Name: Luke Niziol

Social Justice Group: Violence in Haiti (B)

Date of Fieldwork: January 13, 2025

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Haiti On Fire(Documentary)

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork:

Today, me and my group members watched the documentary, Haiti on Fire, and it taught us quite a bit about Haiti’s current state. The sad reason why the documentary is called ‘Haiti on Fire’ is because parts of Haiti, and some citizens of Haiti are lit on fire right now. One of the multiple things we learned was that your friends could die at any moment, Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier’s barber had died just randomly, it just shows how surprising and violent Haiti can really be. The documentary was very graphic and showed some people that were actually burned alive.

In Haiti, there are two ‘rival’ groups/gangs, the G9, and the G-Pep. Both of them hate each other and have different views on what they want Haiti to be. In Haiti, there are multiple views of how Jimmy Barbecue is as a person. People say that Jimmy Barbecue will ruin Haiti, he is a cannibal, murderer, and he burns people alive. On the other hand, Jimmy Cherizier and his gang think of him as an idol. He wants to be president and he says he will save Haiti. The documentary shows Jimmy Cherizier as a somewhat decent person. But people describe him as much worse things. Overall, we learned a lot more background on the gang violence in Haiti.