Professor Holly Cooper Guest Blogs from Haiti

As I blogged in this entry, the Immigration Law Clinic's Holly Cooper is in Haiti with a human rights delegation.

Holly Cooper

Over the weekend, she sent this email.  In it, she describes "the most monumental suffering imaginable."

Our medical/human rights delegation arrived on Thursday morning and the local community members had told people that we were arriving.  Thus, we had over fifty people waiting to talk to us - in fact it is 7am right now and people are already arriving for help, for an exit from their beloved country.  They seek dignity, food and water, and medical treatment and hope for their children.  The people's stories are of the most monumental suffering imaginable.  There are strangers caring for children who lost everything - yet the children smile and sing.  There are people who are seriously injured and in grave pain without follow-up surgeries, many brain injuries, too many are hallucinating from the memories.  Food and water are difficult to find.  People are hungry and thirsty and the lines are long to receive aid or follow up medical care.  Women and children are being raped in some of the tent camps.  We hope that the U.S. government can provide humanitarian parole into the U.S. to some of the most severe cases because we cannot turn away from the Haitian people.

King Hall alum Monika Kalra Varma '00, now the director of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights, is also in Haiti.  She recently authored  this op-ed in the Boston Globe, titled "Give Haiti control over its recovery."

Many thanks to Professor Cooper and Monika for their good work and support for the people in Haiti.