In quake's wake, hope dims for Haitians
Published:Monday | October 25, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
Josef Silva has not lived in a real house since the January 12 earthquake which ravaged sections of Haiti.
He survives daily by selling snacks and sweets at the door of an infant school located in one of Port-au-Prince's tent cities.
Sales are slow but the 18-year-old says it's the best he can do. He has been searching for work but has been unsuccessful. He has now lost hope in the ability of his country to bounce back and says he would jump at any opportunity to migrate.
"If I get the chance to leave, I would leave," Silva told The Gleaner through an interpreter in the Haitian capital.
He claimed the government was not responding to the needs of the Haitian people.
"I have no hope. I don't know, I don't see a future. Maybe if we get a nice president this time, but I do not know," Silva said.
The Haitian government concedes that this hopelessness is not confined to Silva.
This crisis has been exacerbated by a cholera outbreak which has claimed 250 lives with thousands clinging on for dear life.
Witchner Ormeus, the director of youth and integration in Haiti's Ministry of Youth, Sports and Civil Action, told The Gleaner that Haitian youth have become even more endangered since the earthquake.
According to Ormeus, many of the young people want to migrate because they are unable to thrive.
"The youths have poor access to basic facilities and are endangered more and more if we do not take appropriate measures. We find that most youth want to leave the country based on a survey. This desire has grown in an exponential manner for a number of reasons," Ormeus said.
He listed education, health care, security and jobs as the main reasons young people want to leave Haiti.
Educational woes
Approximately 200,000 Haitian youths qualify for tertiary training yearly, but many are forced to stay home because most of Haiti's universities have been destroyed.
Silva, though, is not in that elite group. He finished his education at primary school.
Ormeus pointed to a 2008 government report which indicated that 55 per cent of the population was already living in extreme poverty. The rate of unemployment then was 60 per cent.
He also said 38 per cent of people older than 15 are illiterate and 80 per cent of the population who were working could not have access to advanced technical education because they were not qualified.
Meanwhile, there is that portion of the population which is educated and looking for opportunities to continue studies. But they have been handicapped by the earthquake.
"A high number of youths are looking for more advanced training or work. The youth are finding themselves in a situation where they are desperate.
"They love their country but they know they don't have access to the necessary services they want," Ormeus said.
Haitian youth roam the streets daily doing odd jobs such as vending or pumping water from wells.
Their clothes are tattered and their shoes appear reluctant to go another yard. A few, though, are smartly dressed in school uniforms and walk briskly home in the afternoons. Those employed in hotels and guest houses speak several languages.
"Haiti will see better days," one bartender told The Gleaner in Port-au-Prince last week.
But he argued that the better days will not come until "those who seek to govern genuinely commit to helping all the people and not enriching themselves.
"I have not seen that president yet," the bartender added.