Six Months On, the Women of Haiti Fight Back

Last week marked the sixth-month anniversary of the Haitian earthquake, where more than a million people struggle to scratch a life out of the ruins of the capital city. With that anniversary came a slight uptick in the number of stories aimed at giving voice to the reality of life on the ground in Haiti -- but, much as we saw with Hurricane Katrina, now that the milestone has passed, the news cycle has moved on, leaving behind it millions of disenfranchised Haitians, still struggling to rebuild their homes, their schools, their lives.

Of particular note during these months of chaos has been the role women have played in this terrible story and the human drama that has rolled out on top of them. Just after the earthquake, the Ms. Foundation authorized emergency grants to four organizations working in the region -- the Global Fund for Women, Partners in Health, Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami (Haitian Women in Miami), and Dwa Fanm (Women's Rights)-- because we knew two things: 1) that the women and children of Haiti would be disproportionately affected by the impact of the disaster, and 2) that these organizations were among the most trusted groups on the ground to begin delivering aid where it was needed.

Tragically, that support has been every bit as required as we imagined, and then some. Six months on, the people of Port-Au-Prince are still living a nightmare -- and no groups more so than the women and children, who are experiencing what may be record levels of physical and sexual violence, both in the makeshift camps they call home and elsewhere around the city.

Sexual and domestic violence is not a new phenomenon in Haiti. As Taina Bien-Aime, Executive Director of Equality Now and the daughter of Haitian immigrants, noted in the days just after the quake, local estimates prior to the disaster suggested that 72% of Haitian girls had been raped and at least 40% of women were victims of domestic violence. Unbelievably, those numbers are now likely on the rise.

"When the guys don't have no money, their brain is not good," a leader in one of the camps told CNN in March. "When they have no work or food and just sit around, it is bad. When a guy is drunk, he will do anything [to a woman]."

Women around Port-Au-Prince are seeing the truth in those remarks every day. Though it is difficult to find comprehensive statistics, scan just a few articles written in the past few months on Haiti, women and violence and you will find reports of multiple gang rapes at many of the camps. 4 here. 2 there. 20 across the city. All in just a few days time.

How many times can we say it? This is not a new story. It's the story we heard in New Orleans after the Hurricanes. It's the story we hear on Indian reservations all the time. It is the particular and predictable result of systemic disenfranchisement come to a head, with women ultimately paying the price for the rage that so much disappointment engenders -- with either their bodies or their lives.

Despite the real dangers they face, the women of Haiti are fighting back, organizing to protect their own safety: they are distributing rape whistles in the camps, and setting up committees to address the needs of women when no one else will. They are standing in where pre-existing services (like rape crisis centers) have been destroyed. And they are finding ways to lift themselves and their families out of poverty by training for non-traditional jobs in industries like construction, which are slowly opening up to women workers.

Their fortitude and faith are the stuff revolutions are made of. As they rebuild their nation and seek to protect the voiceless from the violence that has plagued them for so long, we stand in solidarity with the women of Haiti -- today, tomorrow, and on all the other days when the media and the rest of the world have forgotten they exist.

Announcing the Winners of our Katrina Anniversary Contest!

We challenged our outrageous activists to recruit members of the Ms. Foundation Outrageous Activists Cause on Facebook to recognize the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the DVD release of the Academy Award-nominated documentary TROUBLE THE WATER. We are pleased to announce the five winners of the DVD and to celebrate the top recruiter, Brenda Dardar Robichaux of Louisiana.

Ms. Robichaux is an outrageous activist of the best kind. Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Robichaux, a Ms. Foundation grantee, the Principal Chief of the United Houma Nation and founder of the United Houma Nation Relief Fund, quickly mobilized to meet the immediate needs of the Houma Nation. She established training in non-traditional jobs for women and leadership programming for girls. The Ms. Foundation for Women recognized her with a Woman of Vision Award in 2008 (see video and read a profile).

We thank the top recruiters below and invite all to join our Outrageous Activists Facebook Cause.

Brenda Dardar Robichaux
Sewall Whittemore
Lisa Connolly
Nancy Legato
Bobbi Zahra

TROUBLE THE WATER tells the story of Hurricane Katrina through the remarkable eyes and experience of Kimberly and Scott Roberts, “two unforgettable people who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning.” The film, whose New Orleans premiere was supported by the Ms. Foundation, reveals the courage, strength and wisdom of people who were directly affected by the storms and reminds us of the continuing need for recovery and rebuilding.

Buy the DVD
Order the DVD online from Zeitgeist Films.

Ms. Foundation Grantees Commemorate Third Anniversary of Katrina With Calls for Action

On Friday 29 August 2008, Ms. Foundation grantees in New Orleans, Providence and New York City will be commemorating the third anniverary of Hurricane Katrina with solidarity actions in their own cities.

New Orleans
In New Orleans, grantees Safe Streets, Strong Communities and Families & Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC) will be part of the Katrina commemoration second line and rally on Friday at 1 pm. The event, "Sankofa: Remembering Storms of the Past, Building a Brighter Future," will "shine a spotlight on the ongoing disaster of bad public policies that continue to stall communities and prevent thousands of residents from returning after three years since Katrina made landfall."

"Neighbors from across the city will stand together with displaced New Orleanians to demand the right to determine our city’s future – a future that supports children and families, not these profiteering corporations," says Norris Henderson of Safe Streets, Strong Communities. "We want to expose the disastrous policies that have been imposed on us without our input or consent and present a better way to build a safe, strong community."

The New Orleans event [more details] is partially sponsored by the Right to the City Alliance, a national network of community organizations working to address access to housing, services and quality of life in urban areas. It is also sponsoring events in eight other cities, including New York and Providence.

New York
In New York, Ms. Foundation grantees FIERCE and CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities are part of the events that will begin at a 2:00pm gathering at Sara Roosevelt Park in Manhattan, Grand Street between Chrystie and Forsyth Sts, followed by a march through the streets of the lower east side and Chinatown, ending with a vigil in front of 1 Police Plaza. At 7:30pm a fundraiser at Judson Memorial Church put on by the Artist Relief Collective and the Nola Preservation Society will close the day.
[For more information on the New York events contact Rob Robinson at Picture the Homeless 646-314-6423 or Brenda Stokley at the New York Solidarity Coalition with Katrina and Rita Survivors 212-969-0449.]

Providence
Starting at 3:30pm at the offices (340 Lockwood St., Providence, RI) of Ms. Foundation grantee Direct Action for Rights & Equality (DARE), the commemoration will feature local musicians, performers, and community leaders. A second-line style march through Providence's hurricane evacuation route will make stops along the way to highlight issues -- criminalization, gentrification, immigrant rights, foreclosures, and education -- that are affecting Providence, New York, and New Orleans and other communities across the country . The events are sponsored by DARE, Olneyville Neighborhood Association, and City Life/Vida Urbana (Boston).
[For more information, contact 401-351-6960 or 401-228-8996.]

The commemoration of the anniversaries of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita show both the scale of the challenges ahead and the strength of the grassroots leaders and local organizations working to seek a just and sustainable recovery.

An Email from Sangeeta on 'Trouble the Water' in New Orleans

From: Sangeeta Budhiraja
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008
To: EVERYONE
Subject: "Trouble the Water" in NOLA update.

Hi all,

I'm back from NOLA and wanted to send out an update on "Trouble the Water." As you know, the Ms. Foundation supported the "sneak preview" of the film at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) on Sunday afternoon. The New Orleans screening was organized by Amnesty International and co-sponsored by some of our grantee partners, many of whom were in attendance, including Safe Streets, Strong Communities, Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, and the Institute for Women and Ethnic Studies.

I spent significant time over the weekend with the Directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, Editor T. Woody Richman, as well as with Kimberly Rivers Roberts and Scott Roberts, the couple who are featured in the film. Danny Glover, who joined the film later as Executive Producer, also attended and participated in the post-screening panel. Tia spoke before the film about the Ms. Foundation's Katrina Women's Response Fund and acknowledged the importance of our support in bringing this film home to New Orleans. And Emily Ratner, from the New Orleans International Film Festival, added a later appreciation to the foundation for "trusting the folks on the ground to do an event that does right by our people, with an understanding of how rare and empowering that is."

The screening was both powerful and emotional, especially given that much of the audience were family members of Kimberly and Scott, or families and communities from Lower Ninth Ward who were featured in the film. During the post-screening Q&A, Kimberly gave one of the most insightful and thorough analyses of poverty I've ever heard.

I was also able to attend Kimberly's CD release party on Saturday night at the Blue Nile, which was packed with community and family showing their support. As evidenced by the film, and from the time I was fortunate to spend with her, I can say that Kimberly is a visionary who exemplifies our theory of change in the deepest way. As a young Black woman living in poverty who is now using her voice to inspire and empower young women and make change at all levels, Kimberly holds the answers to a just recovery in the Gulf Coast and beyond, and the solutions to political and social systems of inquality - answers and solutions that come directly from her and her family's lived experience (with violence, HIV/AIDS, the criminal justice system, racism, misogyny, and poverty). She is an example of the difference affording someone access to power and the opportunity to use her voice can make. She made connections with our grantees at the screening, and many of them have asked her to speak with their constituencies about her experiences and about healing, resiliency and hope. It is clear that Kimberly and Scott will continue to use their voices and visibility through this film to give back to their community.

The film's newly launched website includes a section called "Take Action" which features information about organizations -- including the Katrina Women's Response Fund -- continuing to work on rebuilding and recovery of the Gulf Coast. The film will also be screened at the Democratic National Convention. The directors, producers and cast will participate on a panel afterwards, along with Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans.

Finally, for those of you who haven't seen the film - please do. It opens on Friday in New York and Los Angeles. All my talking about it over the last few months is nothing compared to experiencing it first hand. Once you do, all this will make much more sense and get you as excited as I have been, I'm sure.

Thanks for reading!

Sangeeta Budhiraja
Program Officer, Building Movements
Ms. Foundation for Women

Top photo: (from left) Scott Roberts and Kimberly Rivers Roberts do a television interview, while directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal watch.

Bottom photo: (from left) Sangeeta Budhiraja and Kimberly Rivers Roberts.

(from left) Sarah Covert, Tia Lessin, Carl Deal, Kimberly Rivers Roberts, Scott Roberts, Sangeeta Budhiraja, Danny Glover, Emily Ratner.

(from left) Carl Deal, Tia Lessin, T. Woody Richman.

(from left) Carl Deal, Danny Glover, Tia Lessin.

'Trouble the Water' Screens in New Orleans, Opens in New York City

"Trouble the Water," an award-winning documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has been praised for putting central focus on the experience of people on the ground -- in particular, an aspiring rap artist, Kimberly Roberts, who videotaped the disaster from the perspective of her family and neighbors as the storm ravaged the Ninth Ward.

The movie, which opens in New York City on 22 August, had its New Orleans premiere on Sunday 17 August with support from the Ms. Foundation. The event, attended by several Ms. Foundation grantees, marked the third anniversary of the storm and celebrated the people of the region who helped to make the film and who continue -- three years out -- to seek a just and sustainable recovery. The film will also be shown at the Impact Film Festival, bringing socially-themed documentary and dramatic films to the national conventions of the Democrats in Denver and the Republicans in St. Paul.

Dennis Lim, in an article in the Sunday New York Times, [The Angry Flood and the Stories in Its Wake] explores how the film brought the voice of the grassroots to the fore:

"Trouble the Water," which won the grand jury prize for best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival and opens on Friday, is one of the best reviewed of these movies. It is also perhaps the one that most shrewdly navigates a problem that to some extent bedevils all filmmakers who take on this fraught subject: how to reconcile their outsider perspectives with the experiences of those who lived through the hurricane.

When the "Trouble the Water" directors, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, headed to Louisiana in early September 2005, they were planning to document the return of National Guard troops from Iraq and had no intention of filming anyone directly affected by the hurricane. But that changed when Ms. Lessin and Mr. Deal met an African-American couple, Kimberly Roberts and Scott Roberts. Ms. Lessin said she and Mr. Deal, who are white, instinctively recognized that they had found their new subjects in these charismatic former residents of the Ninth Ward.

"All we had been seeing in the media were images of helpless victims or of looters," Ms. Lessin said. "Those were the two archetypes. Kimberly and Scott were neither. They were survivors, and they were putting everything they had into protecting themselves and their community."

As it happens Ms. Roberts, an aspiring rapper and new owner of a secondhand camcorder, had also been taping events as they unfolded. "I wanted to prove to people what was happening," she said. "It was spontaneous."

The decision to give pride of place to Ms. Roberts's raw first-person footage and to grant the Robertses a guiding role in the documentary was both generous and astute, a way for Mr. Deal and Ms. Lessin to avoid telling too much of the story across the divides of race and class.

"Trouble the Water" opens at two theaters in New York City:
IFC Center (starting 22 August)
Imagenation (22 August - 7 September) Online tickets.

For viewing locations outside New York, see the distributor's web site.

View the trailer: