CHP in the Press

10 YEARS AFTER THE DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE, COLORADANS IN HAITI STRUGGLE TO HELP BUT CONTINUE TO HOPE

January 20, 2020 | Colorado Public Radio

“You’re hard-pressed to find a story that doesn’t follow Haiti’s name with the phrase, ‘The poorest country in the Western hemisphere," Walent said. "That’s factual. But when it follows the name of the country in 95 percent of the reporting that you find, it comes to define the country and that’s just not accurate. It’s also a place of enormous richness, enormous possibility.”

HAITI IS IN CRISIS, AGAIN, AND YES, WE CAN HELP

November 15, 2019 | The Denver Post

I speak to friends in Haiti daily, both in Port-au-Prince and in the rural city I now work in, Petit Trou de Nippes. For most, “normal” conditions are what we would consider poverty — as you know if you’ve ever read an article about Haiti, it is rarely separated from its sad moniker, “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.” Even so, usually these conversations are not about poverty or desperation. They are about birthday parties, or grandma’s health, or about how school is going. Lately, though they are fearful, and mostly about a looming food crisis.

FOUR WAYS A HAITIAN SCHOOL IS ADDRESSING THE UN'S SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Goals

March 13, 2018 | Education Week

Situated on the southern peninsula of Haiti, near the rural town of Petit Trou de Nippes, St. Paul's Episcopal School offers classes from preschool to 9th grade for around 300 area students. In 2015, the school undertook the development of a new agricultural education program aimed at promoting food security by teaching students sustainable growing practices. Over the past several years, the program has provided both students and the community with a platform that also addresses several different areas within the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

COLORADANS VOW TO HELP HAITI AFTER NATURAL DISASTERS, EARTHQUAKES

January 12, 2018 | CBS 4 News Denver

A focus on education and agriculture collided following Hurricane Matthew in 2016. CHP helped farmers plant stable crops to avoid a food emergency after massive flooding in the area.

Walent admits there’s still work to be done around Haiti. But what keeps bringing him back is the resolve of the human spirit he sees every time he goes back.

“It’s a group of people who are constantly moving, constantly fighting for progress, constantly looking out for one another and facing really tough conditions with the grace and creativity you can imagine.”

AFTER BILLIONS IN MISSPENT AID, HOW HAITI COULD RECOVER FASTER FROM THE 2010 EARTHQUAKE

January 11, 2018 | Colorado Public Radio

In some ways, it's like the earthquake that devastated Haiti eight years ago happened just yesterday. Wynn Walent, who leads the Colorado Haiti Project, says there are people still in temporary housing, looking for work or struggling to get clean water. That's despite $13 billion in aid that poured into the country. Walent has gone to Haiti regularly since the quake hit in January 2010, and says he has found a model for rebuilding more quickly.

FROM HAITI TO AURORA AND BACK

January 11, 2018 | Colorado Independent Guest Post

Haiti is the most beautiful place I know. Beauty in its people, beauty in its countryside, beauty in its courage and grace. It is a place of unique history and singular resistance. I’ve heard it called the birthplace of the human rights movement, due to its triumph over Napoleon’s army and its subsequent status as the first independent black republic in the New World. It is a place with long tradition of homegrown community development, of neighbors looking out for one another, and of grassroots movements organizing to great effect.

Progress is more than possible in Haiti: it is inevitable.

AS THE 2017 HURRICANE SEASON ENDS, PREPARING FOR STORMS IN YEARS TO COME

November 6, 2017 | Denver Post Op-Ed

Last year, after the devastation of Hurricane Matthew, the Colorado Haiti Project invested in agriculture: planting trees, opening a seed bank, and strengthening agricultural education programs for students. By investing directly in local community agricultural structures, soil was conserved, local food systems were reinforced, and yields increased for farmers, thus putting working capital in the hands of local people as they recovered.