‘Hope and Change for Haiti’ seeks to rebuild country mangled by storms

CRANSTON, R.I. (WJAR) — We're always aware when it's Hurricane Season in southern New England because, geographically, we stick out.

Big storms have devastated parts of the area over the years.

But one Cranston man is even more aware, as he has a Caribbean connection.

One of the most powerful hurricanes to scream across Haiti did so on Oct. 4, 2016. Hurricane Matthew killed more than 1,000 people, destroyed a quarter million homes, and caused $1 billion in damage.

It created a catastrophe in a place that still hasn't recovered from the 2010 earthquake, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed a third of a million homes and buildings, and caused billions in damage.

Now, after both disasters, Norly Germain said barely 10 percent have been rebuilt. He’s an adjunct professor at the University of Rhode Island and also heads up “Hope and Change for Haiti”, a local grass-roots non-profit.

“Reconstruction in Haiti is not possible without the involvement of the local leaders,” said Germain, talking about residents in the communities, not necessarily the leaders in government.

Out of his small office at his house in Cranston, he thinks he has the solution to the systemic problems of bringing true long-term help for the people of Haiti. He uses his home town of Paillant, which was hard-hit in Hurricane Matthew, as a test case.

The village is in the mountainous area, far away from the coast where the storm surge pummeled communities. Even so, many homes there were blown away or damaged.

In Paillant, locals are building permanent housing with help from Norly’s group, for 20 percent of the cost of temporary ones built by the big international charities.

“We believe if you give someone everything that they need they won't value it the same way if they also participate in building it,” Germain said.

Of the billions of dollars in all donated from around the world for both disasters, only a small percentage has reached the people of Haiti, said Germain.

“Fifteen to 20 percent goes to Haiti in terms of really doing the work for which the monies were collected,” said Germain, adding, according to published reports, a lot of the money instead goes towards administration, travel, and salaries.

He wants to change that, with "Hope and Change for Haiti,” a group that makes self-funded trips a number of times each year to and from the Caribbean country.

The group has sponsored, just this week, three local men from Haiti, identified as having leadership skills, to the Multicultural Center at URI for a two week crash course on how to teach others to be leaders.

“We need to reevaluate in the re-engineering of our actions, and do it a different way,” said Germain.

If you'd like to learn more about how to get involved locally, click here.