Saturday, February 6, 2010

Reality Rushes In ...

 Given the significant resource requirements of the effort and the increasing escalation of the Haitian crisis,  I have decided to restructure the Drumming An End To Poverty event  to accommodate the new realities of the post Haitian crisis environment.  It is difficult, if not impossible to focus upon poverty in Africa when we have such a devastated economy right here in our hemisphere.  The Nairobi Microcredit Summit is, in fact, although important, a regional event.  Next year is the Global Microcredit Summit and given the present situation, we have determined to redirect our near term efforts to Haiti! We will then readjust our sights upon the 2011 Global Summit in Spain.

Even without the terrible events surrounding the "quake," Haiti was already a disaster for those 80$ of all Haitians who live below the poverty line there.  For us, the earth quake is a wake up call.  Unless we can rebuild the economy from the bottom up, the existing power structure will defeat any effort to create a prosperous middle class by sucking up all funding and diverting it to their purposes.  We need a plan to support the creation of new growing businesses, a plan to redistribute, not the money, but the opportunity in Haiti.  We need to level the playing field.

So, very soon we shall see a new website spring up where this one once stood.  It will be "Drumming An End To Poverty in Haiti!  We will hold the Drum Circle here in Washington DC!  We expect it to be held in mid-June.  It will be on a Sunday and held at, or near The Catholic University in NE Washington.  Proceeds from the event will go to establishment of a fund to support small business growth in Haiti.

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