Mercy Corps contra dance raises funds for Haiti

“Find yourself your feet and stand on them,” said Lausanne Allen, the caller at the Haiti Benefit Dance at Middlebury Town Hall on Friday, Feb. 26. Middlebury community members partnered with Mercy Corps to organize the event.

Atlantic Crossing and Gumbo Yah Yah, two local bands from Addison County, played an array of folk pieces for the community, while Allen, the caller for the two bands, taught the group a number of contra dances.

“The music is good, as is the dance floor,” said Yvette Fontaine, a Middlebury resident.

The dance floor was active, but Fontaine wondered why there were only 20 people there, especially when the dance was such a simple fundraiser.

“It was a wonderful idea to send proceeds to Haiti,” Fontaine said. “The dance is so close by and for a good cause.”

Tickets for the dance were $16 each, and all proceeds went to Mercy Corps. The organization will send the funds to Haiti, where they will specifically be used to buy medical supplies and water for the Haitians.

Bob Tudek, Tyler Westbrook and Phil Oldham ’90, all employed by Mercy Corps, planned the festivities.

Westbrook, who recently traveled down to Haiti to work with Mercy Corps in addition to other nonprofit organizations, was supposed to be back for the dance, but instead he opted to extend his stay and continue working in the devastated area of Port-au-Prince.

Last month, the men organized a spaghetti dinner for their community in Lincoln, Vt. Eleven hundred dollars were raised and sent to Haiti, and it was at the dinner that they decided to have a contra dance in Middlebury to raise more money.

Oldham, who has been working for Mercy Corps since he graduated from the College, is a regional director for the organization. He supervises other directors working in the Congo, Niger, the Central African Republic, Liberia and Haiti. His organization offers support and guidance for the five countries, and accordingly it has been extremely busy since the earthquake struck on Jan. 12. Oldham will be traveling down to Haiti in the next month.

Within the first 48 hours of the earthquake, Mercy Corps sent down a team of three to four people to help in the aftermath. There are 20 people working there now, including Westbrook, and Oldham thinks this number will grow to 100 within the coming months.

“Mercy Corps has adopted four approaches to help Haiti get back on its feet,” said Oldham.

First, the organization wants to tackle the psychological and social fears of the Haitian children. The book “What Happened to My World?,” which was written in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and the Asian Tsunami of 2004, is currently being translated into Creole.

According to Oldham, the book will help the Haitian children understand what has happened and provide coping mechanisms for dealing with the trauma.

Teachers and parents can use the book to inform the children about the disaster and help them overcome the devastation.

Next, Oldham said Mercy Corps is providing humanitarian aid. The most pressing concerns are those of water access and sanitation, and Mercy Corps has instated a cash-for-work system in Haiti so that the people can get money for helping to clean up their country. Citizens are digging latrines and helping to purify the water.

Oldham said that the massive growth in the population of Port-au-Prince in the years before the quake, from 50,000 to 2.5 to 3 million people, was a negative step.

People immigrated to the city to find economic opportunity, and the city was not able to handle such numbers. Since the earthquake, millions of Haitians have left Port-au Prince and moved in with family who live in rural regions of the country.

Oldham and others want these individuals to continue living away from the urban cities to avoid the problems the country faced before the earthquake. He wants to create jobs outside of Port-au-Prince.

“We need to provide a reason for people to stay in the local towns and to show them they have a better future there,” said Oldham.

“But we are still fighting with the basics — people need food and water everyday, and there are thousands of bodies still to be found.”

The contra dance fundraiser was only a small way to support Haiti, but Leyla Dickason, a ninth grader at Mount Abe High School in Bristol, said the dance served well to increase awareness of Haiti’s needs and to create solidarity across Addison County for a common cause.

“This was a way to get the facts out,” said Dickason.

“And most people are here to raise money for Haiti, even if they don’t know how to dance.”