Melinda Miles

Melinda often uses this quote to explain her passion for Haiti,
"Haiti showed me what I was, and taught me what I must become."

Miles first visited Haiti in 1993 with three other students from her high school in Massachusetts. It was the height of the coup d'etat, and Miles returned with many vivid images: soldiers and paramilitary on the street corners of Port-au-Prince, sick and dying children at Mother Theresa's orphanage, the poverty and dirt floors of peasants' homes. Perhaps the most impactful moment was the night the students sat with human rights activist Father Daniel Roussiere in Gonaives. He told them the stories of his human rights network, and explained that in Haiti high school students were doing the dangerous work of reporting human rights violations.

After her trip to Haiti, Miles knew she had been given a gift and knew that her calling would lead her back to Haiti for the rest of her life. She won an internship grant from Amnesty International which allowed her to work with newly arrived Haitian refugees the summer before she began at Smith College in Northampton, MA.

At Smith, Miles studied anthropology and political science, but always kept track of events in Haiti. Before graduating in 1998, Miles began full-time work with a small non-profit in MA and began traveling to Haiti again.

Miles has coordinated the Haiti Reborn program of the Quixote Center since 1999, and has visited Haiti twenty times over the last six years. During the 2000 elections, Miles coordinated the only independent international election observers, acted a press spokesperson for the group and authored the only complete report on the election process, "Elections 2000: Monitoring Participatory Democracy in Haiti." In 2001, Miles worked with a small group of activists to create the Let Haiti Live campaign, which has had dramatic success in activating solidarity folks who had let Haiti slip off their radar. Let Haiti Live is now a thriving coalition which celebrated a major victory in July 2003, when the Inter-American Development Bank released humanitarian aid to Haiti despite a U.S. embargo.

One of the most exciting successes of Haiti Reborn's on the ground work in Haiti is the Father Jean Marie Vincent Reforestation Program in Gros Morne (more information below). Miles has raised thousands of dollars to plant trees, teach peasants about sustainable agriculture, and plant a 200,000-tree model forest. The program in Gros Morne is exciting because it represents a truly community-initiated and run program, and has had unprecedented success with planting and protecting seedlings. The program is growing now, and won't stop until it encompasses a three-river watershed which has been plagued by droughts due to deforestation.

Miles has appeared on countless radio programs to discuss the current situation in Haiti and is knowledgeable on a wide spectrum of issues – from economy, politics, culture, and international aid, to agriculture, reforestation and free trade zones. She is currently co-editing the book, "Let Haiti Live: Unjust U.S. Policies Towards Its Oldest Neighbor" which would be released in April 2004 to commemorate Haiti's Bicentennial.

The Reforestation Program

When reading historical novels about Haiti, one is struck by the descriptions of the scenery. The plains were fertile and green, and the mountains were so thick with forest that escaped slaves fled into the jungles and were never seen again. The Haiti of today is a stark contrast to the Haiti of yesterday - in fact there are less than a hand full of forests remaining.

On August 28, 2001 the village of Gros Morne, Haiti Reborn staff and special visitors from Kenya gathered to bless what is now the third protected forest in Haiti. The Father Jean Marie Vincent Memorial Forest, named for the courageous priest who was killed for his work with peasants, is growing tall with 110,000 trees. How this forest came to be is an inspiring story about erosion, deforestation, and a community's dedication to preserving their way of life.

The main road in Gros Morne is also the national highway to the northern city of Port-de-Paix. In 1998 the families whose homes sat on the main road began to lose their back rooms to the River Marcelle, which runs parallel to the highway. A cliff had formed through years of erosion, and it had reached the level of a true environmental emergency, threatening both homes and the national road. In response to the emergency, a Committee of Urgency was formed.

The village of Gros Morne lies between three rivers, and the Committee of Urgency began to realize that the erosion problem was actually much greater than the cliff. In fact, one tropical storm is all it would take to wash the entire village off the map. The Committee began to educate the village - first through the churches, and then through the schools, public meetings and communication from the mayor's office. The Committee of Urgency made a three-tiered plan: First, they would form a delegation to visit the capital to lobby the government to build a retaining wall against the River Marcelle cliff. Second, they would begin a reforestation program that would make seedlings available and offer the training necessary to send trees to places along the rivers where greenbelts were needed to hold erosion. Finally, they would begin their own model forest and tree planting within the village, as an example to the other villages in the watershed.

The first stage of the Committee's plan led to a success when the government completed the construction of a step-like retaining wall against the River Marcelle cliff. The second stage is ongoing; peasants from the watershed as far north as the village of Terre Rouge have participated in training programs and in areas where the seedlings are protected from hungry goats they have an 80% success rate. The forest, dedicated last year, is now experiencing new growth - adjacent plots of land are being readied for planting. The main streets of the village of Gros Morne are now lined with seedlings, and neighborhood committees are responsible for their protection.

The vision of the community's project has expanded to take in the entire watershed. It is clear that without significant work to the north the rivers will continue to wash topsoil from other villages into Gros Morne. University students and a professor recently completed a study which identifies critical areas for greenbelts. Leaders of the project now believe that in a few years they can restore normal weather patterns to the watershed, bringing an end to droughts that have plagued the north for years. Interns from an agronomy school in the northern city of Cap-Haitien are a regular fixture at the training center where they share their knowledge. They also travel to other villages upon completion of the training programs to give peasants hands on help in planting their seedlings.

In 2001 the project also expanded to include what the Kenyan Greenbelt Movement calls the three levels of reforestation. One of the founders of the Greenbelt Movement, Lilian Njehu, visited Gros Morne to conduct a training session and explained to the people gathered how the movement began in Kenya. The women in her community first started to think about reforestation when their children were getting sick and dying and the diagnosis was malnutrition. "We started figuring out how the smallest piece of land or even an empty rice sack could be used to plant food," Ms. Njoroge explained. The three aspects of reforestation in Kenya became tree planting, forest planting and food security. Tree planting differs from forest planting in that the trees are planted on small plots of land, along the streets and in people's yards. Food security was a new idea for the Haitian reforestation project, but it has a clear connection.

Reforestation is about renewing the land, giving back its nutrients and allowing the soil to lay fallow and hold water again. This is how the land is able to produce more, providing families with the food they need to survive. Food security is a natural part of the process, because when you turn part of your land over to be renewed by trees you need to feel assured that you can still feed your family. One of the first food security projects has already begun among the women of Gros Morne. By taking two empty rice sacks and filling them with soil women are able to grow enough vegetables to feed a family of five. The best thing about this initiative is that it allows poor families who have no land to grow vegetables to feed themselves.