Almost two months ago, a devastating earthquake that rattled Haiti has left 230,000 people dead and 1 million homeless.
Our NESCAC peers have already begun vigorous fundraising campaigns: Colby College has raised $21,600 towards their goal of $25,000, while Middlebury College students had collected more than $5,000 within one week of the earthquake.
Originally, the five academic centers at Conn decided to work collaboratively to provide aid for Haiti.
“The seed may have germinated among the five centers but we accumulated people along the way,” Robert Gay, director of CISLA and faculty advisor of the committee, said of the process.
The mix of faculty, staff and students soon became officially known as the ‘Connecticut College Responds to Haiti’ Committee.
The committee is still in the planning stages. Becca Cheney ‘12, student chair of the fundraising subcommittee, said the delay in action may be attributed to the timing of the disaster: occurring during our winter break, other NESCAC schools were in the middle of January term and were able to organize more quickly.
“We said, we are not emergency response. It’s not that we’re not reacting, we want to react in an appropriate manner,” said Mary Devins, Associate Director of CISLA and faculty advisor of the committee.
The Committee’s preliminary action plan was unveiled at last Friday’s common hour: “Connecticut College Responds to Haiti” to a packed lecture hall. A panel of professors spoke on the subject, including Catherine Benoit of Anthropology, Douglas Thompson of Geology, David Canton of History and Robert Gay of the Sociology Department.
In addition, Connecticut College students Cheney and Penney Jade Beaubrun ’11, originally from Haiti, spoke.
Professor Thompson warned that the media attention will soon shift away, but that does not mean that Haiti will be self-sufficient or no longer need outside help.
The Response to Haiti Committee is focusing on that which Thompson introduced: long-term relief after the disaster hype has died down.
Gay rationed, “Because the press will go away and it will be forgotten, is precisely why we need to look to the future. It is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere and the biggest disaster perhaps in the last hundred years.”
The tenets of the response plan aim for a primary fundraising drive in April.
“It’s so chaotic on the ground right now. We’re waiting until April because Haiti has plenty of money right now, more money than they know what to do with, so we want to do something once we figure out where the money should go,” said Gay.
The main fundraising incentive for students on campus will be $10 dollar Haiti wristbands, similar to Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG bracelets to support cancer research. The Haiti bracelet will not only represent a personal donation, but will also allow students access to all of the weekend’s events – free of charge.
The campus’ response will be focused into the weekend of April 8-10. Thursday will feature an OxFam-esque dinner where students can sign away their meals and the cost to prepare those meals will be donated to Haiti. The committee is working with local restaurants in New London to ask for them to donate a portion of their proceeds that night to Haiti.
Friday will be a full afternoon of programming featuring speakers both on the ground in Haiti at the time of the earthquake, and those on the ground during the aftermath. The night will feature N20 as well as performances by Tufts and Northeastern improv groups.
Finally, a variety show with a cappella and dance performances will be presented on Saturday. All proceeds from the events will support the cause.
Beyond committee-organized events, individual clubs are also doing their part to fundraise for Haiti. Benefits from Eclipse, the annual SOAR dinner, ATLAS’s I-NITE and Spotlight on Human Rights will all be added to the Haiti fund.
All of the money collected from both committee-scheduled events and individual clubs looking to fundraise for Haiti will be centralized in a specific account to be donated to an organization that, as of now, has not yet been decided.
Cheney emphasized that the committee has been considering the choice of organization carefully. They are relying a fair amount on insight from Professor Catherine Benoit who has been an integral part of the committee since its inception.
Benoit, who was on sabbatical but returned to Conn solely to assist in Haiti relief efforts, has done extensive research in Haiti and has a broad network of friends and colleagues from whom she can draw information.
“We are setting our sights on small NGOs that will really listen to what the victims are saying that they need, rather than giving them what people who are not on the ground think they need,” said Cheney.
The fundraising goal is also still up for discussion – some committee members have thrown around numbers as high as $25,000 while others wonder if we should even have a goal.
Both Devins and Gay acknowledged possibilities for student humanitarian trips to Haiti in the future, but emphasized that now is not the appropriate time.
“We want to wait until after the blitz, reconstruction is going to take years, if not decades,” said Gay.
Devins urged students to purchase bracelets when they become available, “I think people would agree that we are primarily a campus of “haves,” $10 for you buys two lattes, whereas for someone in Haiti $10 could buys two lattes, whereas for someone in Haiti $10 could be a massive difference in daily life.”
