HAMU Project Started

Last January 2007 we received the good news that the Norwegian Humanist Association, through its Humanist Action for Human Rights (HAMU) branch, had approved our project proposal to defend the human rights of Dominican children of Haitian descent living the forests around the southern border town of Pedernales.

HAMU aims to promote the human rights of the oppressed. It operates by raising funds in Norway and then supporting local secular, non-profit and non-governmental organizations in the global South.

The project is well underway. We interviewed candidates and hired two women from the community: a Dominican with years of experience in the day-to-day defense of the Human Rights of Haitians in the Dominican Republic, and a bilingual Haitian from the community we will serve.

We have provided our monitors with ID and documentation to prevent harassment by abusive authorities, a motorcycle to reach remote areas of the forest, and a bank account to cover their field expenses.  They are now prepared to begin work as Children of the Border’s first Human Rights monitors, striving to serve their community and improve living conditions for the region’s poorest and most disadvantaged.

The monitors will keep watch over the community and maintain our record of Human Rights abuses by the police, military and others.  They will aid with emergency health care of children and pregnant women, and keep records of all births in the forest communities, deaths at birth, and deaths of children. All of this information will be used in our database of community health information.  Additionally, the birth records will document that the children are Dominican citizens according to the Dominican constitution, entitled to birth certificates that provide them with the same access to health care and education that their lighter-skinned counterparts get (see this NY Times article for a recent article on this issue).

The monitors have already begun their work with a census of the community to set baseline standards from which to measure the progress of the project.