January 14, 2010

In the wake of Haiti's most destructive earthquake in over 200 years, the images flooding news reports are but a small window into the devastation that has befallen the island nation. Some three million Haitians have been affected, and the numbers of casualties from the immediate effects of the earthquake are projected to be in the tens of thousands. International aid workers and foreign governments are struggling to bring medical and basic resources to the disaster site. The lack of food, water, and shelter - let alone medical care for countless victims - raises the potential for the rapid spread of diseases, some of which can kill children in a matter of hours without proper medical care. It is possible, as one senior emergency advisor for Save the Children warned, "that the situation can go from dire to absolutely catastrophic."

The natural disaster in Haiti has affected all of us in Harvard's global community, whether directly or indirectly. Collectively, our family of African and African American scholars, students, fellows, and staff members at the University are at once grieving and mobilizing for collective action to support our family, friends, and colleagues who, at this very moment, are struggling to survive in Haiti. Indeed, these men, women, and children are family to us all.

Now, more than ever, there is a moral imperative for us to provide assistance on the ground, and to offer the Harvard community and our Haitian diasporic neighbors and friends throughout the Boston area, a venue for understanding the impact of the earthquake and the enormity of the recovery efforts.

Together with my partners in the Du Bois Institute and the Department of African and African American Studies I ask that we all continue to open our hearts and outstretch our hands to our brothers and sisters in Haiti. There are numerous organizations to which you may contribute for relief efforts. So many of you have already given. I urge you, though, to give again, and again. News cycles can last for weeks, perhaps months, but the need for resources to rebuild Haiti's community, and to offer the promise of hope, will last for years.

Along with Skip Gates and Evelyn Higginbotham, I also wish to assure our community at Harvard and in the larger Boston area that we, as the leadership of African and African American Studies at the University, will offer a venue in the coming weeks for us to gather to discuss the disaster in Haiti, and the ways forward. Indeed, here at Harvard, we are a collection of scholars and students - though above all we are a collection of human beings. Our intellects and senses of global humanity will - and must - come together here on campus in the wake of the devastation in Haiti.

Please join Skip, Evelyn, and me in our continued prayers.

Yours sincerely,

Caroline Elkins Chair, Committee on African Studies

For ways to give, please visit: http://president.harvard.edu/news/100114_haiti.php

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