The bridge across all of our programs is the desire to change United States policies that impact the people we work with. We work to influence US policies that exacerbate extreme poverty and vulnerability in Haiti and Nicaragua.  We also know that extreme poverty and vulnerability lead families to make the heartbreaking decision to migrate, to the United States or elsewhere. Our priority is addressing the root causes of migration in Haiti and Nicaragua. At the same time, we advocate for fair policies in the United States that promote the dignity of migrants. Current priorities:

  • Ensure full and safe access to asylum for those seeking safety in the United States.
  • Divest from broken systems of immigration detention & deportation, and invest in humane solutions and community-welcoming. 
  • Bring a social justice framework to U.S. policies that impact our partners in Haiti and Nicaragua, with an emphasis on non-intervention.

Tell Congress: 5 Nonviolent Solutions for Haiti

The violence in Haiti is untenable. Gang violence in Haiti has killed over 1,230 people between July and September of this year alone. In response, the United Nations, with U.S. leadership, has authorized Kenya to deploy troops on the ground. This U.S.-backed police intervention will only escalate the violence, and more violence is never the solution. Click to tell your members of Congress to take these five, concrete steps for peace.

Let's Not Make the Same Mistakes

The horrific disaster in the Philippines has rocked political boats around the world. This kind of devastation is predicted to become more frequent as the Earth's climate continues changing. Even if the Conference on Climate Change takes drastic action (which no reasonable observers expect), the train has left the station on emissions levels, and many scientists now argue that we are barreling past tipping points in climate change.

Let's Not Make the Same Mistakes

The horrific disaster in the Philippines has rocked political boats around the world. This kind of devastation is predicted to become more frequent as the Earth's climate continues changing. Even if the Conference on Climate Change takes drastic action (which no reasonable observers expect), the train has left the station on emissions levels, and many scientists now argue that we are barreling past tipping points in climate change.

Haiti Digest: Food Aid Reform Edition

The Food Aid Reform is moving and shaking! Here at the Quixote Center we have been meeting and collaborating with other lobbyists to follow Congress’ movements as Food Aid Reform negotiations start. Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY), the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote an on food aid reform, and even specifies Haiti. Here are our two favorite points:

Stolen Wages in Haiti

Last week the Workers Rights Consortium issued a report on garment factories in Haiti that sew for major U.S. brands. The report found:

…garment factory owners in Haiti routinely, and illegally, cheat workers of substantial portions of their pay, depriving them of any chance to free their families from lives of grueling poverty and frequent hunger.

Haiti Digest: October 11

This week a lawsuit on behalf of victims of the reintroduction of cholera to Haiti was filed in New York against the United Nations. The source of the infections has been traced to Nepalese peacekeepers whose camp sanitation facilities were inadequate. The camp bordered a tributary of the Arbonite river, Haiti's largest, and waste from infected peacekeepers spread the disease downstream.

The Power of Dreams: Reflections on the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

The articulation of visions of a new world into the language of dreams results from the inadequacy of dominant language/culture to otherwise give expression to these visions. Liberation theologist Leonardo Boff says of dreams, they claim the impossible in order to create more space for what is possible. They do so not by flights of fantasy, but taking the world as it is and then turning the dominant language back on itself.

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