We had an interview with Paige Oberlag, the leader of Mission of Hopes Women Empowerment Team, and Todd Lowans, Mission of Hopes Vice President of operations. It was a pleasure interviewing them as they work at a Non-Governmental Organization that helps Haiti. Paige Oberlag currently lives in the DR with her husband helping out on the issue. In this interview, we learned Todd’s and Paige’s thoughts of Haiti in the media and some personal stories of theirs.

During our interview today, we asked the two how they think Haiti is portrayed in the media. Todd said that there is little to nothing about Haiti in the media, but there are some things when there is a heavy assassination, like the president a couple years ago. But ultimately, Todd thinks Haiti is covered when there is an American person stuck in Haiti and can’t get back to America. There are a couple things in the media, but once they are back to America there is nothing new. Paige had previously lived in Haiti in 2019, but when the gangs were on the uprise, they had to go to the DR, and they went from the north coast to the south coast only because of the gangs.

Todd had a story where overnight, the streets where he had his campsite were completely destroyed, and there were hundreds of roadblocks in the area. Another note, this only happened overnight. They had been trapped in the area, and someone had to come help them. Some friends from a separate organization had been kidnapped by some gangs in Haiti, but thankfully they were able to rescue them.

With all of the stories they told us about, it really just tells me how dangerous and quickly things can escalate there. The part with the media also just screams at me that the US really just doesn’t care about issues in places like Haiti.

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On Friday, our grade went to the Museum of the City of New York. The trip wasn’t very beneficial to my group. As Haiti is in the Caribbean and the museum was mostly about the history of activism in NY. Even though we didn’t learn anything about our topic, we still learned about some of the history of movements.

The museum really made me wonder what I can do at a young age. We’re doing this project for school, but some people chose to do this with their own will. The history of activism is way more than I thought it was.

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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.

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On Thursday, December 19th, me and my group members had an interview with Emmanuel Alexandre Jr, Massamba’s father. We talked about the gang violence and how they’re taking over areas in the country. We learned that there isn’t just physical violence, but there is sex trafficking and many other issues. Emmanuel also shared a few stories. Including one where he talked about how one day he was woken up, and there was marching outside about an issue there.

There isn’t much we can do about helping for the issue, all we can really do is donate to organizations that will help make schools higher quality for the kids. Emmanuel also suggested that we reach out people that immigrated from Haiti or experience violence in the area. The infamous gang leader, Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier’, him and his gang had killed the old prime minister of Haiti. One of the main messages we got is that, even though were students, we should try as much as we can. I’m looking forward to learning more about this.

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