Today, our first day of hiring, we employed hundreds of people from different villages to work for the Work For Haiti, Cash-For-Work programme. Hundreds of people lined up in hopes of earning a living, for 1 month, to either feed their families, or to invest in a small business (such as a tiny, street-side stall in which they hope to sell soaps, batteries, t-shirts, soda - anything they can find and sell for a profit.).
Haitians are peaceful people. When we arrive in a community, people know that we represent hundreds of millions of dollars, in the form of jobs, in the poorest country in the western world. We're doing mass hirings, in small locations, promising a substantial salary for a month’s work, and yet we've found that the crowds are under control. Sometimes there’s difficulty organizing the line, but all who are in the line wait calmly for their turn to sign contracts.
If you’d go to any other underdeveloped country in the world, visiting village by village , where word has spread via community leaders that when we appear, we will offer job opportunities for thousands of people, you’d find crowds on the verge of anarchy. Where I grew up, in the Eastern Hemisphere, there were so few resources that I became used to an environment filled with tension, where fists usually talk before words. So, I must say, that being in Haiti is a refreshing change from that, and the Haitian’s positive attitude is definitely one to admire & appreciate.
People desperately need jobs. I used to spend quite allot of my time at work, in an office, designing economic development & recovery programmes for developing countries - But the part of my métier, the part I've found often bites you is when you're on the ground, when you put those plans into action......and that’s the part I love the most.
Masses of people are quite literally poor; they desperately need food and jobs to survive. When a 92 year old grandmother lines up to get an employment contract, waits for her turn in the hot sun for two hours, and genuinely smiles at you with thankful eyes when you sign her contract, I guarantee that you’d feel nothing but the greatest humility.
When a young, healthy, recently displaced, former Port au Prince resident who is also a Computer Science graduate, looses everything in the earthquake, and lines up to get a 1 month employment contract, at minimum wage, you’d feel nothing but great injustice.
When an old farmer, who can barely walk with a stick, and can’t survive on this year’s profit from his crops, lines up to get a contract, and signs it with trembling, weather beaten hands, you’d feel nothing but great compassion.
People, especially in underdeveloped countries, have great dignity. It’s that dignity which makes me continue to do what I do: to give them a possibility to live a better life.
