Great story from GOOD, highlighting Fonkoze (Kreyol for “the Shoulder to Shoulder Foundation,”) which is helping Haitians rebuild their finances through banking services. Check out the details below…..

…When a 7.0 earthquake rattled already-struggling Haiti two years ago, banking services crumbled to a halt. “ATMs don’t get refilled in disasters,” says Carine Roenen, Fonkoze’s director. “Access to cash is an overlooked aspect of relief.”

Commercial banks were closed for weeks, but Haitians in the U.S. and elsewhere desperately wanted to send money back to family members. Fonkoze had always offered remittances; giving clients access to that money through at least one re-opened Port-au-Prince branch was the first goal.

Even that was a challenge. “We were pretty badly hit,” Roenen says. “We lost our three buildings in the metropolitan area. Five of our staff members died.” Plus, the bank vault was so damaged you could walk into it through a hole in the wall. Hundreds of Fonkoze staff members were living outside in the streets, but a week later, the bank re-opened.

Remittances poured in, so many that the group had to fly in $2 million in cash to pay them. While the country’s central bank was still closed, gas stations had re-opened. With nowhere to put money, Fonkoze stepped up and took deposits, doling the cash out as remittances—all the while keeping the hole in the vault hush-hush. “It earned us a lot of new clients,” Roenen says. Filling that need for cash in a crisis helped her group grow 20 percent since the quake, despite crumbled branches and displaced employees….

Read the full story here: A Haitian Bank Thrives After the Quake by Helping the Poor – Business – GOOD.

Today marks two years since Haiti was hit with an earthquake that devastated it’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Wyclef jean, one of the founders of Yele Haiti, released the following footage documenting the immediate outcome. Check the footage below…

Additionally, GOOD Magazine has published a series of articles looking back on the events, which includes exploring the progress that’s been made since….

View the full gallery here: Two Years After the Quake, Haiti in Photos – News – GOOD.

DONATE: Through yele.org, RedCross.org, UNICEF or Habitat for Humanity International.

A look into the current ituation Haiti, in three parts. Check out the trailer below….

…The recent cholera outbreak and Hurricane Tomas have brought Haiti and its continuing recovery back into the news recently. It’s a good time, then, to check out Inside Disaster, a website that accompanies a three-part documentary, which shows exactly what goes in to responding to a disaster on the scale of the Haiti earthquake.

In addition to the excellent collection of articles, one of the most notable parts of the site is an amazing simulator that allows you experience the aftermath of the earthquake as a survivor, journalist, or aid worker. It’s definitely worth playing around with.

The whole site is worth checking out to remind ourselves both that Haiti still has a long way to go toward recovery and that great work is being done by many selfless people to get the country back on the right track…..

More info on the film here and on Inside Disaster here: Inside Disaster: An Intense Documentary Look at the Haiti Earthquake – Health – GOOD.

DONATE: Through yele.org, RedCross.org, UNICEF or Habitat for Humanity International.

Good seems to have focused their lens on the Caribbean lately. After their feature on Kingston, JA, comes this spotlight on Cabarete, DR with a selection from Youngna Park’s “Off Season Sugar Cane Workers“.

Check out details below…

Google the phrase “Cabarete, Dominican Republic” and you’ll find links for “windsurfing,” “kiteboarding,” and an “eco-sensitive beach front boutique hotel.” Venture beyond Cabarete’s resorts and you’ll find a real city with real people, most of whom will never have the means to enjoy those luxuries. Dominicans and Haitian-Dominicans live in separate communities in and around the area’s sugar plantations, where they find work as cane cutters. Tensions exist between the groups—over housing, labor, and a number of other social problems that accompany economic hardship—and the area can be a object lesson in wealth disparity.

“One takeaway was just how relative everyone’s situation is,” says the photographer Youngna Park, whose visions of off-season sugar cane workers offer a glimpse of everyday plantation life. “What often attracts image making is tragedy, like we saw with Haiti. I was here to witness these people’s normal lives, and the living conditions still seem jarring, so it was certainly an education in relative wealth.”

Check out the full feature here: GOOD.is – Picture Show: Off Season Sugar Cane Workers.

A glimpse into everyday Caribbean life, via GOOD.is. Check out the details below…

In 2008 and in 2009, the photographer Caroll Taveras ventured to Jamaica on two assignments, one for Culture and Travel and another for The Guardian. For the former, her work focused on the development of downtown Kingston, specifically as related to a youth art and cultural center known as the Rock Tower and the distinction between the areas of the city that are considered safe (uptown) and unsafe (downtown). After completing the assignment, Taveras developed a deep attachment for the area, and during her time there (and on her next assignment) Taveras felt compelled to keep taking photographs.

“When you get sent out on an assignment, even great assignments, you’re following a checklist,” she says. “But I always try to do something for myself. After I cover the ground I have to cover, I look for a few other things. Of course, music is such a big thing in Jamaica, and I, personally, was obsessed with dancehall girls.”

What follows is a selection of photographs from Kingston, Jamaica, through the lens of Caroll Taveras. This is a Jamaica you might not see in tourist brochures, and it’s all the more beautiful for it.

Check out the full feature here: GOOD.is / Picture Show: Kingston, Jamaica…

…or check out a preview below…