Wednesday, October 27, 2021 | Hugh Locke 
“Ayiti Mêlée 2021?” by Thony Loui
While gangs have been an inescapable feature of life in Haiti for decades, they now control major swaths of the urban landscape. To most outsiders these gangs seem to be a force unto themselves, rising up as a reprobate evil to prey upon an unsuspecting population. Bad as that would be, this is not the case in Haiti.
Thursday, October 21, 2021 | Hugh Locke 
One of several groups of midwives and community health agents being trained in Laborde by Project
Medishare. Photo: Hatnim Lee.
A medical team from Project Medishare arrived in the southern Haitian city of Les Cayes early Monday morning, but the Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA) agent could not get through the protests and roadblocks to pick them up at the airport. Several hours later they finally connected, but by that time it was too late to make the half hour trip to the SFA branch in Laborde and so they stayed at their hotel. The following morning there were again protesters on the streets, but the group set out anyway for Laborde. They encountered several roadblocks along the way, but each time managed to negotiate their way through without being pummeled by flying rocks.
Wednesday, September 22, 2021 | Hugh Locke 
Photo: Paul Ratje, AFP
The images of Haitian migrants being corralled by US Border Patrol agents on horseback were shocking, even in a time when the bar for that qualification is extraordinarily high. These photos have already been logged into the global annals of egregious human behavior. And while they are very much of the moment, they are also images of escaped slaves being rounded up in another time and place: the commonality is the assumption that some among us are more human than others, and so respect and the norms of decency can be suspended at will and without consequence to the perpetrators.
Friday, September 3, 2021 | Hugh Locke 
Farm families in Laborde signing up for the Project Medishare field clinic. Photo: Hatnim Lee. Recovery efforts are underway following Haiti’s recent earthquake, but officials have warned that many rural areas remain completely cut off without assistance of any kind. One exception is the hard hit farming community of Laborde, where the initial response is nothing short of remarkable… even though much more remains to be done.
Tuesday, August 17, 2021 | Hugh Locke 
For the last eight years the Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA) has been working with around 1,000 farm families in southern Haiti to improve their yields and incomes through an innovative agroforestry model. Centered around the rural community of Laborde, just 5 miles north of the hard-hit city of Les Cayes, these families also felt the full impact of Saturday’s 7.2-magnitude earthquake. Although not yet widely reported, rural areas in this region suffered extensive damage to homes and farm buildings; large numbers of people were injured and are completely without medical services of any kind. And based on the experience of Hurricane Mathew in 2016, post disaster support does not usually extend much beyond city limits.
Saturday, July 10, 2021 | Hugh Locke The tragic assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in his private residence last Wednesday, along with the wounding of the first lady, has raised questions about exactly what is happening in Haiti. I would like to share some personal observations with two provisos: one, that I am what locals call a “blan”, which is a term used for all foreigners, and two, that this is a detail-heavy missive intended for friends and supporters who are already somewhat familiar with Haiti (if you want a quick history primer, click here for a relevant excerpt from my book The Haiti Experiment).
Thursday, May 6, 2021 | Hugh Locke 
Today Timberland released its first products made with Haitian-grown cotton. This represents an important milestone in the company’s five-year journey to re-introduce cotton growing in Haiti through a partnership with the SmallholderFarmers Alliance (SFA).
Thursday, March 11, 2021 | Hugh Locke 
Goats were distributed at a ceremony in which each farmer signed a contract pledging to pass on
two offspring before owning their goat.
Last Monday it was as if a bank was operating in the remote farming community of Sarrasin in Haiti’s Central Plateau. But instead of 11 new accounts being opened with cash deposits, 11 members of the Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA) each received a goat. Livestock is important for milk production, but to smallholders it is also the equivalent of a bank account that can be cashed out to cover major family expenses.