Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5, focusing a bit on what's going on in Haiti and trying to get another insight into some of the issues confronting Haitians, and not necessarily from the perspective of the authorities, but from the perspective of others who are trying to, to better the lives of Haitians in a real way. And joining us is someone who's in charge of an organization that has been doing yeoman service for a pretty long period of time. I'm sure that you would have heard the acronym ITNAC, and it means, is there not a cause? Joining us this morning is, we've spoken to her before, I think, in a different capacity. She's joining us here this morning as team lead for ITNAc. Is there not a cause? That's Avanel. HectOR Joseph, good morning to you and welcome to our program.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Good morning, sir. And how are you today?
[00:00:59] Speaker A: I'm fine. It's nice to have you with us here this morning. The discussion is an interesting one.
Let me begin by allowing you to familiarize yourself to our listeners and let them know exactly who you are, what you're involved in, so that they can have a greater understanding from your perspective. Tell us a bit about you. Tell us a bit about Itnac and the work that you've been doing and more specifically, your role in Haiti.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Okay. Good morning, Trinidad and Tobago. Good morning to the listeners on the World Wide Web. I'm Avinel Hector Joseph, aka Avi, and the pleasure is mine to lead a grassroots topper organization from the ground up. We have come for the last 22 years, brute, born and bred in Trinidad and Tobago and reaching the nations of these, as far as I know, we are the largest local NGO in that we are not a branch of an international organization based anywhere, but we are here booted in the nation of Torontobago, doing work locally, regionally and internationally. We do a lot of things here which would include migrant outreach, community work in activist communities, Maloney, parts of Laventill, carnage all over Palo Seco. We've given hampers, we've built homes, we provide transitional housing. We have three properties. If persons who've lost their houses or their homes, they've been evicted, they can't pay rent, they've been flooded, they had a fire. They're just going through some hard times, that transitional stage. We've helped domestic violence victims. We are setting up a safe house for victims of domestic violence. We already have the context of the, what shall I say, the destruction of the bill. We just need to do some more work and the city outreach center. And Haiti is a very big part of what we are and who we.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Explain. Let's get some explanation. How is Haiti one of the most significant elements of your role?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Haiti? Well, I was minding my business, but growing up, I always had this fascination about Haiti. I would have done the Haitian revolution while I was at school, and it fascinated me that a bunch of slaves were able to overthrew and take hold of their freedom and how they've been able to maneuver. And I know a lot of times people limit their view of Haiti to just the negative things, but to survive what they've survived, to not be crushed and not be put into annihilation, and to be even able to exist.
I have such great respect for the haitian person. So I would have seen a picture some years ago, and it was some hungry children. It's like for 20 something years ago. And I remember saying to myself, oh, my God, I needed to do something. But in the past, we didn't have the Internet like we have it now. And you would see things in your national geographic and all that stuff. And then when you saw something like that child or that person would be somewhere far in the jungle, you don't know how to get there. But the thing is that the person who was showing me this particular photograph, a guy named Peter Leon, he actually had the address and the contact for me to get to that village to find those children. And I knew that I wanted to do something. And I spoke to my young people. I was at UT, that holiness revival ministry, to say, guys, let's do something. And that was 23 years ago. And they put up all of $300, which was 50 us at the time. And I paid the transaction fee to send it via Western Union to Haiti. And I remember thinking to myself, what an insignificant amount of money. And the praises that they gave for that money we went, have been there over 200 times. The team has done so much work, and we just got involved as we saw the need. We responded, purchase land other properties, engage other partners on the ground, as is our ethos. We go into a community, a country, we find out who's already there, who's doing what, and that's our ongoing relationship with Haiti. Of course, people know. The earthquake of 2010, there was one. I think 2018, there was one, 2021. So we've been at it, and we continue to be at it.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: How difficult is it to get into Haiti to render this kind of assistance?
Okay, well, after that question, there's another one dealing with security and safety.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Okay. It's a bit difficult in the standpoint of, well, travel throughout the region, for starters, is an extremely difficult task.
You want to get to Bahamas, it's very hard to get to Haiti, is very complicated. You have to go through Miami. Everybody doesn't have a visa, or the flights that work through Purasa or, say, Santo Domingo. They're kind of expensive and inconsistent. So the cost factor, of course, is very high and limited if you don't have a US visa. But once you learn the routes to get in, easy. The security factor, of course, right now it's a no no because of the high levels of kidnapping. And there are those gangs that are controlled by the three guys, barbecue, Izo and Philippe. But then there's some other small gangs that they just run in doing their own things, looking for a quick box. So they are out to kidnap just about anybody that they feel that they can get some kind of ransom from. So it's very volatile, and it has hindered our ability to go in for the last two years in terms of having a physical presence in Haiti. But a lack of that physical presence has not hindered our capacity to render assistance. It has reduced significantly, but it hasn't hindered us because we remain committed to the cause of our haitian brothers and sisters.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: In my television days in 2009 or 2010, I think it was, there was a massive earthquake in Haiti, where I might have the dates, I'll check on it, but there was a massive earthquake in Haiti that saw over 200 people.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Being killed, and we had almost just under 300,000 people.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: And we had sent a team in conjunction with the OAS over to Haiti. They had some mission, some meetings, some kind of thing they had over there. And the team went was basically a reporter and the cameraman. And just days after they left, this earthquake struck, and the very same hotel that they were in crumbled, and people lost their lives and all that kind of thing. When the cameraman came back, I sat with him, and I tell him, I said, listen, tell me what you see.
I don't want to hear from the reporter, and I want you as somebody who you've been involved in a lot of these things, you've been in many circumstances and so on. What did you see? And he said to me that what he saw was life changing to him or should be life changing to anybody who experiences it, because what Haitians go through on a daily basis and what has become their way of life is not something he can even imagine having to go through for a day. And he said that in parts of Haiti, the electricity goes out. After a certain time, you're in darkness. And he said that things, a simple thing like water is a real valuable community item. You don't get it.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: You do know that there are parts of Trinidad and Tobago.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I was about to say the same thing.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: No, that don't have water. And you do know that in 2024, there are people in Trinidad and Tobago, like the Haitians, who have to choose every other day to eat. You do know that right here in Trinidad, the only food they get is what they get in school when they go school.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I was about to make the.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Comparison, but we kind of headed on a particular journey and we don't have an excuse. They didn't have oil and gas. But we only talk in Haiti today.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: We'll have another discussion because I know your work on the ground.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: We are the ground.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: It exposes you to a.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Yes, yes. We've got to expose what is happening in and Tobago because there are many people for political expediency. They are putting their heads up, God knows where, while playing games with people and talking tricks and politics and throwing all figures while people are literally starving. Yes, I said starving. And many of us don't say, well, if they don't want to starve.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: Anyway, I know what you're talking about. I've seen some of your posts. I understand your activism because I share it. Yes, I do. It's real because I myself try to make the world around me a little better place. And when you see the abject poverty and circumstances that some people face, you ask yourself, how does that happen in a country where you have a 6th every year? But that's another discussion.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: We're not doing too bad here, according to somebody.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: What kind of assistance does your organization render in Haiti?
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Okay, so we've done wells, which is important because the type of soil, sometimes you have to go very deep to get water. Okay, let me just say that most of the social services in Haiti, which unfortunately is dubbed the NGO capital of the world because there's so much NGO per capita. And as I said, the Haitians, they are amazing people. They are get up and go people. I don't know if you've researched the canal that is being built.
Haitian citizens, from the grassroots level to those in America, across the diaspora, they are actually building a canal standing against the continued oppression of the Dominican Republic that calculum continues to be silenced on. They are building people without any government aid. They are building a canal to channel some of the water that flows between the two countries so that they can have more fertile ground. Right? So we've done farming projects where we have provided. We've opened markets. One of the markets on fortitude, we invested in God burns down a lot of micro enterprise, food, clothes, medical clinics.
We actually built school buildings. We had a mobile ambulance. And in times of disaster, they would pick up 2010, where we did a major, major outreach. We gave hundreds of thousands of dollars, and many journalists from Trinidad would have accompanied us. Samson Nanta and Sasha Mohammed, daily knock. A whole lot of people would have come with us as part of. To document the work that we did during the earthquake. But we were there from. Since 2002. There was the floods of 2008, 2004. There was Hurricane Matthew. I think it was 2016. There was another earthquake in 2018, and then there was a pretty bad one in 2020, when, of course, none of them in comparison to what happened in 2010. So we continue to respond in times of disasters, but in the day to day living to fund educational projects, food, medical and other social outreach projects, and even children who want to go to get higher education. We don't have any secondary schools or university, but we try to stand with children who have that desire to learn.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Here's something that you can give us an insight into. Is the situation really that bad as we see on television? Because you know that sometimes western media portrays international. They portray a specific image that doesn't.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Because they have a specific agenda that.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Does not necessarily give a true reflection of what's on the ground. Is it really that bad in Haiti, or is there another side of Haiti that we don't get to see?
[00:13:08] Speaker B: Of course there's another side of Haiti that we don't get to see. And one of the things I miss about Haiti right now is my favorite cuisine, haitian food, which I wanted to cook my bread on Saturday, but I don't know if I could get it done. The Haitians are very proud people. They take pride in their culture, they take pride in their cuisine or anything that Haitian. So there are two sides of Haiti for the last couple of months, while Puerto, the capital, has been an upward of the inclusion is spreading further. Unfortunately, if it's not contained in a very strong way to stop it from spreading, because it was more in the capital. And we saw where a couple of weeks ago, the gangs reached a place called Maui, just not too far from Porter princess. And 2 hours they've reached there, and they were able to raid and to get to our depot, where we store goods and supplies. So we get donors, they send things to the depot for us in Haiti. And if there's any disaster where we cannot go and respond, we can send money for food, but the things that we can't send money for, it's already there to distribute. But if you were to go into cap haitian capitation, had a big carnival a couple of months ago. So you're going to be seeing things posted on social media where there's some Haitians, they're really working hard to show the other sides of Haiti, the water, the hotel, the historic site, the things that are part of the un historical. There's a historical thing where they keep sitting Berlin, and that is happening. So it's a very sharp contrast. Everything in Haiti is a contrast. The way the rich live, the way the poor live. The rich, they will go to Miami for the day, come back, they have their yachts, they live their best life, right? The twelve families, they basically control the narrative. They control the government. They call the shots. But for the most part, cities like capacity have been able to live and to govern themselves in a separate space. And they were actually running any gang person that came from polar prince to contaminate their space. However, with the situation in polar plants increasing in intensity, in madness, in mind blowing craziness, we do not know how long that level of some measure of sanity will be able to continue in places like port of. And then you have other places like Marabella, where the gangs would have run in and over either 800 or 8000 families. They had to move. So we don't know what's their game plan, if they have a game plan, if they are just on impulse, they said, if the prime minister resigns, they got to do XYZ. And then now you see, they're saying, listen, we want to be part of that council, that committee of elders. So it's shifting, but there's beauty and there's ugliness, and it depends also on where you are located. But the city is under siege totally. It's crazy.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: We need to take a quick break. And when we get back, of course, we delve a bit deeper into some of these interventions and the progress that has been made, or the lack thereof, in getting Haitians out of the situation that they're in on the political front. We know that there are many, many overtures. CARICOM now more involved. We have the gangs playing a greater role, the president of resign and all these kinds of things. So we'll discuss that and so much more and how it impacts on trying to make the life of the average haitian better.
Our special guest this morning team lead, Itnack Avenue, Hector Joseph the best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5. Speaking to Team lead, Itnack Avenue, Hector Joseph we're talking about Haiti. If you'd like to join the conversation, feel free to send your messages to 306-1065 or you can call us on 627-3223 and 625-2257 I'm assuming that a lot of what itnack does, you will get some support, but a lot of it deals with individuals wanting to help and citizens and some companies coming together. I don't necessarily believe you can correct me if I'm wrong, that there is a great level of state assistance in this regard, and a lot of what is done is done by persons who just feel that they need to help and want to help and take it out of their own resources to do so. These interventions that have been made in Haiti, what kind of impact have they had?
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Well, people who are very cynical might look at it and say, you've been there for 22 years. How has things changed? Just a special type of question, because we have no control over the geopolitics that is played out over from the history from France and their wicked tax, or what the UN does, or what the American does, or what the World bank does, or what any organization does, or even the haitian politicians. But we can gauge our impact on lives. And that's why our motto is making a difference one life at a time. Whether it is in Trinidad and Tobago, whether it is any part of the region, whether it is our Americans during Rita and Katrina, or Africa or India. So our partners who stand with us, there are people who sit and try and say, no, I would really like to help Haiti because my heart is good. I can't just turn my eye and say, well, that's not my problem. But I can't fly to Haiti just to give a can of peas. However, if they give a $10 to Itnac, we put that in the greater pool and we make it happen. And one of the things that we want to thank God for with corporate TNT, while we don't get a subvention or we don't get random contributions just like that, with the exception like teachers credit union, that will give us a contribution every year. But when there's a disaster and they're looking for someone to give the funds to who they know will account for it, we must applaud corporate TNT for coming alongside, whether it was the volcano in St. Vincent, all the earthquakes, floods in and Tobago. So we have seen our impact on communities. We have seen our impact on individuals'lives, children who have been able to have an education.
We would have brought quite a number of Haitians to Trinidad and Tobago. It was not an easy task because Calcom does not treat haitian citizens like it does the rest of the region. I almost choked when you said calcum is helping, but that's a conversation for another time. So we would have brought them to Trinidad. Some would have gone to UtT Tthi before we closed down the hotel school that we're trying to build tourism.
Again, that's a conversation for another time.
And some of them have gone on to the US at different parts of the world. So on a macro level, we have not been able to change the whole political or whatever landscape of Haiti. But we can see that the communities that we've worked in, the children's homes that we have been a part of, we can tell success stories of lives that have been impacted. And people might think giving somebody some food and saving them from hunger is something to say is an accomplishment. But at the end of the day, if you've been hungry, somebody's feeding you, somebody is giving you peace, somebody's helping you to plant your land, put a. Well, that's a big deal for some people.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: The stories that came out of Haiti for a long time is that they eat something called mud cakes.
Have you seen that? Is that still a reality for many Haitians?
[00:21:03] Speaker B: I've never seen anybody eat mud cakes. I thank God for that. But I understand it has happened, you see, but I've seen them eat all kind of things. I remember we were cooking some years ago, and we were making Bon Bon. I'd taken about 20 something, one or 50 used to Haiti in 2008, and it wasn't as bad then. And we served the pellau.
And when we served the pella, my niece, she was just a teenager, she scraped up the bun bun because it was really burnt, right? And there were some chickens, and we threw it out and some people came and they were collecting it. My husband has a story where, because I used to go to Haiti all the time, this was back in 2003, he would have gone to Haiti for the first time, and they were clearing a container. They almost lost their lives. That was at another volatile time. And so they had to have armed guards and all of that. And as they were leaving from the port, walking to the truck, what the guy was doing is that he had put a small hole in the bag as they were putting small holes in the bags, and as they were walking the rice was dropping.
Then they went back and they sifted through that to collect the rice. And when he saw that he gave them some rice, like whole bags of rice. We were going to give them something anyway. And again, not all Haitians are living like that. There are many Haitians, they live proper, they try their best, they fly, but in terms of desperation. And so these are some of the things that we have seen. I have seen in Haiti.
Like I've seen children trying Tobago, parents still in their school uniform on the other side to iron it. So I have unfortunately seen a lot of poverty in my lifetime that has really broken us, our team, ethnic. We've seen it in India, we see it in Africa. We've seen where disasters equalize people in Katrina and return the US. And people pull up in their escalade because even though they had a fancy car, their house was destroyed and they had to come in the line like everybody else, get aid. So Haiti situation is not a quick fix, but the approach by some that this is a very complicated thing, it has a quick fix. To stand by and to do nothing is why Haiti is where it is today. Because the politicians and the technocrats, they need to really have a grasp of what is going on. And I miss men like PJ Patterson because I'm sure. Well, I can't say I'm sure, but there's a great probability. Based on his past responses, he would have been leaving Calcom truth and calling Calcom to action. There's so much that happens with geopolitics.
Gonzalez, as a man would normally speak loudly, then he's a friend of Maduro. Madu is an enemy of St. Vincent. So I don't know if it's just coincidence, but again, when elephants play and you know what happened, the ants get trampled. So we watch on sadly, and we see that the haitian ants are being trampled while games are being played out by the barbecues, the ISO, the guy, Filipe. Everybody has a kind of standoff approach. The UN took one week less of a year to respond to the haitian cry for assistance, to quell and just stop where we are when I say we, because I see myself as part of the struggle. And then Gaza happened the Saturday, that was the Monday the UN finally worked in it. After a year, Gaza came up. And of course, that has been the more international narrative for more reasons than ones. And our haitian brothers and sisters continues to suffer. So my ultimate hope as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is that God will come through. He would speak to the hearts of people. And we would see change and we would see transformation, because there's much more that our haitian brothers and sisters can take. As strong and as resistant as they are. It is a lot.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: Yeah. I'll tell you this. Looking on from the outside, you often hear of these financial donations, and you really ask yourself, where does all of this money go? The latest one is the US again. They were in Jamaica and they announced $100 million for Haiti. That's not a little bit of money. That's plenty of money, especially when you're talking us and you really just explain.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Let me help you explain.
When I go into Haiti, we have our own bus. It comes and meet us at the airport.
And I'm not expecting them to do this. We have our own house before we have our own house. And when we go to different villages, we sleep in a church, we sleep in a chipotle. You go to Haiti, you see all these white SUVs, Pradas, and this from world health, PAhO will this un that, all of those things. Then the volunteers and the workers, they get a salary, they have to get security, they have to get meals, they have to get a podium. Sometimes $125 us per day, all of these things. So when you hear Haiti getting 100 million, then of course you're going to have situations where contractors have to be paid from the donor country.
How much actually trickles down to the project. Then they have to do the assessment. All of those things. There's a cost for assessment. Sometimes. One of our friends who works with one of the international organizations, he said they were on a particular project, and by the time all the people were paid, house at the hotels got their meal allowances. The haitian workers who actually did the bulk of the work, they got the scraping, and then there was no money to actually do the project. So when you hear figures, you have to pay attention. And then we have the famous situation, you can google it of that organization got how much of a billion? And they built six houses in Haiti. We got a whole less than that, and we built more.
So it's a very ticklish thing how funds are actually distributed, who get the funds and the high administrative cost of aid. In some of these organizations, their whole process is so top heavy that very little filters down to the bottom. If they were to find NGOs on the ground, like myself and others that are there that have been tested, human vision ministries and others, they will see where the bang for the buck goes that you can actually say, okay, this was done. That was done. As opposed to the high administrative cost. So if money was given, I'm really praying to God that for some strange reason they were able to do what they haven't been able to do before and really get it to the people so that an impact can be seen and felt and not just things bandied about on media and figures to make donor countries look good.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. We're going to have to leave our conversation here this morning. We will speak again on other issues, probably some of those closer to home, but those are discussions for another time and I'm sure that.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: Can I get 15 seconds quickly?
[00:28:07] Speaker A: Sure, go ahead.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: So our organization, we need an administrative building as we speak. We've got just a few more days to make the payment and any other project you want to contact us with. 3942 042-394-2042 we bank with First Citizens Bank 166-0410 we need that administrative billing so that we don't have to rent and we can be better structured. We are not government funded. I said we don't have consistent corporate funding. We are glad for what help we get from corporate TNT. But we need the grassroots people to continue to support us and we need that administrative billing. So call us on 394-2042 or just go to any branch of per citizens bank and make a contribution to any account of is there not a cause? I am not a paid worker. I'm a volunteer just like everybody else. Again, thank you for your support.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: It was my pleasure having you on this morning. Thank you once again for being with us. And that's how we end our interview here this morning, ladies and gentlemen, with team lead Itnak Avanelle, Hector Joseph the best insight instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
