Let Them Eat Mud Cake! (Haiti)
Information
Location: Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Members: 4
Latest Activity: Jan 13, 2010
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Imagine a community of trash filled streets, no work, and no hope, so desperate they must eat mud in order to quell stabbing hunger pangs.
Port-au-Prince, Haiti is home to almost three million people. At night, it feels more like an ancient city or an endless campground than a 21st century metropolis. Imagine you’re a child, orphaned and destitute and you sleep on the ground under a tarp because there is no room inside the home where you live, along with 65 other children. Imagine having to stand for hours—sometimes all night—waiting for the rain to stop so you can lie on the cement and go to sleep (we’re not making this up)! Imagine the ever-present danger of rapists or abduction for the slave trade if you venture outside the small tin enclosure that surrounds the shanty house. It sounds too scary to leave but you have to go out. You have to find food!
Remember what it was like the last time you missed a meal or two? It sucks! Now imagine missing them so often you might as well eat dirt! In a dusty courtyard women mold clay and water into hundreds of little platters and lay them out to harden under the Caribbean sun. “The craftsmanship is rough and uneven but customers do not object because these platters are not to hold food. They are food. Brittle and gritty—and as revolting as they sound—these are ‘mud cakes’”1
“The global food crisis has hit Haiti harder than perhaps any other country in the world,” (and that’s saying something) pushing a population mired “in extreme poverty towards starvation and revolt.” 1 For these communities, there is little hope of opportunities for adequate nutrition and sustenance, shelter and security, and a local sustainable economy.
Big Challenge
• Extreme hunger due to poverty and rising food prices (food industry dominated by import only, leading to severe decline in local agriculture).
• Lack of adequate shelter.
Bigger Solution
In one week, the Imagine This! team will facilitate the build of a self-sustaining community, filled with people dedicated to a new dream for their country, their home. We help to create a new mythology of a place where the sun shines, food is plentiful, and life is abundant!
The start of this journey begins with the (IT!) team renovating a building on a hill above the city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. This renovated building with safe drinking water, sanitary toilets and solar powered lights will become the new home for sixty adult and child residents.
The team will simultaneously turn the surrounding land into a eco-friendly, self-sustaining food production facility. The sixty residents will be trained to operate the facility and the Solar Ovens that will produce thousands of loaves of delicious hot bread each day. As a part of the operation, the child residents of the home will distribute food to their local elementary schools that are lacking lunch programs. These kids from the home will show up to school and learn what is to be a hero to their fellow classmates!
As part of the sustainability of this project we will working to create a new mythology of a place called “Bread Mountain” where mouth watering hot bread comes from to help a city come back from the brink of starvation. Musicians like Michael Frante and Wyclef Jean (Frante already said yes!) will record a song about “Bread Mountain” available by download for a small fee. The proceeds will go to furthering this small community program. This program will capture the myth of Haiti’s prosperous past and cast visions of a country returning to its former glory as the “bread basket” of the Caribbean.
Imagine This! A community in need, a mission to complete, a week to make a difference.
1 Haiti: Mud cakes become staple diet as cost of food soars beyond a family's reach by Rory Carroll
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/29/food.internationalaidanddevelopment
Port-au-Prince, Haiti is home to almost three million people. At night, it feels more like an ancient city or an endless campground than a 21st century metropolis. Imagine you’re a child, orphaned and destitute and you sleep on the ground under a tarp because there is no room inside the home where you live, along with 65 other children. Imagine having to stand for hours—sometimes all night—waiting for the rain to stop so you can lie on the cement and go to sleep (we’re not making this up)! Imagine the ever-present danger of rapists or abduction for the slave trade if you venture outside the small tin enclosure that surrounds the shanty house. It sounds too scary to leave but you have to go out. You have to find food!
Remember what it was like the last time you missed a meal or two? It sucks! Now imagine missing them so often you might as well eat dirt! In a dusty courtyard women mold clay and water into hundreds of little platters and lay them out to harden under the Caribbean sun. “The craftsmanship is rough and uneven but customers do not object because these platters are not to hold food. They are food. Brittle and gritty—and as revolting as they sound—these are ‘mud cakes’”1
“The global food crisis has hit Haiti harder than perhaps any other country in the world,” (and that’s saying something) pushing a population mired “in extreme poverty towards starvation and revolt.” 1 For these communities, there is little hope of opportunities for adequate nutrition and sustenance, shelter and security, and a local sustainable economy.
Big Challenge
• Extreme hunger due to poverty and rising food prices (food industry dominated by import only, leading to severe decline in local agriculture).
• Lack of adequate shelter.
Bigger Solution
In one week, the Imagine This! team will facilitate the build of a self-sustaining community, filled with people dedicated to a new dream for their country, their home. We help to create a new mythology of a place where the sun shines, food is plentiful, and life is abundant!
The start of this journey begins with the (IT!) team renovating a building on a hill above the city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. This renovated building with safe drinking water, sanitary toilets and solar powered lights will become the new home for sixty adult and child residents.
The team will simultaneously turn the surrounding land into a eco-friendly, self-sustaining food production facility. The sixty residents will be trained to operate the facility and the Solar Ovens that will produce thousands of loaves of delicious hot bread each day. As a part of the operation, the child residents of the home will distribute food to their local elementary schools that are lacking lunch programs. These kids from the home will show up to school and learn what is to be a hero to their fellow classmates!
As part of the sustainability of this project we will working to create a new mythology of a place called “Bread Mountain” where mouth watering hot bread comes from to help a city come back from the brink of starvation. Musicians like Michael Frante and Wyclef Jean (Frante already said yes!) will record a song about “Bread Mountain” available by download for a small fee. The proceeds will go to furthering this small community program. This program will capture the myth of Haiti’s prosperous past and cast visions of a country returning to its former glory as the “bread basket” of the Caribbean.
Imagine This! A community in need, a mission to complete, a week to make a difference.
1 Haiti: Mud cakes become staple diet as cost of food soars beyond a family's reach by Rory Carroll
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/29/food.internationalaidanddevelopment
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