Crisis Camps: Computer Techies Helping Response for Haiti

Computer programmers and other technical people are building valuable tools for helping the people of Haiti after the devastating earthquake on January 12. Crisis Camps have been set up for volunteers to develop applications that help with damage assessment, mapping, locating of survivors, locating first aid stations, translation, radio communications, food and water deliveries, free phone services, and many more.  At the root of the effort is the basic understanding that good data must be given to and easily shared between all of the aid organizations, both public and private, helping with aid and rescue in Haiti. Some of the earliest volunteers for Crisis Camp came from Google, NASA, the United Nations, the American Red Cross and the Los Angeles City Fire Department.

Google developed an online tool to help people locate missing persons in Haiti.  The technical effort has a Wiki page at Crisis Commons Wiki, that gathers resources, updates on projects, and calls for volunteers in specific areas.

The Crisis Camp volunteer approach is building something very powerful that will have a huge impact on disaster response in the future.  This is the internet and tech world at its very best.

Folktale From Haiti: Wings on Her Feet


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Photo by Garrett Crawford





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Folktale from Haiti: Why Cats and Dogs Never Get Along

adapted by Donalson Latour








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Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines Docks Ship for Fun and Sun in Stricken Haiti

Perhaps the most disgusting company on the face of the planet has made itself known today: Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines has docked the cruise ship Independence of the Seas at a private beach in Haiti which is fenced off from the rest of the stricken nation, for some fun and sun along the beach.  The resort beach is about sixty miles from the devastation of Haiti’s earthquake zone and is surrounded by tall fences and armed guards.

Apparently, the cruise line company has excused its shocking act by saying that it delivered some pallets of relief supplies.  So, with millions of people injured, two hundred thousand dead, everything lying in heaps of rubble, this Royal Caribbean company thinks it can dock its ship for fun and NOT pick up survivors or provide beds and rooms for survivors or transportation for survivors.  What Royal Caribbean should be doing is running its ships back and forth to ferry people to hospitals on other islands.  That’s what a responsible company with real sailors in its employ would be doing.  How could a ship’s captain or crew live with itself after behaving in such a monstrous fashion?  How could the passengers not mutiny?  What are the names of the people on board this ship?  Let’s find out and post them on the web.

Ship photo from Bernt Rostad

Haiti May Be Providing Slave Labor to U.S. Corporations

Haitians Hang French Troops For Their Acts of Cruelty

During the earthquake crisis in Haiti I have continued to ask the same question of my friends: How, in the 21st Century, can a country so close to the richest nation on earth be so poor?  No one seems to have an answer except for Pat Robertson (who is not a friend, by the way) who suggests that the Haitians made a pact with the devil when they made the French leave.  Seems an odd way to refer to a successful uprising against slavery, doesn’t it?

Since the earthquake, I have learned that Haiti was apparently the location of the world’s first successful uprising against slavery.  They fought the French and won.  It is also the world’s oldest black republic.  It is this achievement that a person like televangelist Pat Robertson suggests is a pact with the devil.

But now it seems that U.S. corporations are using Haitian workers in sweatshop factories to manufacture goods at wages of approximately 30 cents per hour.  That must be why the tiny nation is too poor to build things that can withstand earthquakes.  It will be useful to learn how many of these factories or sweatshops/slave camps have collapsed in the earthquake.  I would imagine that there will be some investigation of such places in the near future.  Perhaps the slave trade never really ended at all, but simply changed its name to ‘cheap labor’ or ‘sweatshop’ or ‘globalism.’

Here’s a history of Haiti from Wikipedia.

Here’s an article about the U.S. role in keeping Haiti poor.

Disney has used cheap labor in Haiti.  They say so themselves right here.

I particularly like their response to a question about child labor:

Q. What is your policy on child labor?
Our Code of Conduct for Manufacturers prohibits child labor. Companies that make Disney-branded products must sign a contract stating that they do not and will not use child labor. Child is defined as “a person younger than 15 (or 14 where local law allows) or, if higher, the local legal minimum age for employment or the age for completing compulsory education.” If child labor is discovered in a factory, we generally seek to work with the factory, as well as the licensee that uses the factory, to identify the most feasible solution to remedy the situation as quickly as possible. This may include collaboration with government, multilateral institutions, NGOs or other companies that use the factory.

So Disney will ‘seek to work with the factory’ if it finds child labor going on. Am I the only one who’s shocked that a U.S. corporation would print such a statement of its own accord?  Because if it were me finding out about child labor, I would ‘seek to work’ a hammer into someone’s head.  For my part, I can only define very cheap labor in a very poor country where workers are threatened with reprisals if they try to improve their lot as slavery.  In fact, the more I learn about Haiti the less it looks like a country and more like a camp.