Alison Granito's blog

A student in the after school program at the New York Action Center colors the Statue of Liberty on the front of a welcome pack the children prepared for children who have been relocated from Haiti to NYC after the earthquake. Photo: Michael Rizzo for Mercy Corps

Ten-year-old Georgia Greenleaf sat on the floor of the Action Center to End World Hunger, painstakingly choosing the right shades of brown and green for an outline of the Statue of Liberty she colored on a simple paper packet in front of her. As she worked, she started thinking out loud about just what the statue meant to her and what it will mean for children from Haiti en route to make a new home in New York.

“New York might be called the Empire State, but the Empire State Building doesn’t really stand for New York. The Statue of Liberty does — way more than anything else. When we see her and she welcomes us, we know there’s freedom here and that anything is possible.” said Georgia, who lives in a neighborhood along Manhattan’s south edge, where Lady Liberty looms large in the distance from a park along the bank of the Hudson River.

Georgia and 20 other students from schools in the neighborhood, who participate in the Action Center’s after school program, will soon meet children from Haiti transplanted to New York with their families in the wake of the January 12’s devastating earthquake. In preparation, the kids spent a recent Tuesday afternoon at the Action Center making welcome packets that just might make the new arrivals feel at home in the meantime.

On the cover of the guide the Action Center kids put together, the Statue of Liberty greets the new arrivals along with “Welcome to New York!” — "Byenvenu a New York!" in Creole — just like she’s greeted millions of immigrants who’ve arrived in New York City for more than a century.

The short packet also includes pictures drawn by the Action Center kids of their favorite places around the city and a student-produced guide of useful English phrases the children relocating to New York can use when they start school. That guide will help them join games on the playground and learn how to ask for things in the cafeteria.

“It’s really important that they can understand it. Their own language will help them feel comfortable,” said Georgia.

The guide will be part of a welcome kit put together by kids for kids, including handmade puzzles of New York City landmarks. The students spent a couple hours carefully cutting up postcards of the Empire State Building bought at neighborhood souvenir shops.

Georgia and the students at the Action Center belong to the Hang Out for Change program, where 20 students in 3rd-5th grades attend a weekly session where they learn about the causes behind hunger and poverty around the world. The group has been using Haiti as an example and learning about how Mercy Corps helps in places devastated by emergencies or chronic poverty.

The Action Center education team is working with Brooklyn-based CAMBA, an agency that serves vulnerable populations in New York City and runs several after school programs, to make it happen. If all goes as planned, the kids from the Action Center will get to say "Byenvenu a New York!" in person sometime in the late Spring.

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The epic devastation in Haiti is about much more than an earthquake, Mercy Corps' President Nancy Lindborg told a crowd of supporters in New York assembled at the Action Center to End World Hunger to hear a briefing on the situation on the ground after her recent trip to Port-au-Prince. Ultimately, it's a human rights issue.

Flying in a helicopter over Port-au-Prince, she encountered a surreal landscape. "It looked like someone had jumped up and down on top of a toy city," she said. In contrast, she recalled the 7.1 magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake that struck San Francisco in 1989. More powerful than the recent quake that essentially leveled Haiti's cities, it killed 63 people. In Haiti the death toll is 200,000 and still climbing.

"Of all the emergencies, the earthquakes, the tsunamis and even the conflict that I've visited, I don't think I've ever seen an emergency as complete, as complicated and as utterly devastating as the earthquake in Haiti," Lindborg said. "That so many people were so devastated by this earthquake, that's a poverty issue. That's poverty. That's poor governance. There's no reason that a country can't withstand that kind of earthquake with the kind of resources and the kind of governance that every person deserves."

You can watch the video here:

As the initial phase of the relief effort ebbs and the process of clearing rubble and rebuilding starts, people want to regain some of the control they often lose after a disaster. To that end, Mercy Corps will operate a strong cash-for-work program to put money in the pockets of Haiti's people, so they can buy what they need in local markets and jumpstart the local economy.

Dr. Fabienne Laraque, a Haitian-American doctor in the crowd for the briefing, said Haiti was in dire need of economic opportunities before the earthquake and that need will only grow now. "I want to thank you and thank Mercy Corps for your commitment," she told Lindborg. "Haiti needs all of our help. But more than anything, it needs jobs, it needs jobs, it needs jobs."

Alone, Laraque said she could only do so much. So, she decided to organize her fellow Haitian and Haitian-American employees at the New York City Department of Public Health to see what they could do support long-term relief and rebuilding efforts as a larger group. She also intends to spend more time at the Action Center in order to stay plugged into Mercy Corps' efforts in Haiti.

But the best chance of rebuilding a strong, successful Haiti will take more than governments and relief agencies. Everyday citizens, in Haiti and beyond, will play important roles.

"Remember that this won't be over once it's off the news and it's already off the front page of the papers," Lindborg urged the crowd. "Every January 12 for the next five years, take a moment. Check in on Haiti. See where it is in its effort to rebuild. See what you can do to help."

Act today. Learn more about Mercy Corps' response in Haiti and visit actioncenter.org to write your elected officials and make sure help for Haiti and other developing nations remains a priority in Congress.

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More than one billion people went to bed hungry last night. Chances are they will go to bed hungry tonight as well — even though the world produces enough food to feed every man, woman and child in the world.

With U.S. leadership, we have the chance to make sure things are different a few years from now. But we all need to play a part to make that happen.

Sign One Table's petition and thank President Obama for making the fight against world hunger a real priority and urge him to make sure it stays on his agenda. Then tell him how you intend to join him in his efforts.

Almost 70 percent of the world's farmers are women. Photo: Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

The Obama Administration has consistently supported policies that will help break the cycle of hunger and poverty for many of the one billion who go to bed hungry each night.

The White House budget request supports programs that will help pregnant women get proper nutrition so their babies can start life off healthy and strong; sustainable agriculture and help for the world's small farmers, who grow food to feed their own families and communities; and critical assistance that bolsters education and economic development around the world.

And, top emissaries of the Administration have pledged sincere effort to make sure we do everything we can to bring an end to world hunger, not only because it’s smart foreign policy but because it is the right thing to do.

"We have the resources to give every person in the world the tools they need to feed themselves and their children. So the question is not whether we can end hunger. It's whether we will,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in a recent Huffington Post blog entry on the need to attack hunger at its roots. Sustainable agriculture will play a key role in the Obama Administration’s plans to reduce hunger around the world.

But, it’s going to take more than Obama and more than Hillary to make it happen. Some members of Congress are trying to block the President’s recommendation to increase aid to small farmers, almost 70 percent of which are women.

In the world’s most desperate places, they often bear sole responsibility for growing, gathering and cooking what little food there is. They usually eat last and the least. They are also the least likely to benefit from programs that help train farmers in better techniques.

Visit Mercy Corps’ Action Center to End World Hunger and take action on behalf of the world’s small farmers today. Ask your member of Congress to support the White House budget request to expand international sustainable agriculture programs.

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