
favorite beans and peas sauce
By Marie Ruth Auguste
Special to the Reporter
Editor’s note: The following Ruth’s Recipes is a classic installment from 2002. Ruth will return with a fresh recipe for
us next month.
As you may know, beans and peas are a big part of Haitian
cuisine. For the most part, we like to cook beans and peas in
two popular ways, with rice (diri kolé) or in a sauce with plain
white rice served on the side (diri a sos pwa). There are as many types of beans/peas sauces as there
are beans and peas, the most common ones are white beans,
black beans, red beans and green peas sauces. There are
a number of less popular sauces like pwa congo and pwa
inkonu. Personally, I like all sos pwa. I think that they are all
really good tasting foods. However, if you grew up in the
Peas Sauce
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4 whole clove
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cloves
2 fresh garlic
1 sprig thyme
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fish
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Marie Ruth Auguste
Haitian culture, you must know that not all beans/peas sauces
were created equal. For example, in Haiti people cook certain beans and peas sauces
only on certain days. When I lived in Haiti, green peas sauce (sos
pwa frans) was mainly cooked on Sundays, white beans sauce (pwa
blan) was cooked on Good Fridays and sometimes on Sundays. In Haiti, having green peas sauce was a true delicacy. In fact,
the general population did not indulge in this Sunday special on
a regular basis, I guess the relatively astronomical cost of green
peas had something to do with this. Today, even here in the United States I find that most Haitians
retain the tradition of having white beans and green peas sauces
only on certain days. In fact, if you go to any Haitian restaurants
in Boston, say on a random Tuesday and ask for white rice and
green peas sauce, you most likely won’t find any. You will get the
typical what are you talking about look with the following: “pwa
frans? Pa gen pwa frans, lé dimanche sèlman, wap jwen pwa rouj.”
Translation: “green peas sauce? There isn’t any green peas sauce.
Only on Sundays, you can get red beans sauce.” The truth about cooking beans and peas sauces is the fact that
it involves such a cumbersome process. Sometimes when you cook
you just want to “set it and forget it” like the famous roasting
machine inventor says. To cook Haitian green peas sauce, traditionally, you first have
to cook the peas with some of the required ingredients for a long
time, and then you have to drain some of the peas (notall) out of
the cooking broth. Next you have to mash the removed peas, dilute
the mashed peas with some of the cooking broth and squeeze the
mixture through a strainer back into the cooking pot for further
cooking, when you get to this step you also have to add the other
ingredients, the spices etc. That’s just too much sometimes.
One day I decided that I didn’t have to follow all the above steps
to have green peas sauce, I wanted it but didn’t have the availability to follow the whole shebang, so I cooked it all in one step. The sauce did look a little different from the traditional version
but it was as delicious and satisfying. If it is a weekday and your
taste buds are craving sos pwa frans, you can have it. Simply cook
it by following this easy recipe, if you can’t buy it, make it!
Enjoy!
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BostonHaitian.com
March 2008
Boston Haitian Reporter
‘I cannot breathe’
Page 15
News from New York
Cousin of woman who died aboard American Airlines flight blames faulty equipment
By RICHARD PYLE
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK — Struggling to breathe, American
Airlines passenger Carine Desir asked for oxygen,
but a flight attendant twice refused her request, the
woman’s cousin said.
“Don’t let me die,’’ the cousin, Antonio Oliver,
recalled Desir saying after the attendant allegedly
refused at first to administer the oxygen on a Feb.
22 flight from Port-au-Prince to New York.
But Desir did die, Oliver said in a telephone
interview.
He said the flight attendant finally relented but
various medical devices on the plane failed, including two oxygen tanks that were found to be empty
and what may have been a defibrillator that seemed
to malfunction.
American Airlines confirmed the flight death
and said medical professionals had tried to save
the woman. A spokeswoman for the airline, Sonja
Whitemon, wouldn’t comment on Oliver’s claims of
faulty medical equipment on the plane.
Immigration Q & A
Work Permits: Keep
Yours Current
Q: I have an application pending with US
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to
adjust my status to that of legal permanent resident.
I received a work permit based on the application I
filed at the same time I filed for permanent residence.
It’s now looking like my work permit will expire before I get my green card. So what should I do? Can
I keep working if the work permit expires.
A:
Your work permit (what USCIS refers to as
an “Employment Authorization Document” or EAD)
allows you to obtain a Social Security number and
work in the United States pending the processing
of your application to adjust status. You need a
current permit to continue to work legally here, so
if it looks like yours will expire before you get your
green card, you should apply to renew it.
You should file your renewal application as soon
as possible within the time frame allowed by USCIS. The agency just announced that it now will
accept renewal applications no earlier than 120
days before the expiration date on the employment
authorization card.
The form for the renewal filing is I-765 (the same
form you used for the initial work permit). You
check the box marked “Renewal.” Currently the
filing fee is $340.
The same form I-765 is used for filing for a replacement card when the original has been lost or
stolen. The same fee applies. If a replacement is
needed because it has incorrect information owing
to an error by USCIS, however, there is no fee. The
120-day limit does not apply to replacement applications; they may and should be filed as soon as it is
known that a replacement is needed.
Note that not just adjustment of status applicants,
but other classes of people, including fiancés of US
citizens and those in or applying for temporary
protected status, are generally eligible to apply to
USCIS for work authorization. Eligibility, where to
file, and whether a fee is required vary according to
a person’s status. Likewise, some classes of people
are able to work in the US without applying for an
EAD, including US citizens, legal permanent residents, conditional permanent residents, and those
authorized to work for a specific US employer (such
as holders of H-1B temporary employment visas).
If you have questions about this or any other aspect of immigration law, you can have a confidential
consultation with one of our immigration lawyers
by calling (617) 542-7654 or coming to one of our
legal clinics.
Disclaimer: These articles are published to inform
generally, not to advise in individual cases. Areas
of law are rapidly changing. US Citizenship and
Immigration Services and the US Department of
State regularly amend regulations and alter processing and filing procedures. For legal advice seek
the assistance of an IIC immigration specialist or
an immigration lawyer.
-Irish Immigration Centre
Desir, who had heart disease, died of natural
causes, medical examiner’s office spokeswoman
Ellen Borakove said Sunday.
Desir had complained of not feeling well and
being very thirsty on the Friday flight home from
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after she ate a meal, according to Oliver, who was traveling with her and her
brother, Joel Desir. A flight attendant gave her
water, he said.
A few minutes later, Desir said she was having
“trouble breathing’’ and asked for oxygen, but a flight
attendant twice refused her request, Oliver said.
He said other passengers aboard Flight 896 became
agitated over the situation, and the flight attendant,
apparently after phone consultation with the cockpit,
tried to administer oxygen from a portable tank and
mask, but the tank was empty.
Oliver said two doctors and two nurses were aboard
and tried to administer oxygen from a second tank,
which also was empty.
Desir, of New York City, was placed on the floor,
and a nurse tried CPR, Oliver said. A “box,’’ possibly
a defibrillator, also was applied but didn’t function
effectively, he said.
Oliver said he then asked for the plane to “land
right away so I can get her to a hospital,’’ and the
pilot agreed to divert to Miami, 45 minutes away.
But during that time Desir collapsed and died,
Oliver said.
“Her last words were, ‘I cannot breathe,’’’ he
said.
Desir, 44, was pronounced dead by one of the doctors, Joel Shulkin, and the flight continued to John
F. Kennedy International Airport, without stopping
in Miami. The woman’s body was moved to the floor
of the first-class section and covered with a blanket,
Oliver said.
Shulkin, through his attorney, Justin Nadeau,
declined to comment on the incident. (AP)
Page 16 Boston Haitian ReporteR
March 2008
BostonHaitian.com