Our friend Emily Troutman’s essay The Five Steps Toward Repairing Earthquake Ravaged Haiti published at AOL News.

Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes reports on the most vulnerable victims of Haiti’s earthquake, children who not only face hunger, disease and sexual assault, but a form of slavery that is legal in the Caribbean country.

This is why we are in Haiti fighting for the lives and welfare of children with organizations like Global Orphan Project.

On NPR morning edition, listen to Haiti’s Orphans Long For Homes

Transcript below copyright National Public Radio

March 9, 2010 - RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

Haiti is a country of children. Half the population there is under 18. And since the earthquake, kids are everywhere carrying water buckets, pushing wheelbarrows full of rubble, and playing with homemade toy cars amid the tents that are now home.

NPR’s Debbie Elliott takes a closer look at life for the thousands of children who have found themselves alone after the quake. She begins with one group of boys.

(Soundbite of rap song)

DEBBIE ELLIOTT: These teenage boys are huddled around a radio listening to Creole rap. They’re unrelated but have formed a brotherhood in the disaster. Five of them, including 16-year-old Luckson, are living without shelter or adult supervision in a park near the airport road in Port-au-Prince.

LUCKSON: (Through translator) After the earthquake, all of us came here to sleep. Then because we were staying all together to sleep, then we meet each other and that’s why we came together.

ELLIOTT: Their homes and neighborhoods collapsed.

LUCKSON: (Through translator) All my family died. Me, I heard they are somewhere, but I don’t know the place.

ELLIOTT: The boys do odd jobs to earn money, like fixing cars that break down on the way to the airport. Sixteen-year-old Jean says they share food and try to survive with what little they have.

JEAN: (Through translator) Since the earthquake, we have been using, like, those clothes that we are having on. We wash them and then we pull them and put them on.

ELLIOTT: The U.N. Children’s Fund estimates that more than 20,000 children lost their parents in the earthquake. Many are being cared for by relatives or neighbors, but others, like these boys, are alone.

Humanitarian groups are working to track them and reunite families when possible. Each child is entered into a searchable database with information about where they used to live and whether they have relatives in the countryside.

Unidentified People: (Foreign language spoken)

ELLIOTT: Late on a Friday afternoon, a team of social workers comes to register the boys. They take photographs and say they’ll be back Monday morning to take them to an orphanage, where they will be cared for and able to resume their studies until caregivers can be found.

Unidentified People: (Foreign language spoken)

ELLIOTT: UNICEF officials say they’ve registered 300 children so far and reunited about a dozen families. It takes detective work, says Marie de la Soudiere, coordinator of UNICEF’s separated children fund in Haiti.

Until caregivers are found, the agency tries to place kids in orphanages or designated child-safe tents in the spontaneous camps where earthquake victims have settled. Soudiere says there is danger in the chaos of disaster.

Ms. MARIE DE LA SOUDIERE (UNICEF): Two things happen. A) you can take children that are lost, and nobody will even find you. And B) you can easily take advantage of desperate parents who don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, because their lack of knowledge that aid is coming and it’s there. If they really know how to get it, then they just say take my child.

ELLIOTT: Even before the earthquake, there were more than 300,000 orphans in Haiti – many of them given up by destitute parents, and in the worst cases handed over to wealthy families as servants, known as restaveks in Creole.

Since the earthquake, the government has tightened its watch on child trafficking and temporarily halted adoptions.

Ms. CARYL STERN (UNICEF): No one has the right to take a child out of this country.

ELLIOTT: Caryl Stern is the president and CEO of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

Ms. STERN: And you hear frequently in the States, especially, well, but we can provide for them so much better. Where do you draw that line then? You know, so this summer, when it’s really hot and the kids in the ghetto or neighborhoods who don’t have air conditioning, are we going to pluck those kids and take them to parents who have air conditioning ’cause they can provide for them better? No one has the right to decide where a child should be except that child’s family.

Ms. DIXIE BICKEL: In a perfect world, yes, UNICEF, I would love to see international adoptions stopped. I would love to see Haitians take in and adopt a child without making it a slave in their home.

ELLIOTT: Dixie Bickel, an American who has lived in Haiti since 1991, runs God’s Littlest Angels, an orphanage about 45 minutes outside Port-au-Prince.

(Soundbite of children playing)

ELLIOTT: There are about 60 children staying here now, mostly infants and toddlers she’s taken in from other orphanages that were destroyed. Bickel is frustrated by what she sees as hostility toward orphanages like hers.

Ms. BICKEL: Nobody says a thing because mothers give up their kids in the U.S., because we know they can’t take care of their kids. But in Haiti, it’s made to look like it’s an illegal trafficking situation because the mother says I would rather give up my baby than see it die in my arms.

ELLIOTT: Bickel says until the cultural system in Haiti changes to support families with children, institutions like hers are crucial.

Some U.S. senators, including Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu, believe the influx of international aid after the earthquake provides an opportunity to build a modern child welfare system in Haiti.

Senator MARY LANDRIEU (Democrat, Louisiana): The problem is there’s no safety net of support services in Haiti, to my understanding, today. And it causes many parents to want to or to be forced to or encouraged to abandon their children.

Unidentified People: (Foreign language spoken)

ELLIOTT: On Monday morning, the teenage boys are up early, backpacks on, waiting for the social workers to return for them.

STEVE: (Unintelligible) thank you.

ELLIOTT: A boy named Steve sings: it makes me so happy that I have a chance today. He says the group wants to get back to school so they will have a future.

STEVE: (Through translator) Me, what I would like is, like, every one of us have something to do. Like, if this one could be an engineer, this one could be a doctor, it will be great. Everybody could live.

Unidentified People: (Foreign language spoken)

ELLIOTT: The social workers arrive late and come with bad news.

Unidentified Man: (Foreign language spoken)

ELLIOTT: The orphanage won’t take the boys because they’re too old. The social workers say the plan now is to give them a tent in one of the settlement camps throughout the city.

The smile fades from Luckson’s face. He doesn’t like the idea.

LUCKSON: (Through translator) We will always stay there until we find someone that is not lying so they can help us really.

ELLIOTT: I’m not happy, he says, and sits down on one of the brick garden walls that have been his home since January 12. In his pocket, a folded piece of notebook paper, with a poem neatly written in English.

LUCKSON: (Through translator) My name is Luckson, I’m sixteen years old, my mother and my father die. I don’t have no one to help me. I don’t have nobody in Haiti. I’m sleeping in the street. My sister and my brother die. Please let me go with you.

ELLIOTT: I need adoption, he writes. Please help me.

Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.

Copyright © 2010 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

The UK Guardian reports that more than 1,000,000 Haitian Children are extremely vulnerable to disease after the quake.

Here is a wonderful story on NPR about children in America sharing letters with Haiti’s children. We intend to encourage this interaction by helping the children interact with others through the internet using email and facebook.  We can provide a website for each children’s community to help their “friends” stay in touch. With the technologies available, there is no reason that Haiti’s kids can’t connect with kids the world over. Perhaps you know children or schools that would be interested in this kind of interaction. Let us know and we will help “kids connect.”

From NPR Morning Edition listen to : After Quake, Haiti Seeks a Better Business Climate.

Transcript Below Copyright National Public Radio

Heard on Morning Edition

March 10, 2010 - RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I’m Renee Montagne.

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

And I’m Steve Inskeep.

We’re going to report next about two places battling corruption. In a moment, a report on allegations involving a prominent political figure in South Africa.

First we check in on Haiti, where some people see the earthquake as a business opportunity and a chance to change the corrupt practices that have helped impoverish that country.

NPR’s Juan Forero reports from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Unidentified Group: (singing in foreign language)

JUAN FORERO: As textile workers pack T-shirts, they sing. The lyrics speak to how they’ve suffered, suffered all their lives, suffered since birth.

These workers, some of the garment industry’s 25,000 employees, do have a tough life. Many earn just three or $4 a day. And since the quake, thousands of them have been living in makeshift tent cities.

But these days, they are the lucky ones. They’re alive and they have jobs, a rarity in a country with 70 percent unemployment.

(Soundbite of factory machines)

FORERO: On the factory floor, workers sew and stitch, churning out garments for the U.S. market.

(Soundbite of factory machines)

FORERO: And owner Clifford Apaid sees promise in the world now wanting to help Haiti. Apaid’s family owns AGA, seven factories with 9,000 workers.

Mr. CLIFFORD APAID (Owner, AGA): Everybody is looking at Haiti and seeing what they can do. And it is the moment to take that energy and turn it into jobs, and turn it into a positive economic development for Haiti and a better future for Haiti.

FORERO: It’s hard for anyone surveying the rubble that was Port-au-Prince to see anything rosy. But Georges Sassine, one of Haiti’s biggest boosters, believes there’s opportunity in the devastation.

Mr. GEORGES SASSINE (President, Manufacturer’s Association): I remember somebody saying a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. It is true. The opportunity has been thrust upon us.

FORERO: Sassine is president of the Manufacturer’s Association and a textile factory owner. He says low wages here and the duty-free access to U.S. markets may lead to a job boom, with tens of thousands more jobs.

Sassine also says the international attention could pressure Haitian leaders into ending the corruption and cronyism that’s put personal enrichment ahead of Haiti’s well being for so long.

Mr. SASSINE: To change the foundation of this country to make it right, because it is not right. It is not a democratic foundation.

FORERO: Many Haitians, though, have little confidence in the business elite. They see them as part of the problem.

At the Sonapi Industrial Park, Haitians gather outside a factory gate.

(Soundbite of crowd chatter)

FORERO: They ask for work. They ask for food.

(Soundbite of a gate closing)

FORERO: But as guards shut the gate, it’s clear nothing is forthcoming, as Eliacin Cadet quickly found out. He’s 24, is ready to work and has a family to feed. But he says finding factory work – or any stable job, for that matter -is near impossible.

Mr. ELIACIN CADET: (Foreign language spoken)

FORERO: Cadet believes the elite don’t care about people like him. They often promise to create jobs, but rarely come through.

Mr. CADET: (Foreign language spoken)

FORERO: And when you do find a job, Cadet says, the pay is so poor it’s like volunteering.

At One World Apparel, 700 workers make coveralls and pants. And the owner, Charles Baker, says there could be many more jobs. When the quake hit, Baker explains, he assumed it would be weeks before his plant would be up and running.

Mr. CHARLES BAKER (Owner, One World Apparel Within): Within three days, they were producing what they were producing before the earthquake. For me, it’s unbelievable. That gives you hope, that in itself.

FORERO: Standing on his factory floor amid hundreds of workers, he said that they were the real heroes in this broken country.

Juan Forero, NPR News.

Copyright © 2010 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

Emily Troutman’s article for AOL news entitled “Monday’s are high times for Haiti’s young men.”

Dear Friends,

Here’s my latest dispatch. It’s about misfortune and trauma; and acceptance and love.

I think those of you’ve who’ve spent time here recently will identify. It will probably also resonate for those of you who’ve been in the middle of chaos elsewhere (which I know you have because, chances are, we met there… or, you know, grew up together. LOL).

Please feel free to pass it along…

The full text is below.

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/from-quake-victims-thats-haiti-is-a-stirring-refrain/19373598

Sending unconditional love,
(from the dinner table of this dysfunctional family called “Haiti”),

… em

Photojournalist and friend Emily Troutman’s article for AOL news entitled “Haiti’s Resettlement Plan Offers Little Hope“