UCLA alumna stays in Haiti after experiencing earthquake firsthand

During the 30 seconds of strong jolts on Jan. 12, Allison DePasquale stayed in her building.

Once the earthquake settled, she ran outside and met with Port-au-Prince locals screaming religious cries for help. The secondary school that once bordered her courtyard was nothing more than a graveyard for its students, who were stuck between the rubble.

DePasquale, along with local Haitian women, could do nothing more than find shovels and flashlights to assist the men who frantically rushed to lift heavy pieces of concrete off of the rubble-ridden victims.

As an injured nine-year-old girl struggled to keep calm after having just been rescued from the collapsed school, DePasquale sang to her only to find the child dead in her arms after two hours.

“I realized that when you’re in a situation that you have no control over, you have no other choice but to move on, or else you’ll go crazy,” DePasquale said with a sense of normalcy in her unwavering tone.

After graduating UCLA with a degree in economics/international area studies in June 2009, DePasquale began her journey in Fondwa, Haiti, two hours southwest of Port-au-Prince. As the development director of the Association of Peasants of Fondwa, a grassroots organization that she came across before graduating from UCLA, DePasquale develops ways to create and finance vocational programs for local Haitians.

She has already created a technical school for carpentry and a women’s peanut butter production business. She regularly commutes to Port-au-Prince to meet with her business development team.

The earthquake’s destruction affected her work in Fondwa, as well. The center where DePasquale worked is now collapsed, forcing her and her colleagues to work outside. Funding from the Haitian government for DePasquale’s carpentry program was cut off after the earthquake, and most of the resources used for the peanut butter production business have been lost amid the center’s destruction.

DePasquale moves from Fondwa to Port-au-Prince every three days, commuting with public transportation. Because the earthquake has limited each household’s resources, many resort to crime to attain what they need. DePasquale said she is regularly stopped by armed men and has no choice but to give up her money.

Although most Haitians’ homes have collapsed or been severely damaged, everyone in Port-au-Prince and Fondwa sleeps outside, mainly due to fear of another quake, DePasquale said. Most do not have tents, she added.

Despite the air quality, regular aftershocks, inconsistent electricity, and the constant smell of dead flesh, DePasquale refuses to leave.

“I couldn’t just walk away from these people. I, too, need to slowly rebuild with Haiti,” she said.

Although DePasquale has no specific timeline for her stay in Haiti, she continues to connect with UCLA to find ways to improve relief efforts in Haiti.

A week after the earthquake struck, Kate Lyness, a fifth-year anthropology student, alongside one of her friends, created the Spring Break in Haiti Facebook group to try to aid Haiti’s relief effort. After just two days, the Facebook group grew rapidly to more than 200 people and has retained its popularity, Lyness said. The group’s enthusiastic response to a spring break in Haiti led Lyness to hold a group meeting on Feb. 2 in Kerckhoff.

Although the first meeting was meant to discuss the logistics for a spring break in Haiti, hours before the meeting, Lyness met with Stephen Commins, a professor of international development, who advised that a spring break to Haiti would be ineffective compared to the power of cash donations. Thus, the group’s meeting focused on alternatives to a spring break in Haiti that could help the relief work in Haiti more significantly.

DePasquale reinforced this message during a Skype conference at the meeting. DePasquale suggested that immediate money is the easiest way to assist in the relief effort. Tent donations and future internship and research partnerships with UCLA and the University of Fondwa were also relief ideas that DePasquale deemed very useful.

“We don’t just want aid because it continues Haiti’s dependence. We really want to find something beneficial for the long term. This begins with a respect for Haitian culture,” DePasquale said.

The first and obvious form of effective fundraising comes in the form of cash donations, which is a paradox considering that students are not a demographic known for their pocket change, Lyness said.

“As students, we have a great advantage in that we’re really creative. We have the ability to come up with interesting ways to raise money,” she said.

At the meeting, Harry Poliak and his daughter, Alysa Hupploer-Poliak, from an organization called Safe Water Today, made a presentation to suggest purchasing water filters to send to Haiti. The Tulip Siphon water filter kills 99.9 percent of bacteria in contaminated water. Safe Water Today offers options to donate water filters to underdeveloped countries or disaster-stricken countries such as Haiti.

For example, individuals can purchase a water filter for their own emergency kits as well as a filter for the underprivileged community abroad of their choice.

“If a UCLA group has a specific project in mind, we can use the filter as a fundraising tool,” Poliak said.

Lyness will be holding another meeting in upcoming weeks to discuss more practical and immediate ways to aid in Haiti’s relief effort. Lyness and DePasquale continue to work together to find practical methods in which UCLA students can significantly help Haiti.