The Agronomist is a profile of Haitian radio journalist and human rights activist, Jean Leopold Dominique. It includes: historical footage of Haiti’s vivid and tumultuous past; interviews with Dominique, himself and with Michele Montas–his heroic wife, life-long love, and extraordinary partner; and incorporates footage shot before Dominique’s assassination on April 3, 2000.
Over a year ago, on 12 January 2010, a terrible earthquake struck the island nation of Haiti and its biggest city, the capital of Port-au-Prince.
The country was devastated, with 230,000 people killed and more than a million left homeless. Hundreds of thousands of buildings were destroyed. The government lost a third of its employees and most of its buildings.
There was an incredible worldwide response to the crisis in Haiti. Governments, businesses and individuals raised billions of dollars to help rebuild the country, one of the poorest on the planet. You may have participated in a fundraising effort yourself, since many kids were touched by the tragedy and wanted to help. KidsPost wanted to update you on the situation in Haiti a year later.
The rebuilding challenge
The simple fact, unfortunately, is that Haiti is still in very bad shape. The Haitian government was so disorganized and ineffective even before the earthquake that there were not enough schools to educate all the country’s children. Today, the job of rebuilding the country is “almost overwhelming,” according to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The government’s shortcomings have made it difficult to distribute the billions of dollars meant to provide food, medicine and clean water to the Haitian people and to help rebuild their country. For example, only 5 percent of the rubble from the crushed buildings has been cleared, so life in the capital is far from normal.
Haiti has a population of about 10 million people, but hundreds of thousands of Haitians are still living in tents that were distributed after the earthquake. These tent cities are not clean and it is hard to keep them safe, so crime is a problem. There also has been an outbreak of cholera, a deadly infection of the intestines, that has spread rapidly because of unclean conditions. The disease has killed more than 3,000 people and could affect many more.
The state of kids
Because 5,000 schools were destroyed in the earthquake, some kids are going to tent schools, but there’s still a huge need for more classrooms. One program is turning specially ventilated cargo containers, like the ones you see on the backs of tractor-trailers, into classrooms.
Education is still a challenge in Haiti. Before the earthquake, “only about 50 percent of school-age children even went to school,” said Tiffany Kuehner of Hope for Haiti, an organization that supports education, nutrition and health programs in Haiti. A year later, “most kids are not in school,” Kuehner said.
Signs of progress
Experts familiar with the rebuilding efforts in Haiti say relief work is finally speeding up under the guidance of a group called the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission. It is being run by Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and former U.S. president Bill Clinton. The group has set a goal of removing 40 percent of the earthquake rubble by October and has approved projects such as highways, apartment buildings and 250 temporary schools for children. But even with these projects underway, rebuilding Haiti will take many years.
A Haitian boy cries while sleeping at a cholera treatment center of Medecins Sans Frontieres MSF (Doctors Without Borders) in Port-au-Prince January 10, 2011. Photo: Jorge Silva / Reuters
Reprint: Haiti Struggling to Rebuild One Year After Earthquake – By Margaret Webb Presser| Washington Post
Related Stories: Haiti: One Year Later |White House Blog
Haiti: One Year Later American Red Cross (Video)
Haiti, One Year Later | The Boston Globe (Photo Gallery)
Haiti Earthquake Relief: What You Can Do to Help – By Stephanie Williams, J.D. (Slideshare)
It was known to some as Haiti’s Auschwitz, a death camp where innocent hordes met with horror at the hands of a regime determined to cleanse the country of political dissenters and democratic thinkers.
Hidden inside a slum, whose dirt-poor residents now face their own daily battles for survival, crumbled walls and concrete slabs are all that remain of Fort Dimanche, where tens of thousands were tortured and killed under the successive dictatorships of Francois Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude, from 1957 to 1986.
The stories of what happened at this notorious prison are extreme – beatings and savage abuse, blood running through cells, corpses hauled into mass graves.
Former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier talks to the press on Friday. He said he came back to the country to help with the reconstruction of the earthquake-ravaged country. Photo: Espinosa/AP
“This was the Duvaliers’ torture chamber. This was their own hell they created,” said Robert Duval, one of the few who made it out of here alive.
But now it is more than just memories that are here to remind Haitians of their grim past. Holed up in a multi-million dollar villa overlooking the sprawl and suffering of Port au Prince, Jean-Claude Duvalier, 59, one of the 20th century’s most infamous despots, is back haunting Haiti once more.
Excerpt, read article: Baby Doc’s Return Viewed from Inside ‘Haiti’s Auschwitz’ -By Jacqui Goddard | The Telegraph UK
Related Articles: Duvalier Returns to the Scene of the Crime – By Carl Hiaasen| Miami Herald
Haiti’s Preval: ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier ‘Must Face Justice’ | BBC News
The victims’ testimonies included in this report are meant to be representative only and do not include all forms of trafficking that occur. These stories could take place anywhere in the world and illustrate the many forms of trafficking and the wide variety of places in which they occur. No country is immune. Many of the victims’ names have been changed in this report. Most uncaptioned photographs are not images of confirmed trafficking victims, but they show the myriad forms of exploitation that define trafficking and the variety of cultures in which trafficking victims are found.
Azerbaijan
Azade, 22, left rural Azerbaijan to work at a massage parlor in Baku. But the massage parlor was a cover for a brothel. Soon after she arrived, a client who worked for the brothel owner forced himself on Azade and threatened to show a videotape of the assault to her father unless she engaged in prostitution at the brothel. Fearing the social stigma attached to rape and the consequences of bringing shame to her family, Azade submitted to several months of forced prostitution before she escaped with the help of an anti-trafficking NGO.
Mali – Cote d’Ivoire
Ibrahim, 11, dreamed of buying a bicycle. When a man he had known for some time told him that he could work on a cocoa farm and make enough money for a bicycle, radio, clothes and more, Ibrahim didn’t suspect the man to be a trafficker. The man took Ibrahim to Cote d’Ivoire and sold him to a cocoa farmer. Ibrahim and other trafficked boys worked long hours doing back-breaking and dangerous work farming cocoa and bananas. The farmer gave them little to eat, beat them severely, and forbade them from leaving the farm. Ibrahim suffered in forced labor for two years before he escaped and returned to Mali. He now works in a market garden but still doesn’t earn enough to buy a bicycle.
India
Jayati and her husband were bonded laborers at a rice mill in India for more than 30 years. From 2 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day, they separated and boiled rice, often suffering burns, injuries and illnesses. The owner of the mill threatened to hurt them if they tried to leave. Their children were forced to quit school and work alongside them in the mill. Their grandchildren were born into bonded servitude. In 2005, Jayati and her family were finally freed with the help of NGOs and local authorities. “I never dreamt of a day like this in my life,” she said after being freed.
Pakistan
Waleed, 45, was a bonded brick kiln worker until he was freed in 1997 by a historic Supreme Court decision that deemed bonded labor illegal. But he found it difficult to adjust to a life of freedom, not knowing how to support his family of six. Work at the kiln was the only life his family knew. So they went back. Ten years later, Waleed is once again in bondage, having accumulated more than $700 in debt. He, his wife, two young daughters, son, and daughter-in-law all work as brick makers. Together they make 2,000 bricks a day, for which they are paid $3. To cover their daily expenses—including food, electricity for a single 60-watt light bulb, and medical care for frequent mosquito-borne illnesses—the family takes more loans from the kiln owners and continues working to repay their debts.
Azerbaijan
Dilara’s sister had been tricked into an unregistered marriage to a trafficker who later abandoned her when she got pregnant. When Dilara confronted her sister’s traffickers, she herself became a victim. She ended up in Turkey, where she and other abducted girls were tortured and forced to engage in prostitution. Dilara escaped with the help of Turkish police, who promptly arrested the nine men who trafficked Dilara and her sister. She then approached a local NGO for legal aid and counseling. The NGO also helped Dilara learn computer programming and find employment with a company in Baku.
The Balkans
When Julia was 8, a man took her and her sisters to a neighboring country and forced them to beg on the streets until their early teens, when he sold them into prostitution. Julia’s traffickers expected her to bring in a certain amount of money each day or face beatings. At 14, Julia ran away, eventually coming under the supervision of local authorities. They placed her in an orphanage where she was not allowed to go to school due to her undocumented status. After a few months, Julia ran away from the orphanage and became involved with a pimp who prostituted her to local men and tourists. Recently, Julia was arrested on narcotics charges. She will likely spend the next two years in a juvenile prison, where she will finally learn to read and write.
Brazil
Matheus was born and raised in one of the poorest backlands of Brazil. For the 39-year-old farmhand, the opportunity to work at a charcoal production site in the Amazon region was too good to miss. But the reality he faced at the work site was far from the opportunity he expected. The workers drank from the same river used by cattle. Smoke from the charcoal furnace stung their eyes all day and made it difficult to sleep at night. They knew the owners had weapons, and they feared the consequences of trying to escape. When anti-slavery activists arrived at the site, they found Matheus and 10 other workers disheveled, wearing torn trousers, filthy T-shirts, and rubber flip-flops.
Democratic Republic of The Congo
Lucien was studying at school when members of a militia group abducted him and 11 other boys from his secondary school. The soldiers drove them to a training camp and put them in a pit in the ground. Those who resisted were beaten. Lucien was stabbed in the stomach and tied up until he submitted to the training. Lucien endured difficult training with some 60 other children, including a number of girls. They were fed one plate of maize meal a day to share among 12 people. Lucien watched people die from starvation and illness. When the soldiers killed those who tried to escape, they forced Lucien and other children to bury the bodies. Lucien later managed to escape and now lives with a host family.
Morocco-Cyprus
Rania signed a contract she couldn’t read and set off to earn money as a cleaner in Cyprus. But when she arrived, an agent told her she was going to work in a cabaret, have drinks with customers, and have sex with them if they wanted. She resisted and asked to be sent home but was told she had to repay her travel expenses first. Rania was raped. It was her first sexual experience. She knew if she returned to Morocco, her brother, a strict Muslim, would kill her for having sex before marriage and for damaging the family’s reputation. When she finally ran away, social workers took Rania to a government shelter for victims of sexual exploitation. While police investigated the case, Rania stayed in Cyprus and worked as a cleaner.
China
Xiao Ping, 20, had spent most of her life in her small village in Sichuan Province. She was thrilled when her new boyfriend offered to take her on a weekend trip to his hometown. But her boyfriend and his friends took her instead to a desert village in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and sold her to a farmer to be his wife. The farmer imprisoned Xiao Ping, beat her, and raped her for 32 months. In that time Xiao Ping grew depressed and homesick, and she became pregnant and had a son. Xiao Ping’s family borrowed a substantial sum to pay for her rescue, but the farmer’s family forced her to leave behind her 6-month-old baby. To cancel the debts, Xiao Ping married the man who provided the loan. But her husband regarded her as “stained goods,” and the marriage did not last.
Southeast Europe
A man trafficked for labor exploitation explains: “I once fainted and the owner took me to the hospital. There the doctor asked me why I didn’t have any registration. I told him that my owner didn’t let me leave the territory I worked. He seemed to have understood the situation I got into… I felt safe at that moment. I thought I would stay there for a long time and I would be able to go home… I was there for three days. On the third day the doctor told me that the treatment was over and the costs were covered by a charity organization. When I went out of the hospital, I saw my owner waiting for me.”
Burma-Malaysia
When Mya, 59, and her husband feared for their lives in Burma, they fled and took refuge in Malaysia. One night, when her husband was at work, Malaysian officials raided Mya’s home and took her to a local police station. For five days, groups of Chinese and Malay officers beat her violently, deprived her of food, and demanded to know where her husband was. A judge sentenced Mya to five months in prison for entering Malaysia illegally. Mya endured abusive conditions in both prison and immigration detention camps before she and other refugees were deported and sold to a Burmese man along the way. Those who could not repay the trafficker were sold to fish trawlers, into prostitution, or to be maids.
Uzbekistan-India
Nila and Miram, ages 20 and 22, traveled from rural Uzbekistan to India to work for a fashion design company after hearing a friend’s stories of lavish parties and unending wealth. But once they arrived, their passports were taken and they were told they would not be designing clothing but instead servicing clients at various luxury hotels. Indian authorities eventually discovered the sex trafficking ring. The women returned to Uzbekistan and received necessary victim care and rehabilitative assistance from a shelter.
Cambodia-Thailand
In Cambodia, Phirun worked in the fields growing rice and vegetables. Promised higher wages for factory work in Thailand, Phirun and other men paid a recruiter to smuggle them across the border. But once in Thailand, the recruiter took their passports and locked them in a room. He then sold them to the owner of a fishing boat, on which the men worked all day and night slicing and gutting fish and repairing torn nets. They were given little food or fresh water, and they rarely saw land. Phirun was beaten nearly unconscious and watched the crew beat and shoot other workers and throw their bodies into the sea. Phirun endured this life at sea for two years before he persuaded his traffickers to release him.
Guinea
After her mother and brother died, Jeannette’s father gave her away at age 8 to work as a domestic servant. Jeannette did housework for 18 hours a day, but she was never paid. She slept on the verandah and ate leftovers. Sometimes, she was denied food altogether. Jeannette was beaten frequently, particularly when she tried to rest. When his wife left the house, the male guardian raped Jeannette. She was not allowed to leave, but even if she was, she wouldn’t know where to go. She didn’t know if her father was still alive. Jeannette later received assistance from a local NGO.
Indonesia-Gulf
Keni binti Carda, 28, left Indonesia to work as a domestic worker in a Gulf state. The woman who employed Keni allegedly burned her repeatedly with an iron, forced her to ingest feces, abused her psychologically, and applied household cleaners to Keni’s open wounds. She poked Keni’s tongue with a knife, pried her teeth loose and forced them down her throat, beat her own children when they tried to protest, and threatened to kill Keni if she tried to escape. Keni’s employer made her work extremely long hours every day, locked her inside the house, and sent Keni back to Indonesia before she could seek help from the authorities. She has impaired vision in one eye, and her flesh is fused together in some places where her employer allegedly burned her.
Southeast Europe
Many victims don’t know where to go for help when they escape from their traffickers or after they return home. A male victim of forced labor explains: “I knew nothing about the assistance available for trafficking victims. I didn’t know who to address in the destination country in case I needed help. I thought I could go only to the police. There I didn’t have enough courage to go to the police because the [traffickers] used to say that they bought the police. They threatened me with death in case I went to the police. I was afraid.”
Nigeria-Ghana-Italy
Anita was trafficked from Nigeria through Ghana to Italy, where she was forced to have sex with more than 25 men a day. If she resisted, her “madam” would beat her with a belt, starve her, and threaten to deport her. Anita would rotate through Turin, Rome, and Milan, enduring mental torture and physical abuse at each base. Anita’s traffickers raped her several times, and she underwent several crude abortions. Anita survived, but some of her friends died in the ordeal.
Source: U.S. Department of State
By Nick Allen (Haiti)
Published: 9:17AM GMT 28 Jan 2010
Haitian orphans at the UN compound in Port-au-Prince. Photo: Wolfgang Rattay/REUTERS
Orphans in Haiti are being offered for sale to foreigners for as little as £30 amid warnings that up to one million children in the country have been left vulnerable to abuse and trafficking in the wake of the earthquake.
In a remote area north of Port-au-Prince, a man was reported to have offered to sell a young boy to a Canadian man for just $50.
The first confirmed case of a child being offered for sale since Haiti was devastated by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan 12 took place near Gonaives, 150km north of Port-au-Prince.
It was reported by Noel Ismonin, a Canadian pastor who rescues orphans in the area. A man offered to sell him the boy but the pastor refused.
Meanwhile, in camps around the capital there were several reports of men being lynched after being accused by earthquake victims of trying to steal infants from tents.
The incident near Gonaives raised fears that child trafficking gangs could move into desperately poor rural areas that have yet to be properly reached by aid agencies. The gangs are also be less likely to be picked up by authorities there.
Abduction of children by child traffickers was already a chronic problem in pre-earthquake Haiti, where thousands were handed by their families into lives of domestic servitude.
“There are an estimated one million unaccompanied or orphaned children, or children who lost one parent,” said Kate Conradt, a spokesman for Save the Children. “They are extremely vulnerable.”
As fears for the safety of Haitian orphans grew a group of 78 children sleeping in the street outside their shattered orphanage in the capital were being guarded at night by a group of local people.
The bodies of 56 other children remained buried under a three-storey section of the collapsed orphanage in the Carrefour slum area.
The youngest victims, Cedric Francois and James Alcius, were both just five months old.
Of the survivors, many had wounds to their heads and limbs. They sleep on blankets laid in the street. Three plastic sheets provided by Unicef have been strung from trees.
“If it rains it will be terrible,” said Eviline Louis-Jacques, 61, who runs the Notre Dame de la Nativite orphanage.
“There are 56 dead over there,” she said pointing to a pile of rubble. “Most of them were babies. That’s why they were in there, they were sleeping. But I have 78 left.”
Vanessa Line, three, was rescued after spending two days stuck in the rubble. She stares blankly ahead and does not speak, clearly traumatized by her ordeal.
Naika Simon, six, who suffered head wounds when timber fell on her, said: “It hurt me and I was crying. I could hear others crying as well. It was dark and I was scared. I miss my mummy and daddy.”
Another child, Reginald Gibbs, five, who has a broken leg, was brought to the orphanage by his parents after their home collapsed. He was already up for legitimate adoption before the earthquake and a family in France is waiting for them.
His father, Daniel Gibbs, 50, said: “He is suffering. We want him to go to France as soon as possible because he will get better care.”
Haiti’s orphanages have also become targets for people desperate for food, water and medical supplies. Maison de Lumiere, which has 50 orphans, came under attack from a group of 20 armed men but security guards drove them off.
Charities and aid agencies are only supplying the orphanages with a few days of food and water at a time in case they are looted.
Source: Telegraph UK, CBS News via YouTube
Amnesty International and UNICEF estimate that 300,000 Haitian children (10% of the total child population) were working as restaveks before the earthquake hit on January 12, 2010. The term “restavek” or “restavec” is derived from the French words – “rester” and “avec” or “to stay with” (“timoun ki rete key moun” in Créole) and is used to describe a long-standing practice, whereby an impoverished family sends their child or children to stay with an affluent “host” family. Guerda Lexima, a child’s right activist who has worked on behalf of restaveks for nearly twenty years, says restaveks are children from “extremely poor rural areas in particular; it’s a child whose parents don’t have the means to feed or send him to school.”
The host family may be a distant relative that lives in Port-au-Prince or some other urban area who agrees to provide the child with food, shelter, and an education in exchange for housework. But most restaveks live as indentured servants in abject poverty. Though it is not uncommon to find young boys working, the majority of restaveks are usually young, black females ages 9 or under who have suffered some type of physical, mental or sexual abuse. The child begins work immediately upon arrival and generally works from dawn to dust, leaving little time for rest and no time for school.
Leading indicators of restavek treatment include work expectations equivalent to adult servants and long hours that surpass the cultural norm for children’s work at home, inferior food and clothing compared to other children in the home, sleeping on the floor rather than in a bed, no time out for play, and a common expectation that the restavek child must use formal terms of address when speaking to social superiors including virtually all other household members. This expectation applies to restavek relations to other children in the household, even children younger than the restavek child, e.g., Msye Jak (“Mister Jacques” rather than simply “Jacques”).
Education is also an important indicator in detecting child domesticity. Children in domesticity may or may not attend school, but when they do attend, it is generally an inferior school compared to other children. Restavek children are also more likely to be over age for their grade level, and their rates of non-enrollment are higher than non-restavek children in the home.[1]
To make matters worse, many restaveks are completely isolated from their immediate family. They have no political voice and are terminated when they reached fifteen years old, the age Haiti’s laws mandates all workers must be paid. As a result, urban cities are flooded with homeless children who either succumb to a life of crime or are the victim of serious crimes such as assault, rape and murder.
In 2008, UNICEF and CARE estimated that more than a 100,000 girls had been sexually assaulted and/or gang raped in Port-au-Prince. The Haitian Women’s Solidarity Movement, one of the few Haitian organizations that report sexual battery to authorities, documented 238 cases of rape during an 18 month period ending in June 2008. Of the 238 cases of rape, 140 (58%) of these cases involved girls that were between the ages of 19-months to 18 years old.
Restaveks are modern-day child slaves and there is a growing concern that this number may double in the aftermath of the earthquake. Children who have lost their parent(s) in the earthquake, children who were in orphanages that now lay in ruins, and adults who had little and now have nothing are all at risk of succumbing to the notorious child brokers who prey on large, poor families and convince them that their child or children will be better off living with an affluent host family. It is a tried and true con that has worked since Haiti’s independence from France in 1804.
Then the rich, light-skinned Haitians controlled the government and convinced the darker-skinned Haitians that they were too poor to care for their children and thus should send them to work for the elite families. The practice is so ingrained in the Haitian culture that, despite a 2003 law banning it, poor families continue to send their children away. A 2009 study by the Pan American Development Foundation revealed that 11% of household with restaveks send their own children to work as restaveks for other families. And the problem spans beyond the Haitian borders.[2]
Human rights organizations have documented restaveks being trafficked in the Dominican Republic as domestic servants and sex slaves. Authorities in the U.S. have been aware of the problem since the late 1990s. As one reporter noted, the phenomenon could not be ignored after October 2, 1999.
Florida officials working on a tip from neighbors removed a 12-year-old Haitian girl—filthy, unkempt and in acute abdominal pain from repeated rape—from the affluent suburban home of middle class Haitian-American merchants. Willy and Marie Pompee in Pembroke Pines. The girl, restavek, said she had been forced to have sex with the Pompee’s 20-year-old son Willy, Jr. since she was nine.[3]
The problem is further compounded by the silence that surrounds the issue and Haitians’ unwillingness to either see the practice as criminal or report to the police. Restaveks who want to escape their hellish environment have nowhere to turn. They “know cops in Haiti to be brutal and corrupt [and] are generally loath to approach police in the U.S. Plus, they fear that turning in their captors to authorities may elicit reprisals.” [4]
Child slavery and human trafficking are illegal under Haitian law, U.S. law, and international law. It is important that the United Nations, United States and other nations involved in the Haiti relief earthquake effort identify and protect Haitian children at risk.
On January 12, 2010, a massive earthquake struck the nation of Haiti, causing catastrophic damage inside and around the capital city of Port-au-Prince. President Obama has promised the people of Haiti that “you will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten.” The United States Government has mobilized resources and manpower to aid in the relief effort. Here are some ways that you can get involved.
List of organizations active in Haiti
Wyclef Jean’s grassroots org
Text Yele to 501 501 to donate $5 via your cellphone
The U.S. State Department Operations Center said Americans seeking information about family members in Haiti should call 1-888-407-4747. Due to heavy volume, some callers may receive a recording. “Our embassy is still in the early stages of contacting American citizens through our Warden Network,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement. “Communications are very difficult within Haiti at this time.”
For those interesting in helping immediately, simply text “HAITI” to “90999″ and a donation of $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts, charged to your cell phone bill. You can also text “HAITI” to 20222 to donate $10 to the Clinton Foundation. (More information)
On January 16, Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama met at the White House. A new organization has been established to help with the relief efforts in Haiti. To donate $10 to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, text “QUAKE” to 20222. (More information)
UPS has donated $1 million dollars to Haiti. People are encouraged to take boxes of food 50lbs and under to your local UPS. They will ship the goods to Haiti free of charge.
The HuffPost reported that some credit card companies like American Express and Mastercard are waiving the fees normally charged to the organization to ensure that the full amount of your donation is given to the charity. Check with your credit card company for more information.
MSNBC and HuffingtonPost also have comprehensive lists of the charities.
Finally, the FBI urges people who are looking for ways to help with earthquake relief to be wary of solicitations that could be from scam artists. If you receive an e-mail you believe is a scam, please forward the e-mail to: http://www.ic3.gov.
The U.S. State Department Operations Center said Americans seeking information about family members in Haiti should call 1-888-407-4747. Due to heavy volume, some callers may receive a recording. “Our embassy is still in the early stages of contacting American citizens through our Warden Network,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement. “Communications are very difficult within Haiti at this time.”
For those interesting in helping immediately, simply text “HAITI“ to “90999” and a donation of $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts, charged to your cell phone bill. You can also text “HAITI” to 20222 to donate $10 to the Clinton Foundation.(More information)
UPS has donated $1 million dollars to Haiti. People are encouraged to take boxes of food 50lbs and under to your local UPS. They will ship the goods to Haiti free of charge.
MSNBC and HuffingtonPost are two sites I recommend you check out. Both have a comprehensive list of charities working in or collecting money for Haiti. The HuffingtonPost reports that some major credit cards companies like American Express and Mastercard are waiving fees normally charged to nonprofits. This means that what you donate is what your charity gets. Check with your credit card company about their policies if you are unsure.
Finally, the FBI urges people who are looking for ways to help with earthquake relief to be wary of solicitations that could be from scam artists.
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