Help us design this project well, please!

So we.. that is me and my friend Dieudonne Braveus who arose as the leader of the Haitian community in Las Terrenas that we have helped organize over the last three years

have a small project
and need to take it bigger

Through my contacts, Dieudonne has arrived at a deal with the Haitian State to deliver to the Haitians living in Las Terrenas.. all their missing papers. This will include birth certificate, and passport.. promises of visas have been bandied about but they are working to keep the price down so that the men.. predominantly.. can afford to pay for it.. now set at DOP 1500.

This is much less than the actual cost of the documents and was offered, really, because perhaps we were speaking of a reasonably small and isolated community of Haitians... perhaps five thousand.

But we have been talking and wish to see if we cannot take this project in design up to the level to cover the up to two million Haitians who are living here.

This afternoon, we discussed hooking up with Fonkose, which is the microfinance bank which has branches all over Haiti, having the Haitians here open accounts in their home towns in Haiti and deposit the reduced fee in the account. There must be some sort of fee,, and some sort of participation but since there really has been soooo much scamming going on with Haitian aid, that we have to get an organization beyond reproach and Fonkose is it.

Ok.. so I proposed that we find out the ACTUAL costs of getting all these documents to the folks in LT.. which is going to be probably the most remote.. those and Samana.. which is going to be more like US $1k each set. The fee for a passport in PauP is now about $300. A Domnican visa about $150. But so let us say it could be done more cheaply..

but our aim here is to seek support for the Haitian State here so that THE STATE of Haiti is compensated for the costs by the international community.

We are hooked in with Edwin Paraison, who is the former minister of the Diaspora and has his own foundation here and is well respected. So we can get to Fonkose. And we can get to Clinton. And to the UNDP. And to the Dominican government. And to Sweet Micky

Just want to design this well. that is my job. project/grant designer

There is still a lot of money available for good projects.

As it stands now, we have about 300 Haitians registered, who have all gotten their id cards with their photos and written in Spanish in the back is all about how this person is Haitian, registered with us, law abitiding, in case of death, imprisonment, or illness, contact.. and two cell numbers

So far, we have not yet had any papers delivered back from the State of Haiti but are being helped to set up our little credentials by a Haitian lawyer.

I am no longer participating financially in this, except for an occassional ten dollar bill slipped into my buddy's pocket.

Anyway, this is a long project. eight years I have been working on it.

so any input is welcome

i know that 136 of you took the time to read that and i wanted to report that

WE PASSED up to the HAITIAN EMBASSY level and have been granted a meeting/

When we came up with the idea to look for international money for the STATE of Haiti.. lots of heads turned.

So thanks to all of you who are onboard.

We gave over our last 5000 pesos to get the papers for the LT branch operation legal in SD .. but the lawyer is working for nothing. That is only the fees to get registered here

There are four of us working on this now.

But
i told them that if they want la gringa now it will be 40k a month for me and 25k a month for my assistant.. So at least we have a budget request for a salary!!!!!

*of course, my team knows me and know that i will not stop because i cannot

he majority of the passengers on the journey from Pedernales presented Haitian passports, which had cost them 75 dollars, about 15 percent of the average national income, and single and multiple entry visas which cost between 33 and 150 dollars.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2007/06/haiti-dominican-republic-neighbours-but-not-friends/

found from my own article that i was way off with the prices so we are looking good!

We are at a standstill since there were pickets outside the Haitian embassy in Santiago for refusing to issue papers from there and telling the Haitians to go to Pau P. trying to get the prices reduced.

IPS – HAITI-DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Solace in Solidarity | Inter Press Service

here is the background.. The workers in LT.. we now have 40 of them registered who do not have ANY form of ID.. no birth certificates hence no papers from the Haitian state.

Before the election of Prreval, the international community gave millions and millions to pay for getting Haitians ELECTORAL cards..

Might it not be possible to have these people who are ADULTS without birthcertificates somehow declared REFUGEES not for the purpose of staying here but for the purpose of getting international assistance with funding for getting their birth certificates or State ID cards?

We have forty who have paid 1500 pesos to be registered in the association.. they were promised papers.I am now pressing to find out HOW they were promised papers at a price which is LESS than what the state charges>..

But I think that there should be a way to have this population declared extremely vulnerable ..since they are.

It is not their fault that they do not have birth certificates since birth certificates were simply not available except by going to Port au Prince and even then they were often not available during the times of civil unrrest.

Since the Quake, the offices have been pretty much non functional.

The Haitian State is in better shape than it has been in a long time in that it has no debts to anyone except Petro Caribe and takes in tax revenues to pay for 40% of its budget.

I want to come up with a proposal.. notably for the EU and Japan... which will get this group (*Adult immigrants with no birth certificates ..) documents from the Haitian state so that they do not produce stateless children