Haiti and the United States

[Jordan Merlo]

In October of 2009 I as well as several others traveled to Haiti with Life For the World. Our mission was to spread light and love to the people who have seldomly been abandoned for years. While prepping for my trip and talking to professors and friends about Haiti an overwhelming amount did not know where Haiti was or had they ever heard of the country. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world if not the poorest and people thought I was going to Haiti for vacation time. This came as a shock to me that those who I talked to didn't care about the extreme conditions Haiti was in or I would be told that "Haiti has been in conditions like this for years and there is no hope for them."
Throughout my trip to Haiti I was greeted with nothing but love and affection from all. The Haitians are all nice, warm hearted people. And though they live in below average conditions and eat an average of 3 days a week, they still have hope for themselves, their country, and their future. These strong hearted individuals accepted their conditions and though they hoped and prayed for better conditions for themselves and their future families, they never complained. These individuals loved life even though life treated them unfairly. So, why is it that people like the Haitian community get shafted? Why does it have to take a catastrophe like a 7.0 earthquake for people to join in and make a difference? The world is finally acknowledging the cries of the Haitian people, but have we arrived too late?

These are all questions that I fear for our country. Will it be too late? Could we potentially put ourselves at a disadvantage if we don't start helping out our people in need? Lets not wait for a catastrophe, lets starting giving today and helping our people. By joining programs such as Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, we are shining a light into the world of those who are living in economically unsatisfactory conditions and helping them with their disadvantage. These students need to be shown love and be given hope and we don't have to wait for a disaster to occur to do so. Tutor/Mentor programs are essential for those living in low-income neighborhoods, it not only keeps these students out of trouble after school hours but it provides them with essential tools the need to go to college and get a job. We need your help. By donating your time and/or money you are helping ensure that one more student can get the attention he/she deserves to succeed in life. Like Haiti, Tutor/Mentor programs will need ongoing support. If you have any further questions please stop by our Cabrini Connections website. And remember programs like these are how people can become the person they were destined to become.

[Eunsoo Lee]

Actually, the people is blunt to hear a bad new especially like Haita catastrophe because it's none of their business, which means they feel they don't need to help them. But wouldn't it be better if they change the situations each other? maybe they would realize that we need to help them who is poor. there is some word that indicate "noblesse oblige". now it's chance that rich guys do action "noblesse oblige". I hope many rich guys would do that.

[Daniel Bassill]

On our Ning site we have people from Africa, South America, Asia and the US. In each of these parts of the world there are people living in isolation and poverty, just as those people in Haiti, or New Orleans, or the high poverty areas of Chicago. We need to find ways where everyone is writing articles like yours, and pointing to web sites, forums and information hubs, that volunteers, donors, leaders and policy makers can (and will) visit, over and over. As that happens our goal is that this leads to a distribution of attention, commitment and resources to many places of the world and of Chicago, not just our own Cabrini Connections.

However, as we increase the number of people looking at this information, to the same level that people now are responding to the tragedy in Haiti, we end up helping our own programs get more of the attention and resources we each need.

I hope people reading Jordan's articles will read this essay on collaboration.