Our fellows Aggée Célestin Lomo Myazhiom and Frédéric Reichhart in Haiti
As part of their project The social treatment and systems of representation of disability in Haiti (2018-2020), Aggée Célestin Lomo Myazhiom and Frédéric Reichhart have visited Haiti twice this year in order to meet and interview Haitians and to carry out an awareness campaign.
Since it gained independence on 1st January 1804, Haiti has lived through dictatorships, authoritarian regimes, foreign interference and “avaricious” governments (Charles, 1994) which have a long-lasting contaminating effect on social and political life and form even stronger age-old social inequalities. In addition, the successive natural disasters and epidemics that have struck Haiti over the last 50 years have given no respite to a suffering population and have had adverse effects on public development policies and on social treatment for disability.
Collection of data and heightening public awareness
On the one hand, these actions enabled the 170 participants to become more aware of matters pertaining to disability and, on the other hand, to train them to collect qualitative data by means of comprehensive interviews. Thereafter, and on a voluntary basis, those students who were interested were able to put into practice and use the data collected by carrying out interviews with disabled persons, their close relatives and “outside people”. In April 2019, in order to analyse the data collected (interviews and transcriptions), a seminar was organised bringing together all the interviewers, where they were presented with a participation certificate.
Meeting Haitians
As a signatory of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), since the 1980s the Republic of Haiti disposes of a legal and regulatory framework, as well as of an institutional arrangement, in support of this community. However, very few studies and little research has been devoted to the grief or social measures regarding disability in Haiti. It is for this reason that the USIAS research project concentrates on these two points.
The project started with the first two field trips that took place in January and mid-March-April 2019 in the north of Haiti. These resulted in the organisation and promotion of three training seminars for research: one seminar that brought together around 60 students took place at the Université Chrétienne du Nord at Haut Limbé, a second was arranged for around 40 participants at the Henri Christophe Campus of the State University of Haiti at Limonade (CHC-UEH-L), and a third gathered together 70 participants from the Université Publique du Nord au Cap-Haïtien (UPNCH).
Useful data for research and teaching, but also for training professionals
During these two stays, on-site observations of everyday life, visits to institutions that accommodate disabled persons (schools, rehabilitation centres, hospitals) and interviews with different professional players took place.
At a later stage, this data (analysed and interpreted) will serve as a basis for the publication of scientific texts, academic teaching and professional training (France and Haiti) and also for giving a variety of presentations at colloquia on disability: Casablanca, Morocco (June 2019), Port-au-Prince, Haiti (November 2019), Quebec (June 2020), etc.
