 "Photo: N/A")
 "Photo: Courtesy of Tyler Ikeda")
Meet an ex-prime minister, attempt to save a political prisoner and work to establish a new health clinic — all in five days. That is what senior nursing major Tyler Ikeda and five other delegates did two weeks ago during their trip to Haiti.
These six people have been making trips to Haiti in order to help the country improve the current conditions, Ikeda said. The entire trip was funded out of their pockets.
“Just driving around you see so much poverty, people peeing in the streets, and the rivers are filled with trash,” he said. “I’ve got to see a lot from the rich to the poor to the people who are fighting for everything.”
Ikeda and the Haiti Action Committee are currently working with representatives in Haiti to establish a health clinic for the citizens, Ikeda said. He hopes the people will be able to learn medical practices, and then become self-sufficient and not have to rely on outside assistance.
“I have a generalized worldly view that everybody deserves basic health care treatment,” Ikeda said.
The Haiti Action Committee’s other main project is helping out a political prisoner who has fallen ill in a Haitian penitentiary, Ikeda said.
The prisoner, Ronald Dauphin, remains uncharged since 2004, and is suffering from symptoms of dehydration and starvation, according to Ikeda’s diagnosis of Dauphin.
Ikeda has been writing letters to the Haitian Administer of Justice in hopes that Dauphin will be given access to medical attention and a doctor, he said.
“They’re rehydrating him and giving him pain medication, but they’re not really doing anything,” Ikeda said. “There’s a lot of suspicion that there could be some serious underlying stuff.”
The Haiti Action Committee met not only with influential government personnel, but also with ordinary citizens who are struggling to obtain their fundamental rights, he said.
“I think the biggest thing I can do is come back and spread the word and not just forget about it,” Ikeda said. “It’s easy to do that, but just having this experience really lights the fire under my butt to do something about it.”
In 2004, Haiti was taken over by the United Nations, after a coup took place, he said.
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was removed from power, and the country has been run by the United Nations ever since.
Members of the delegation are upset with the recent governmental treatment of Haitians and with the American government’s interference.
“I joined this delegation to meet a promise to come to Haiti, and it was a wonderful and sad experience,” said delegate Ellen Rollins. “The wonderfulness is the Haitian people and the sadness is that America is guilty as sin. I am so ashamed. The Bush administration should be sued and charged in international court.”
Other delegates are also glad that they have been able to help the country prosper after its government’s downfall.
After the seven trips that Seth Donnelly, a high school teacher and member of the Haiti Action Committee, has made to Haiti, he has really seen the impact the United States can have in other countries.
“It makes me more aware of my responsibility to right the wrong of my own county in foreign policy,” Donnelly said.
Anyone who is interested in helping the cause can go to the committee’s Web site, haitiaction.net, and contact them about their next trip to Haiti, Donnelly said. People can also set up their own support group to raise funds that go directly to Haitian citizens and schools.
“Our main goal is to ultimately raise awareness in the United States about how we can play a more constructive role with working shoulder-to-shoulder with Haiti for human rights and democracy,” Donnelly said.
Therese Marucci can be reached at
tmarucci@theorion.com
Preval is not a puppet of the UN and may throw them out in September. He has already told them he wants the UN to leave.
The UN is not running the country - no one is. The Preval government is totally incompetent.
Forget the elections Forget the democratic process - whatever that is...and help the people. The need food, work schools and some medical help.
Democracy has no calories.
What evidence to you have to back up that statement?