Making a Difference

Women and girls everywhere should be able to live their lives without being in constant fear of being sexually victimized. 

 

Since the earthquake in Haiti, women and girls have been at a high risk of being raped and sexually assaulted. There are only a few organizations in the settlement camps working on this problem. We strongly believe that safety kits will empower these women to protect themselves and take a stand against sexual violence!

 

We want to make a difference, and we know that with support from others, our impact will be even greater. Operation: Empower Haiti is gaining significant interest in our mission to empower women and young girls in Haiti who are threatened with sexual violence everyday! 

 

Our Team consists of people from diverse backgrounds with the unified vision of making a difference in the lives of people who are in need! We have committed partners with expertise in various areas including public health, education, event planning and public relations. We are also working with an organization in Port-au-Prince, Haiti that will distribute the kits to women and girls through their health clinics.

 

We will make a miracle happen! Keep reading our blog to stay posted on our progress and learn how you too can make a difference!!

WORLD AIDS DAY

We would like to bring to your attention the article "After the Quake: Looming AIDS Crisis in Haiti" by award-winning journalist Lisa Armstrong.  After the improvements that Haiti has made in controlling the spread of AIDS in the past years, it is devastating to know that after the earthquake, homes and buildings will not be the only things in need of reconstruction.
The article takes a look at the growing AIDS crisis in Haiti as a result of the devastating effects of the earthquake. Haiti used to be a model for combating AIDS. Before the earthquake, experts thought the epidemic might wipe out a third of the population. But instead Haiti became a surprising success story: With significant financial support from the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief as well as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria prevalence rates fell from 9.4 percent in 1993 to 2.2 percent in 2008. January's earthquake, however, destroyed many health facilities, and experts fear that with the high rates of rape, prostitution, and promiscuity in the camps, there will be an explosive increase in the number of new HIV infections.

Safety Kits Project

We are passionate about empowering women in Haiti and eradicating the sexual violence that they are experiencing. Women and girls in Haiti are at high risk of being sexually victimized especially after the devastating earthquake. They must use latrines without lights, bathe in public, and sleep amongst strangers. Sexual violence will lead to more HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancies, motherless children, as well as further poverty and violence. 

One approach that we envision to empower these women and girls is by providing them with the tools and training that will empower them to protect themselves, seek help, and be heard. We would like to make Safety Kits that will contain products that they can carry on their person and/or have in the tents to protect themselves from potential attacks or use as a resource to get help immediately. The Safety Kit will be a simple pouch with a battery free flashlight, a whistle, a key alarm, a key ring disguised knuckle poker, and information on local support services (if any). We would like to work with an agency that has a strong presence in Haiti. We plan to raise funds to finance our operations which includes developing and assembling the Safety Kits, mass marketing, and delivering the Safety Kits to our Partners who will distribute them in Haiti.

Stay tuned for further information on this project!

Little Women

Imagine a little girl, barely a teenager, refusing to go to the bathroom at night because she is afraid of being raped for the third, fourth or fifth time. Desperate men are waiting in the shadows for an opportunity to follow this little girl into a latrine to take away any glimmer of hope she may have had.

 These young girls fear for their wellbeing and their innocence. After being separated from loved ones, whether due to death or by simply being lost, these girls are forced to grow up and take responsibility for themselves, their younger siblings, and even their own babies.  A happy future seems to be an impossibility for these young girls; girls who used to wonder what they would get for their birthday and now worry about how they are going to give birth.

Click here to read Didi Bertrand Farmer's account of her return to Haiti, the horrible living conditions she witnessed and her interview with a brave little girl who still has hope after all hope was lost.

Click here to see a slideshow of photographs taken by Nadia Todres, a photo journalist who visited the young girls living on the camp grounds in Haiti.

Mission

We are on a mission to empower Haiti.  We are using our talents to come together and help the people of Haiti not only survive, but thrive.

After the devastating earthquake, the people of Port-au-Prince, Haiti and surrounding areas were left homeless. Moving the people into tents was a step in the right direction, but that is just one step in the many miles that Haiti has to travel in order to get to a better stage.

Recently, the safety of women and children have become a real concern.  There are reports of rapes, physical abuse and many more unspeakable things that have been occuring in Haiti. It is hard to sit around watching and reading these reports without feeling the need to do something to help.  This is where Operation: Empower Haiti comes in.

First we wanted to send care packages to the women living in the tents so that they could have tools to protect themselves. We then realized that one of the many advantages of living in the United States is that when one wants to do big things, one has to think big and go big.

If you want to know more about what we have planned, stay tuned and keep reading.