By Daniel O'Neil of imunitedforhaiti.org @ Miami Herald blogs
....Nearly a year later and on the other side of the world, I saw what could be Haiti's future.
In October, I traveled to Indonesia with a World Bank study group to see how that country recovered after the post-Christmas 2004 tsunami....All stakeholders involved in Haiti can learn important lessons from the Indonesia's tsunami and earthquake recovery experiences. Here are my four takeaways from that success story....
ALSO SEE--highly recommended--I saved this article simply because it was an example of how culture change is not impossible and intringuingly raises the argument, currently so discredited in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world, that home ownership can be a powerful tool of change:
In Tsunami’s Wake, an Unexpected Second Chance
By Akash Kapur, New York Times Week in Review, January 2, 2010
The flood of aid money that followed the Asian tsunami five years ago — an unprecedented $12 billion — has rebuilt and refashioned local economies...
Not too long after the tsunami, government officials came through the village and announced that all new homes would be titled in the name of women (some were jointly titled to men and women). The men grumbled, but the officials told them they had no choice. Men drank and gambled, they said; women were more reliable.
Almost 50,000 houses have been built along the coast of Tamil Nadu. The result of titling these homes to women has transcended the economic gains of home ownership. It has changed the very social fabric of the coast.
In village after village, I heard stories of women whose status had been utterly transformed. Wives spoke of a new self-confidence and greater control over household finances. Mothers talked about insisting that their daughters went to school.
Men also talked about their wives’ new assertiveness. They joked that they had learned to behave, for fear that they might get thrown out of their homes....
