DH is looking for guest writers–submit ideas here!

Writers should, at a minimum, have a point of view and weigh in on what’s right and wrong or strange and confusing about how Haiti develops.  Solution-oriented pieces are especially welcome. Of course links are a must as are pics, video, graphs, etc–anything to show your reader a good time online.

Don’t worry about the quality of your writing. I’ll coach and edit you (painlessly).  Don’t worry if you have a half-baked idea. I’ll talk you through it.  Until DH can transition to a news site, I want to run well-informed pieces and Q&A’s (both 200-600 words) that showcase strong perspectives and authoritative voices. Update: This isn’t a call for regular contributors; feel free to be a one-hit wonder.

A word of advice about what DH is not.  Please don’t be offended.  There’re so many other places on the Web for these perspectives; it just ain’t here.  DH will not publish writing that’s primarily:

• promoting Haitian music, poetry, or the arts unless there is a community profit or development angle.
• celebrating your generosity towards Haitians
• idolizing Haiti’s forefathers
• lamenting the continued rape/colonization/underdevelopment of Haiti by the U.S. or European power
• unleashing a generation’s worth of anger towards all of Haiti’s leaders since Papa Doc Duvalier
• ripping into the UN and NGO sector in a general way.  Specifics, however, are very welcome.
• blaming Haiti’s current state on the vindictiveness of foreign powers
• starring an American or Haitian-American savior
• reproducing these what-not-to-do guidelines
• [feel free to add your own oft-overheard thread from the "Haiti development" conversation]

Some or all of the above may have merit; it’s not my intention to say they do not.  But very little of the above hasn’t already been said or is forward-thinking.

Still interested?  Contact: carla(dot)m(dot)murphy(at)gmail(dot)com.

Read Me: New article in the Haitian Times

I’ve just finished a story about New York area businesses that are trying to get a slice of the $10 billion reconstruction pie. I plan to continue reporting in the vein of profit and business, particularly those firms that are creating employment in Haiti.  I figure there’re enough reporters covering aid as charity, how it works and then blaming the usual suspects when it doesn’t.  That’s a valuable frame but there’re so many other ways to frame how development goes down in Haiti.  I’m open to other ideas so, holler.

Unfortunately, my story’s behind a pay wall so I’ll reproduce a bit here:

[Jean] Petrus belongs to a small coterie of New York-area businesses, most owned by Haitian-Americans, pushed by a slow recovery at home and pulled by both patriotism and profit to help reconstruct Haiti.
[According to the Associated Press] more than 105,000 homes need to be rebuilt, along with 1,300 schools, 50 hospitals, the presidential palace, parliament and courts, not to mention debris removal and technology and infrastructure development.
These Haitian-American owners are new to the world of federal procurement, however. Since January 12th, other American firms with extensive international experience in disaster clean-up and construction—many with lessons learned from post-Hurricane Katrina reconstruction—have been setting up offices, camps and mess halls for an anticipated workforce in Port-au-Prince.
It remains to be seen whether and how effectively Haitian-American firms can compete for the more than $1 billion in aid pledged by the United States over the next decade.

Read more: Haitian Times – With Government’s Help Enterprising New Yorkers Seek Fortunes in Haiti