A Day for Haiti


April 14, 2010

Steven Knapp viewing female speaker at podium at a Day for Haiti event

GW hosts in-depth event examining how to rebuild after the devastating earthquake.

When the 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck on Jan. 12, the destruction galvanized the world’s attention.

Americans—and people around the globe—read about the tragedy in newspapers, watched live coverage on television and participated in clothing and food drives.

But since January, for many, Haiti’s tragedy has been eclipsed by other news--the Winter Olympics, the U.S. health reform legislation and the West Virginia mining accident, among others.

“The earthquake shock has been absorbed for many people around the world, and unfortunately the mention of the earthquake’s destruction is far less frequent,” said GW Provost and Vice President for Health Affairs John F. Williams, M.D. ’79, Ed.D. ’96. “But this is not the case here.”

The George Washington University hosted “A Day for Haiti: Solutions for the Future” on Monday. Co-sponsored by the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, the event featured a series of panels on reforming Haiti’s education system, improving its health care and rebuilding its government. Speakers included Haitian First Lady Elisabeth Delatour Preval, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and more than a dozen other experts from the university, government and nonprofit organizations.

In her address, Mrs. Preval, who received her master’s in business administration from GW in 1988, stressed the need for international assistance.

“The earthquake claimed more than 200,000 lives and ravaged most of the infrastructure in Port-au-Prince. There was $14 billion in damages and an 8 to 10 percent loss of the gross domestic product for this year in a country that was already the poorest in the western hemisphere. Three percent of the population died,” said Mrs. Preval. “I am aware of no other catastrophe in modern times that has resulted with the loss of such a great percentage of the country’s population.”

This is not the first time Mrs. Preval has visited her alma mater since the earthquake. In March, GW hosted a symposium on the future of Haiti’s education system.

“If every university would support every graduate the way GW has supported Mrs. Preval, we’d have no problems in the world,” said Sen. Landrieu.

Since the earthquake, GW has been actively engaged in relief efforts on campus and on the ground in Haiti.

Just 24 hours after the earthquake, three GW physicians and a graduate student traveled to Haiti as members of the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue team. The team, which is made up of physicians, structural engineers and other emergency personnel, found 16 individuals.

GW students have raised more than $9,000 for disaster relief and organized a candlelight vigil and letter writing event.

“Our faculty, staff and students continue to be moved deeply by what’s happened in Haiti,” said GW President Steven Knapp in remarks at the April 12 event.

This month, many Haitian schools began to reopen in temporary classrooms. As the country is rebuilding its education system, Mrs. Preval wants to see the system dramatically reformed. Public education needs to be free. School buildings need to be safer. Teachers need to be more qualified. And more students need to be enrolled in school.

“The children cannot wait,” said Mrs. Preval. “The future of the current generation is in jeopardy.”

Marcelo Cabrol, chief of the education division in the Inter-American Development Bank, said education is the pillar of national development.

“We need a tuition-free education system, and that also means public funding for private education,” Mr. Cabrol said. “And teacher quality has to be improved. About 70 percent of the teachers in Haiti have less than a ninth-grade education.”

Ellen Dawson, chair of GW’s Department of Nursing Education and associate professor of nursing education, and Paul Maniscalco, an emergency medicine technician and paramedic and a senior research scientist in GW’s Homeland Security Policy Institute, discussed their experiences in Haiti while volunteering for Project Medishare, a nonprofit organization that provides health care to Haitians.

“The Haitian people are so resilient and so wonderful,” said Dr. Dawson.

Mr. Maniscalo said it is critically important to give the Haitian people the skills, knowledge and equipment to face further natural disasters.

“We know there’s a high probability of additional earthquake activity in Haiti. And we are on the cusp of the hurricane season. Based on the early reports, it’s going to be a very active hurricane season in the Atlantic and the Caribbean area,” he said. “So donate money, donate service and donate your time.”

One of the biggest health care needs in Haiti is prosthetics, wheelchairs and walkers, said Ron Sconyers, president and chief executive officer of Physicians for Peace, a nonprofit organization that provides health care and health education in over 20 developing countries around the world.

About 10,000 people suffered a spinal cord injury during the earthquake and require orthopedic care. About 8,000 have had or need to have a limb amputated, said Mr. Sconyers.

As dozens of nonprofit organizations arrive in Haiti, bringing with them billions of dollars of donated money, Jack Smith, a professor in GW’s Law School, said Haiti needs to ensure the money goes to what it was intended for.

“We can’t let that money get stolen. Corruption is the greatest obstacle to reducing poverty,” said Mr. Smith. “Why is Haiti the poorest country in the western hemisphere? It has a little to do with the fact it’s the most corrupt. Haiti’s government needs to be reformed now, not 20 years from now, or Haiti will be a perpetual ward of the United Nations.”

After a series of panel discussions, GW hosted a fundraiser for Haiti in the Marvin Center.

Jim Graham, a Washington, D.C., council member, presented President Knapp with a resolution, declaring April 12 “Haiti Day” and encouraging all D.C. residents to support the efforts to rebuild Haiti.

“George Washington has been in the forefront of efforts to help Haiti from the very beginning, and George Washington is taking the lead in trying to find short-term and long-term solutions for the problems in Haiti,” said John Childers, president of the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area.

Comments? Criticism? The conversation continues. We welcome reactions, commentary and story recommendations on our Facebook page.