Haiti's Challenge

The people of Haiti are...

Resilient. Determined. Deserving of better.

🇭🇹🇭🇹🇭🇹

I have a new episode of the Grassroots podcast out and it is seriously my favorite. 📲📲📲 When we were planning out our season, I knew I wanted to do a Haiti episode, and I knew that would be ambitious.

See, the way people talk about Haiti has historically been pretty problematic. 🇭🇹 Some people see their jovial spirit and romanticize poverty, overlooking the reality of that struggle. 🇭🇹 Others can’t get over the visible poverty, failing to see the deeper identity of the people. 🇭🇹 Then, there is a huge savior complex present in so many narratives that center attention on volunteers rather than empowering Haitians.

Anyways, I wanted to involve Haitian voices at every step of this project. This episode features audio from my trip there last year, a conversation with Plant With Purpose’s Haitian team, and some interviews with people who have put in the time to get the nuances of talking about the country.

We get into deforestation, the ills of the charity sector, the struggle for hope, the Dominican border, it’s complex history with other countries, the recent protests and political upheavals, and what daily village life looks like.

The energy on this is episode is loaded!

My personal favorite part is towards the end when Brendon Anthony and Margaret DeJong, along with our Haitian partner Dezo fire back and forth about how those wanting to help can do better. 🔥🔥🔥

If you’ve been tuned in to the podcast, you are awesome! If you haven’t listened yet, this would be a sweet episode for you to jump in on. This is the “best foot forward” I don’t mind sticking out there.

In some ways Haiti is one of the most challenging places to talk about, and in other ways it is the perfect place to see where the environment and poverty intersect. It's a challenge, because Haiti has been portrayed in such harmful ways over the years.