If Haiti had oil, would we care more?

I have been reading about Theo's work for a while. I found him by way of his blog, because they built the cool earth bag house at his project on Haiti. I watch his sites regularly now, and admire the incredible amount of good he is doing in caring for these street children.

I did not know about Restaveks, the child slaves of Haiti, even though in 1998 the United Nations estimated there were 300,000 such children. Restavek is a Creole word meaning "stay with", but it has come to mean slavery and abuse of the most horrible kind even for the smallest little children.

We have a lot of Haitians who have come to Dominica looking for work and opportunity. They are incredibly industrious, hardworking people desperate to send a few dollars back to the families left behind. We once had a Haitian housekeeper who told us her first job on Dominica was doing ironing all day long for a hotel, earning EC $25 (US $9.26). She had three children left behind in Haiti. How do you feed yourself and send money back to feed your children on $9 dollars?

Here is a video about Theo's Work on Haiti:



You can watch another video about Aaron Jackson's work in Haiti on CNN.