Overview:
For almost a 12 months, 321 households, displaced by gang violence in numerous quarters of Port-au-Prince, have been residing in a shelter heart at a public college in Bourdon. Their story showcases, past solidarity, a self-governing system primarily based on mutual assist, compassion, hope and perception.
Twenty years in the past, 12-year-old Natacha Bélizaire, a lady with a pocketful of goals, launched into a 125-mile journey north from her hometown, Les Cayes, to the bustling city heart of Port-au-Prince. Little did she know, this transfer was just the start of a life stuffed with unimaginable hardships—together with operating for her life and residing with a whole bunch of individuals in a refugee camp, requiring extra than simply solidarity. Many individuals like her have been battling the results of relentless gang violence and life’s uncertainties because of a self-governing system primarily based on mutual assist, compassion, hope and perception.
Bélizaire left her hometown to affix her sister, Roselie, who was 29 then. On the time, most of Port-au-Prince’s overpopulated areas had been already beneath rampant violence from armed teams and violent agitators—often known as chimères.
“Port-au-Prince has been hell to me,” Bélizaire informed The Haitian Occasions throughout a Whatsapp video interview. “I’ve by no means considered issues being so troublesome and the atmosphere so unsafe. Ever since I moved to the town, armed bandits have dominated all populated quarters. A functioning authorities serving the individuals has been completely absent.”
Bélizaire’s elder sister, Roselie, echoed the identical sentiment.
“We have now been helpless for thus lengthy,” she mentioned. “Hazard is coming from nearly all over the place. However we’ve got been left to fend for ourselves, not simply to make ends meet each day but additionally to struggle legal gangs who’ve been terrorizing individuals freely.”
Solidarity is essential however not sufficient within the face of gang terror
In keeping with the Bélizaires, bracing for what every day would convey to households in Port-au-Prince and its metropolitan areas calls for extra than simply training solidarity with one another. It additionally extends to fostering a community-based assist system contained in the completely different shelters to help people in growing survival abilities, social connections and wholesome relationships.
In truth, the youthful Bélizaire mentioned: “My life would have been worse off, or I might have been killed alongside my kids if I used to be not linked to individuals in my completely different environments over time.”
Typically operating away from gang violence or socio-political unrest, her plan has been notably altered, and her life shattered by the relentless grip of gang assaults and monetary hardships, a wrestle that lasted for a grueling 20 years. After many setbacks, she was pressured to desert her schooling prematurely— thus, her dream of changing into a household doctor or a pediatrician.
At 32, Bélizaire is right now a mom of two kids beneath 10 years outdated. Her struggles proceed in a refugee camp for displaced victims of gang violence. She has been sheltered there along with her kids for almost a 12 months now. She fled the gang-infested areas of Carrefour-Feuilles, Savanne Pistache and Grand Ravine in August 2023, when armed gangs preventing for management terrorized households, assaulted ladies and ladies, even killed some individuals and burned a number of properties—-including the Bélizaires.
An enormous household who shares struggles, hope and perception in a greater future
Bélizaire’s story is just like the experiences of many displaced individuals residing in encampments attributable to gang violence.
Since final August, she has been sharing life with 320 different households contained in the Ecole Nationale République de Colombie, a public college within the Bourdon space—a southeast Port-au-Prince suburb. This college was closed a couple of 12 months in the past attributable to unrelenting socio-political unrest within the Haitian capital, leaving a whole bunch of kids with out formal schooling for that lengthy. As the college constructing was vacant, individuals fleeing excessive gang violence moved in and turned it into a giant shelter heart.
“The way in which individuals on this encampment and quite a few others all through the metropolitan space of Port-au-Prince carry themselves conjures up hope and a way of perception in a greater future for Haiti.”
— Victoria Baillergeau, Founder and CEO of Espwa Pou Fanm Ayisyen
Contained in the shelter, most people are ladies and kids whose husbands or mother and father had been killed in gang assaults between August 2023 and March 2024.
“Right here [at the shelter center], everybody has grow to be household,” René Petit-Homme mentioned.
Petit-Homme is likely one of the few males within the camp, taking part in father figures for quite a few kids. He’s a part of a self-established committee for the shelter heart’s administration. Additionally, one of many younger males serving as a vigilante to guard the camp used a pseudonym to talk with The Haitian Occasions fearing for his security. At night time, these males take turns watching over everybody’s safety and well-being.
Most of those households didn’t know one another earlier than taking refuge at this technical elementary college for underserved kids and youth. However they’ve created a bond over shared struggles, hope and perception in a promising future exterior the camp.
They arrive collectively to offer sensible help to one another, comparable to serving to with each day duties, together with cleansing, cooking, distributing meals and hygiene merchandise and watching over the college neighborhood for safety and security. They not solely share assets but additionally leisure time and leisure actions.
“This collaborative effort helps to create a supportive and inclusive atmosphere inside the shelter heart, fostering a way of unity and mutual assist among the many gang terrorized victims,” mentioned Herbert Henriquez, a humanitarian assist and grassroots socio-economic improvement guide who works with the nonprofit group, Hope for Haitian Women (Espwa Pou Fanm Ayisyen—EFA, in Haitian Creole).
Over the past 4 months or so, EFA has been the primary supply of out of doors assist for the households contained in the shelter heart.
“We’d like the federal government to offer safety in order that we are able to get out of right here. Nobody needs to occupy the youngsters’s college ceaselessly. However the authorities has been absent,” Donatien Metéus lamented.
With the backing of the Florida-based worldwide group, Food For The Poor (FFTP), and a crew of 10 volunteers, the Haitian nonprofit distributes meals, hygiene merchandise and different requirements to households.
EFA, in partnership with Haitian psychologist Johane Landrin, additionally offers displaced households with emotional and psychological assist. The group offers a listening ear to people experiencing emotional difficulties, serving to them really feel much less remoted throughout difficult intervals.
Landrin makes use of completely different strategies comparable to listening, pausing, stopping, respiration and connecting to assist households coping with anxiousness, stress and panic assaults.
To Victoria Baillergeau, founder and CEO of EFA, “these households try to dwell sooner or later at a time within the face of adversity.” Regardless of this, she mentioned: “The way in which they carry themselves conjures up hope and a way of perception in a greater future for Haiti. They’re respectful and caring individuals who belief one another.”
It’s that sort of inspiration that led Baillergeau to go away her consolation in the US, stop her well-paying job {and professional} profession in 2018 to return to Haiti. She needed to be on the bottom serving to susceptible individuals, particularly ladies and ladies.
“She put her personal livelihoods on maintain to assist of us,” Henriquez mentioned.
Her final objective is to ascertain a 24/7 absolutely working shelter for abused ladies and ladies.
“ how persons are struggling and the potential in younger ladies, I really feel the need to be a part of an answer,” EFA’s founder informed The Haitian Occasions.
This philanthropic mindset is in her DNA. Baillergeau is the granddaughter of Episcopal priest Fritz Lafontant, a lifelong advocate for marginalized individuals. Earlier than he died in June 2021, the late Father Lafontant, a Companions In Well being (PIH) founding member and its sister group Zanmi Lasante’s founding director, spent over 60 years of his life educating, coaching and offering healthcare providers to individuals in rural Haiti’s communities.
“As a U.S. citizen, like many others, I might depart Haiti after issues bought worse in the previous couple of months,” Baillergeau contemplated. “However I resisted as a result of I do know that tens of millions of individuals right here shouldn’t have every other choice. They want our organizational assist on the bottom to get by way of the storm of gang terror,” she defined. “I imagine collectively we’ll survive, and we are able to change the nation.”