Our thoughts, our hearts, and our prayers are with our friends and partners in Haiti. The artists, artisans, and galleries we work with are all located in or near Port-au-Prince. We fear that many of them have lost their homes, their livelihoods, and perhaps worse.
We will be organizing relief efforts to help our partners and friends who have been directly and indirectly affected by the earthquake. There are two ways you can help.
Fifty percent of any art purchases you make from us go to the artists and artisans. Or you may send us a check – 100% of these funds will go right into relief efforts.
Please send checks to:
Vassar Haiti Project
124 Raymond Avenue, Box 594
Poughkeepsie, NY 12604
Today, Haiti was been hit by the strongest earthquake in 200 years, according to the Associated Press. Centered 10 miles west of Port-au-Prince, the earthquake caused significant damage to the densely populated city, including collapsing a hospital and damaging the Presidential Palace and the UN headquarters. Phone lines are down, and much of the news is coming from Twitter and text messages. There are now worries of a tsunami. We have yet to hear from our friends in Haiti. Our hearts are with them.
Hello, all! We have recently learned how to add slideshows onto the blog, so we have a little catching up to do. Here are the pictures from the fantastic Gala at the ‘Cakes, which happened on November 5, 2009. Keep an eye out for photos from our upcoming events!
This year, Michelle Duong and I (Michael Xie) co-chair the Health Initiative of the Vassar Haiti Project. While almost everyone in United States these days is debating over the trillion dollar bill on health care, do you know that per capita, Haiti spends about $83 annually on health care (in U.S., the number is around $4,631)? In terms of health care spending, Haiti ranks last in the western hemisphere. There are 25 physicians and 11 nurses per 100,000 population. Only one-fourth of births are attended by a skilled health professional. Most rural areas have no access to health care, making residents susceptible to otherwise treatable diseases. Haiti has the highest incidence of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/ AIDS) outside of Africa… and I have a handful of other staggering statistics reports with me.
My mother chose her career as a cardiologist mostly because her father (my grandpa, who passed away in 2001 due to a heart attack) had heart issues. Growing up in a family with my mother a cardiologist and my grandmother a nurse, I never need to wait for a doctor’s appointment, and I always get the best health care when I am sick. However, I never forget that there are many people in the world who do not have such a privilege, and it is our responsibility to do our best to help those people to gain aces to basic health care.
I’d be very honored to to invite you to our first big fundraising event for the Health Initiative: The Haitian Art & Handcraft Sale at Trinity Episcopal Church. Trinity Church in Fishkill is partnering with the Vassar Haiti Project in this event, which will bring medical care to the children and adults in the remote village of Chermaitre, Haiti. For many of these villagers, this will be the first medical care that they have ever received! And you will be pleasantly surprised by the energy, the optimism and the beauty that exude from the paintings.
Nov 13, Friday 12pm—8pm
Nov 14, Saturday 9am—4pm
Nov 15, Sunday 12pm—3pm
On Thursday, November 5th, Babycakes Café graciously opened its doors to members & supporters of the Vassar Haiti Project for a stylish gala event. The gala was a fundraising and advertising effort for the VHP’s education initiative in Chermaitre. Richly colored Haitian art for sale already decorated the walls, as part of Babycakes’ excellent continued support for the project.
Events of the evening included a speech by project leaders Lila and Andrew Meade, a screening of the VHP documentary (see the first post on this blog to watch it onlinex), a silent auction, a performance by a Vassar student jazz ensemble, and a raffle of some Haitian handicrafts. The atmosphere was as vibrant as the art adorning the walls, and the VHP’s enery and spirit was evident as always throughout the evening. Thanks to everyone who made it a success!
Saturday the 24th, Andrew and Lila invited VHP members to their home
for a grand meal and night of group bonding.
I along with Livia and Charlene (one of our great new freshmen ) got
there a little early to start helping Lila and Kristen prepare the
grand meal they had planned for us. Soon more people arrived to help,
and then more … until the kitchen was packed to capacity. Everyone
had their own little job that they were responsible for! And put
together all that effort by all those people and you get a beautiful
spread of delicious food – there was hummus, guacamole, taboulé,
empanadas, pesto pasta, lemon chicken and lubiyé. And if you’ve been
reading this you’re probably getting hungry! Wait, how could I forget
to mention the yummy pies and brownies for desserts!
Doesn’t this sound like the art sale that magically comes together with EVERYONE’S help?
Then we all sat together around the living room until we were too
stuffed to move and the night ended with a round of charades.
Thank you so much to everyone who came and helped and most of all to
Lila, Andrew, Kristen and Lily for welcoming us all into their home!
The Vassar Haiti Project and BabyCakes Café present:
Gala at the ‘Cakes – a semi-formal, three course dinner to support the
education initiative in Chermaitre, Haiti.
November 5th at 6:30pm
Tickets: $40 – for reservations call (845) 485 8411.
For more information, visit our website.
On Friday, the Haitian Senate voted to remove Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis from office. This comes from a long history of governmental instability. Pierre-Louis took office in September 2008 while four devastating hurricanes battered the island, after the previous prime minister was deposed during the riots over food prices in the spring.
“An educator who headed the Haitian branch of George Soros’ Open Society Institute, [Pierre-Louis] filled a post that had been vacant for five months after senators dismissed her predecessor during riots over the high cost of food. In the past five years, politically tumultuous Haiti has ousted a president in a bloody rebellion and has now gone through five prime ministers. Her removal comes as former U.S. President Bill Clinton, a U.N. special envoy to Haiti, has been trying to assure international investors that the country has regained stability.” –AP
The Vassar Haiti Project has partnered with the African Students Union to host an open mic night from 7-9pm on Thursday night in the Upper Campus Dining Center (that beautiful space above ACDC). Colors of Haiti and Africa is the theme, and throughout the evening there will be a quite colorful assortment of food and performances. Kismat, Wrapsody, Babycakes, Thai Spice, Bacio’s, Zorona’s and some VHP members themselves will be bringing food, and there be musical acts by Jaye Moliere, Toby Sola, Oluwadara Nnoli and more. Tickets are $7, or $9 at the door, and are being sold in the College Center this week.
Many members of the Vassar Haiti Project are helping put together this event, and we’re all hoping that there will be high attendance and a lot of good food and fun to be had. Flyers advertising the open mic night are popping up all over campus, and we’ve been busy arranging set-up and clean-up crews and discussing decorations. As they say, it’s “crunch time” for the VHP and it looks like the numerous aspects of orchestrating this event are slowly falling into place. Meanwhile, we’re all just really excited to eat a great meal and listen to our friends perform, all for our great cause.
