Haiti: Day 10 / 11

DAY TEN

Out on the town celebrating Aleda’s birthday!

… in the picture: Tina, We Advance, Executive Assistant; We Advance Executive Director; Barbara Guilluame, Candidate for Mayor of Cite Soleil, ME &; Judie Roy, former candidate for President of Haiti.

Although, We Advance does not have an office the team visits daily due to lack of funds, the team is close and celebrates every milestone and each other’s occasions.

Of the co-founders Aleda and Barbara are the Port Au Prince residents. Aleda is responsible for the management of the We Advance clinic, clinic personnel, vendors, strategic partnerships, donors, and more. Native Tina, Aleda’s executive assistant participates in all meetings and supports the operations, scheduling and ground arrangements of donors, visitors and dignitaries. Barbara knows the lay of the land as a native and candidate for Cite Soliel where the medical clinic resides. When I visited the medical clinic Nap Vanse (in creole stands for We Advance) adjacent to the port area, it looked just like the West Oakland community which is also adjacent to the Port of Oakland. Similarly, pollution and blight are obvious indicators.

Although, Cite Soleil is known to be the poorest and most crime riddeb of all the cities in Haiti and biggest slum in the Northern Hemisphere. This is where We Advance set to make its impact. After taking a survey of the areas from local women, top on the list of needs was health care. This is why Nap Vanse came to be established. The long term goal is to get the women involved at the decision making tables in the reconstruction of the Haiti. We Advance founders believe that before they can get to the table, they must be healthy. Very similar to those of my organization – BWOPA – We Advance top social issues are health, education, public safety and the environment.

Cite Soleil Police Department

I am very proud of Barbara Guilluame taking on the task to clean-up and regulate Cite Soleil’s environment of rampant crime heavily conducted from what I understand by gang members. Cite Soleil has a long history of gangs which is one of the reasons the United Nations supposedly occupied the area in xxxx and opened fired killing residents many of whom were innocent people.

DAY 11

LAJONES + Cite Soleil Mayoral Candidate Barbara Guilluame

The official Carnaval weekend in the Southern area – Les Cayes and Jacmel … today a group of us went to the northern beach area for a meeting. But, of course, before the official meeting, dining was important. Interestingly, two fisherman approached us with live crabs and lobsters. As much as I love crab and eat mostly everyday, it was hard to turn down. I just was not ready for Haitian crab or lobster 🙂

One of the tangible projects I worked on is getting Barbara’s mayoral website up and running. While still in progress, this was an accomplishment. We discussed her endorsement strategy, key issues, finances and fundraising strategy, campaign leadership and field supporters.

Check out the in progress website: http://barbaraguillaumeformayor.com. Barbara will check out getting a paypal account for contributions.