Fritz Gutwein

Fritz Gutwein

Fritz Gutwein
Co-Director and Coordinator of Haiti Reborn

Bio

Fritz Gutwein is currently a Co-Director at the Quixote Center and Coordinator of our Haiti Reborn Program. Prior to joining the Quixote Fritz was Field Coordinator of the Climate and Energy Campaign of the National Council of Churches, Farm Bill Reform Organizer for the Presbyterian Hunger Program (USA), and Director of Crossroads Ministry of St. William Catholic Church in Louisville, Kentucky. An ordained Baptist minister and Presbyterian elder, Fritz is educated in international and religious studies from the University of South Florida and theology and ethics from Southern Seminary. His travels to Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa as well as his experience as a therapeutic foster parent have opened Fritz’s eyes to the needs of people living in poverty and have helped to make the spiritual practice of doing justice his life’s passion. He's also learning to transition from being a Tampa and Louisville based sports fan to a DC one. Hence the Rays cap.

Content Created by Fritz Gutwein

Haiti Reborn to Merge with KONPAY

The Board of Trustees of the Quixote Center, in Brentwood, MD, has agreed in principle to a merger of its Haiti Reborn program with KONPAY, a non-profit group dedicated to Haitian solutions to environmental, social and economic problems.

Fritz Gutwein, a co-director at Quixote, and long-time advocate for Human Rights will continue the Haiti work begun at Quixote in the early 1990s.

Help Haitian Women Fight Against Rape

Our friends at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti have made another video about camp conditions in Port-au-Prince. This one features interviews with women who have been raped in the camps. There is also a petition to sign expressing concern about the inadequate response to the sexual violence that women and girls face each day.

 

90 Seconds in a Haitian Camp

See video

We can do better. We must do better.

Produced by our friends at the

Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti

.

11,000 Being Forcibly Relocated in Haiti

NOW: Fight in Haiti, Rich Against Poor

A friend with the Haiti Response Coalition is sending out an alert about a serious situation going on Monday night in the damaged land:

Sign a Petition for Better Aid in Haiti (Video)

Sign this petition at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.  Tell the powers that be that better aid distribution and transparency is needed in Haiti.

Rights Groups Testify about Haiti and Human Rights

Testimony Details Haiti Aid Challenges, Presses for Commission Investigation:
(Washington DC, March 23, 2010)—Members of the Organization of American States (OAS) should respect Haitians’ human rights in their post-earthquake assistance to Haiti, said experts from several prominent organizations committed to respecting human rights and improving conditions in Haiti in their testimony before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights today. The groups—Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), Partners In Health (PIH), the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Center), and Zanmi Lasante (ZL)—based their testimonies both on their recent investigations into conditions in Haiti following the earthquake and their prior experiences working on advancing respect for human rights and improving conditions there.

Haiti's Excluded

Note: Ruth, an organizer with the Haiti Response Coalition, a group of progressive NGOs including Quixote, Konpay, Beyond Borders and others, is profiled in this piece.

----------------

By Reed Lindsay

This article appeared in the March 29, 2010 edition of The Nation.

March 11, 2010, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Ruth Derilus had seen her share of tragedy. A 33-year-old iron-willed social worker trained by Haiti's Papay Peasant Movement, she twice helped organize relief efforts when massive floods devastated the city of Gonaïves and the surrounding countryside. In September 2004 she worked with women's and youth groups after Tropical Storm Jeanne killed more than 3,000 people. Four years later, she lost her home when a second deluge, unleashed by Tropical Storm Hanna and augmented by Hurricane Ike, once again brought the city to its knees. Ruth kept on going, working to organize rice farmers whose crops had been destroyed.

Press Release from Initiative for a New Haiti

Since the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti the Quixote Center has been working closely with the newly formed Haiti Response Coalition. Within days the HRC was able to get supplies and medical teams in Jacmel ahead of much larger NGOs and developed a distribution system in Port-au-Prince (PAP) to deliver food and supplies to 19 camps in the area.

Below is a press release from a two-day meeting in PAP where over 100 Haitian leaders developed a plan known as "Initiative for a New Haiti".

Check back at quixote.org as more reports from this important meeting are available.

-------------

After the great and incomparable earthquake hit the country of Haiti, on January 12, 2010, more than three hundred thousand (300,000) people, from all areas and of all ages, died.  State infrastructure and all its institutions have been destroyed.  Many have been wounded or have become handicapped.  Many are hopeless.  People have lost family members, their possessions, money, and work. 

Canada's Flaherty: Haiti needs a break on its debt Reuters

IQALUIT, Canada (Reuters) – Group of Seven countries have told earthquake-ravaged Haiti that any debts it owes them needn't be repaid and international lenders should do the same, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Saturday.

"The debt to multilateral institutions should be forgiven and we'll work with these institutions and other partners to make this happen as soon as possible," Flaherty said at press conference closing a two-day gathering of finance ministers from the G7 industrialized nations.

Read the entire article here.

Treasury Announces Support to Cancel Haiti's Debt and Provide Grants, Not Loans for Recovery

Jubilee USA Welcomes US Government Support of Haiti Debt Cancellation

As G7 Finance Ministers Prepare to Meet, Treasury Secretary Geithner Announces Support to Cancel Debt and Provide Grants, Not Loans for Recovery

For Immediate Release February 5th
Jubilee USA Network

Prosecuting Baptists good for Haiti, families, church

Read the original ABP article here.

By Fritz Gutwein
Friday, February 05, 2010

(ABP) -- The arrest and jailing in Haiti of 10 Southern Baptists on charges of kidnapping and criminal association is appropriate and consistent with gospel values.

Bill Callahan

1931 - 2010

Memorial Details

Search
User login
News Feed
Syndicate content