Manolia Charlotin joins staff of the Haitian Reporter

Manolia CharlotinManolia CharlotinManolia Charlotin has joined the staff of the Boston Haitian Reporter as Editor and Business Manager. Manolia is a social entrepreneur, advocate and community organizer who has worked in community development, immigrant civic engagement, political campaigns, youth organizing and cultural awareness for the last 10 years.  She is the co-founder of Haiti 2015, a grassroots campaign to advance access to opportunities in Haiti, whose launch in January, connected community-based organizations all across Haiti.
“The Reporter is excited to have Manolia Charlotin join our team,” said Reporter Managing Editor and co-founder Bill Forry. “Manolia will be charged with developing new business opportunities and editorial content for the Reporter. She will also take the lead in engaging the broader community in the work of the Reporter Newspapers. Her breadth of experience and contacts in organizing, particularly in the Haitian-American community makes her a tremendous addition to the Reporter team.”

President Obama can do more to help Haitian families

Sept. 2010 edition: Now on newsstandsSept. 2010 edition: Now on newsstandsIt took a 7.0 earthquake, one of the worst natural disasters in history, for the Obama Administration to grant Haitians Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which commentators long before said was merited due to four storms which devastated Haiti in 2008.
Now an issue of equal importance requires administration action, one on which stalwart allies like Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator John Kerry, Rep. Jim McGovern and other Commonwealth congressional delegation members can help.

In 2007, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created a Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program bringing thousands of beneficiaries of approved immigrant visa petitions to the United States despite the visa backlog which keeps similarly- approved beneficiaries from Haiti and elsewhere waiting interminably back home.

After the January 12 quake, former Reagan and Bush Administration official Elliot Abrams urged increasing legal immigration from Haiti to generate millions in additional remittances. (“What Haiti Needs: A Haitian Diaspora,” Washington Post, January 22.) He noted the centrality of remittances to Haiti’s economy and accurately predicted that pledges from donor nations would never materialize.

Jazz Café hosts Souls United for Haiti event

It has been eightmonths since Haiti’s entire infrastructure was torn into pieces. News reports of the traumatic earthquake have slowly dissipated. In Boston, On August 8, with very few sitting, over 60 Haitian leaders, artists and supporters—stood alongside the walls of the Jazz Café and Bar in Roslindale, to support the Soul for Haiti: “We Can’t Forget” benefit.

President Wyclef Jean? Mixed reactions from local Haitians

If I was president,
I'd get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday,
and buried on Sunday.
Fafa GiraultFafa GiraultThese are words to the song “If I Was President” written by Wyclef back in 2004. Six years later, he announces (tonight) on CNN's "Larry King Live" that he intends to run for president of Haiti in the country's Nov 28 election.
The 37-year-old Grammy award winner has always given back to Haiti. The recording artist and now politician has been a goodwill ambassador for Haiti since 2007.
Like many, I always saw Wyclef as a world wide representativefor Haiti. He put Haiti on the map and made being Haitian cool for many of us. All of a sudden Haitian people who denied they were Haitian came out the woodwork— some wearing Haitian flags even. Classic.

Children of the Quake learn to learn in a new land

Sherline Gustave: One of many Haitian nationals now studying in the Boston Public School system, she survived the Jan. 12th earthquake and moved to Boston last February. She is pictured above in a classroom at Hyde Park High. Photo by Tara W. MerriganSherline Gustave: One of many Haitian nationals now studying in the Boston Public School system, she survived the Jan. 12th earthquake and moved to Boston last February. She is pictured above in a classroom at Hyde Park High. Photo by Tara W. MerriganSherline Gustave, 18, slept on the streets of Port-au-Prince for weeks after January’s earthquake leveled her family’s home.

“I felt the house shaking and it crumbled just as my family and I got outside,” said Gustave in her native Haitian Creole—translated to English by her teacher, Evelyn Prophete. “We [Gustave and her family members] were sleeping out in the street in the sun and even in the rain.

Hoping to find a better life, Gustave and her sisters emigrated from Haiti to Boston in February. Gustave, who resides in Brighton, is one of 159 students who have entered the Boston Public Schools (BPS) system since the earthquake devastated Haiti on Jan. 12. They are among the thousands of Haitian nationals who have either traveled to the U.S. since the disaster or who moved here in the months prior to the quake and have been granted temporary protected status (TPS) by the U.S. government.

Feds extend window for TPS applicants by six months

The federal government has extended the deadline for Haitian nationals to apply for "Temporary Protected Status" or TPS, a relief program launched in response to the Jan. 12 earthquake. The new registration deadline is Jan. 18, 2011. The TPS designation applies to Haitians who have continuously resided in the United States since January 12, 2010, when the earthquake occurred; Haitian nationals who first entered the United States after that date are not eligible.

Alleged sexual misconduct sidelines Mattapan priest

The Archdiocese of Boston has taken disciplinary action against a well-known Haitian priest — Rev. Gabriel Michel— after it learned of allegations of "adult sexual misconduct." Fr. Michel, who has been ministering in Boston since 2002, has been suspended from his duties as a priest and the Boston Archdiocese says it "has notified the Most Reverend Louis Kebreau, SDB, Archbishop of Cap-Haitien concerning this matter." He has served most recently as a parochial vicar at St. Angela's Parish and as Coordinator of the Archdiocese of Boston's Haitian Apostolate.

Inside the refugee camps, resilient people leave an indelible impression

Quang TruongQuang TruongOne month after my trip to Haiti, I am discovering that I possess more memories about the trip than I knew I had.

I keep recalling a woman from a refugee camp that showed me the inside her home. Cramped and sweltering, her tiny area was bathed in a faint blue, emanating from the tarps that made up her walls. Her roof was nothing more than bed sheets held up with stakes, and two bare mattresses, one used by her and the other for her three children, were the only furniture to speak of. This was the entirety her life and the lives of her children – just bed sheets, 2 mattresses and the faint blue glow from the tarps.

Church group strains to meet needs of hungry in Mattapan

Rev. Dr. Pierre Zephir: Rev. Dr. Pierre Zephir: "We've seen a big, big increase since the earthquake."A hum of Kreyol rose softly from the tiny room at the Greater Boston Nazarene Compassionate Center on River Street as local residents filed in early on a rainy Wednesday morning. Soon, I am standing nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with more than 100 people waiting eagerly for their share of the bounty of food piled high on a couple of tables inside.
The church has been running a food bank on River Street for nearly 14 years. On Wednesday mornings starting around 10 a.m., volunteers distribute parcels of food to neighbors. Most days, the center is packed long before distribution begins.
According to GBNCC's Executive Director, Rev. Dr. Pierre Zephir, the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti in January has sent the food bank into overdrive due to its mainly Haitian demographic.

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