Jean Jean Joseph lies on the cot, an arm draped over his forehead, shielding his eyes. The roof of the temporary medical ward is made of green plastic, casting everything in a sickly tint. His feet are broad and flat, with widespread toes and thickly calloused skin, cracked at the heels—79 years of much barefoot walking.
I have worked in Haiti under a military dictatorship, in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake and in other crisis periods.
Four months after the January 10, 2010 earthquake that killed more than 316,000 people and left Haiti’s capital a shambles with 1.3 million displaced, researchers from the Interuniversity Institute for Research and Development (INURED) convened a meeting with 25 community leaders, aged 17 to 21, from Cité Soleil, a vast shantytown in Port-au-Prince.
Two hundred and twenty years ago, Haiti blew the conch call of freedom from slavery.
It is both a declaration of humanist solidarity and a cri de coeur.
