What we do - Haiti Support Group

Since the HSG was launched in June 1992, it has focused on reflecting and amplifying the views of grassroots, popular, participatory organisations in Haiti, believing these organisations to be the most representative expressions of the vast majority of the Haitian people’s desire for real democracy, justice and equitable development.

Despite the status as a formal democracy, the vast majority of Haitians continue to be excluded from meaningful political participation. We believe that the poor majority in Haiti have their own definition of development, and how it is best achieved in their country. We also believe that Haitian organisations, civil society organisations have not been allowed to play a real role in the development or implementation of policies that would stand the best chance of implementing such a vision.

The Haiti Support Group seeks to amplify the voices of key civil society organisations in Haiti to anyone and everyone. This includes movers and shakers in foreign governments, NGOs, intergovernmental organisations such as the UN, World Bank and IMF, and the media.

Equally importantly, we seek to build people-to-people, activist-to-activist links between CSOs in Haiti and their equivalent organisations in Europe and North America. We work to educate, inform and galvanise trade unions, church groups, women’s organisations, environmentalists and students on Haitian issues.

We see education, information, analysis and activism as the foundation of our work to help build a public lobby for an alternative, pro-poor development vision based on the experience and knowledge of our local CSO contacts in Haiti.

Below we illustrate some examples of our activities in our earlier years, well before the January 2010 earthquake. These have include organising public meetings and speaking tours by Haitian activists, and supporting or initiating campaigns such as this one backing the rights of Haitian workers.

From time to time, we also organise cultural events, such as exhibitions of Haitian art, as a way of publicising the uniqueness of Haitian culture.

This website is the most crucial thread in all of our efforts. We hope it will be of interest to those who know little about Haiti as well as those who know something already. With it, we have set ourselves three broad aims:

To introduce the work of the Haiti Support Group;
To highlight the continuing struggle of the Haitian people for a genuine democracy and for equitable economic development;
To provide some practical information for those wanting to find out more about Haiti, understand its history and culture and thus we hope its present

Our Key Achievements

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