Good News first: We do actu­ally have some good news: Mario Joseph and the rest of the team at the Bureau des Avo­cats Inter­na­tionaux escaped unharmed. The office is dam­aged, but not destroyed. For­mer BAI lawyer Pooja Bha­tia is also ok (and Tweet­ing and writ­ing about the earth­quake), and our for­mer office man­ager, Pas­calle Duvivier sur­vived the earth­quake. The other good news is the strength of the net­work of friends, col­lab­o­ra­tors and sup­port­ers who have sent their prayers and hopes for the safety of our team and friends in Haiti. Thank you.

The Bad News: I have lit­tle to add to the descrip­tions of dev­as­ta­tion that we are all read­ing and watch­ing. I am not hear­ing much from our friends on the ground, I can rarely reach any­one. I expect we will start receiv­ing the bad news about friends, col­lab­o­ra­tors and clients soon enough, and we will share some of those sto­ries on our web­site.

In the mean­time it’s hard to watch such suf­fer­ing and not be able to help directly — because I am 3,200 miles away, and because a law degree can’t set bro­ken bones or lift con­crete. But there are things we can all do, even if their impact will take some time to be felt.

First, we can act as cit­i­zens of our coun­tries. In the U.S., we have been cam­paign­ing for Tem­po­rary Pro­tected Sta­tus (TPS) for Haitians since the 2008 hur­ri­canes. Haiti was fully qual­i­fied for this sta­tus, which allows vis­i­tors from coun­tries suf­fer­ing from polit­i­cal or envi­ron­men­tal stress to stay in the U.S. and work, before the earth­quakes, but even now the U.S. Admin­is­tra­tion is only say­ing it will con­sider TPS, which it has already been con­sid­er­ing since Feb­ru­ary. Please do the good, and easy action alert that our friends at TransAfrica Forum have posted, urg­ing more res­olute action.

Sec­ond, we can shape the debate about emer­gency relief that we are hav­ing, once again. We may not be able to pre­vent earth­quakes and hur­ri­canes, but we can limit Haiti’s extreme vul­ner­a­bil­ity to envi­ron­men­tal stresses. The major­ity of the deaths from this earth­quake will be suf­fered in the poor neigh­bor­hoods of poorly built houses crowded together on the pre­car­i­ous hills above Port-au-Prince and the ravines in the city. The peo­ple liv­ing in those houses knew the dan­gers, but they could not afford safer hous­ing for their fam­i­lies, and the gov­ern­ment lacked the will or the resources to enforce its build­ing codes. We need to insist that the inter­na­tional community’s response to the earth­quake includes long-term assis­tance to make Haiti less vul­ner­a­ble to the next nat­ural dis­as­ter. See good arti­cles on this by Tracy Kid­der and Peter Hall­ward. I’ve raised the issue today in inter­views with Air Amer­ica, and Talk Radio News, and expect to do so Thurs­day on Democ­racy Now! . On Thurs­day, IJDH and sev­eral other human rights orga­ni­za­tions will issue an advi­sory on Inte­grat­ing Human Rights Into Dis­as­ter Response (check our web­site later).

Third, we can help with emer­gency dis­as­ter relief. IJDH and BAI do not have skills in this area, so we are step­ping aside and let­ting those who do have the skills do their work, and urg­ing every­one to sup­port that work finan­cially. There are many groups doing excel­lent dis­as­ter relief on the ground already, but if past is pro­logue some groups will not spend their dona­tions well. So make sure that you give dona­tions to orga­ni­za­tions that have a strong track record and are account­able, and have a long term vision for com­bat­ing inequal­ity and exploita­tion in Haiti. I will per­son­ally rec­om­mend three IJDH col­lab­o­ra­tors, Part­ners in Health, the Haiti Emer­gency Relief Fund and the What If? Foun­da­tion, but there are many more orga­ni­za­tions wor­thy of support.

We deeply appre­ci­ate the gen­eros­ity of every­one who has responded to the earth­quake by con­tribut­ing to IJDH and BAI. When the dust set­tles we will need funds to repair the office and help staff mem­bers get back on their feet, includ­ing one who lost every­thing but his fam­ily when his house col­lapsed. And although we do not do dis­as­ter relief work, we do do dis­as­ter pre­ven­tion: all of our legal and advo­cacy work is designed to help our clients, and the poor of Haiti in gen­eral, to reduce the dan­ger from nat­ural, eco­nomic and polit­i­cal dis­as­ters through the enforce­ment of their rights to clean water, health­care, edu­ca­tion and fair treat­ment in the courts.

The BAI will get back to work advanc­ing the rule of law, prob­a­bly in a few days. So will the peo­ple of Haiti, who have rebounded time and again from cat­a­stro­phes, giv­ing the world lessons in courage and tenac­ity. Those of us watch­ing from afar can find hope and com­fort in Haitians’ resilience. But we should also get back to work, to make sure that next time Haitians do not need to rebound from so far down.

Brian Con­can­non Jr.

Direc­tor

Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti

For more infor­ma­tion about the Half-Hour For Haiti pro­gram, the Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti (IJDH) or human rights in Haiti, see our web­site, www.HaitiJustice.org. To receive Half-Hour for Haiti Action Alerts (about 2 per month), send an email to HalfHour4Haiti@ijdh.org.