Special Shout out to Nakturnal and NakYouOut.com for Posting the Erzulie show

Haiti Friends uses art to spread awareness of the cultures and value of the Haitian people, and how improving their environment has affected the economic needs of Haiti.

The Friends’ gallery houses a large collection of Haitian artwork that is for sale and helps sustain the organization.

Haiti Friends also shares its artwork through art sales, open-houses, and other special exhibits where they will simultaneously host educational events about the Haitian artwork and culture along with the exhibition. In the theme of Valentine’s Day, this exhibition will spotlight the Vodou goddess of love, Erzulie.

Details

Date: February 13, 2015

Time: 7:00 pm - 11:00 pm

Cost: FREE

 

Website: http://www.haitifriends.org/

Venue Haiti Friends Art Gallery

Phone: (412) 361-4884

6739 Reynolds Street,Pittsburgh,  PA 15206United States

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http://nakyouout.com/

CBS - Haiti Targets Tourists From Connecticut, New York, New Jersey

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti is launching what officials say is its first TV advertising campaign aimed at encouraging Americans to vacation in the poor Caribbean country.

The country’s tourism ministry and a U.S. cable provider have developed TV spots and a Cablevision destination channel dubbed “Haiti: Experience It!” to woo people living in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

President Michel Martelly’s administration hopes that foreign visitors can help revive the economy in the country of 10 million, where most adults lack steady work and survive on less than $2.50 a day.

There are ambitious plans to develop some coastal areas into resorts.

NY TIMES - Quietly Finding Haiti’s Audacious Beauty

By David Gonzalez May. 25, 2012

To much of the outside world, the image of Haiti — when it pops up at all — is one of catastrophes, both natural and man-made. Violence, grinding poverty, flood, earthquakes all leave a lingering image of a benighted nation bereft of tender moments.

Maggie Steber thinks that’s nonsense — and she has the pictures to prove it.

Ms. Steber has made more than 80 trips to Haiti since 1986, venturing far and wide from the slums of Port-au-Prince, through the Artibonite Valley and up to Cap Haitien. She did this at great personal risk — not that she would brag about that. For much of this time, she covered a lot of the breaking stories and chaotic events favored by editors. But there came a point when she felt that was only half the story, and not even the most interesting one.

“Some years ago when I first started working in Haiti, I realized I had to go when it was quiet, when there were moments of peace, not danger and violence,” she said. “We don’t take the time to see it because, mainly, people are not interested. But you see glimpses of beautiful things in the countryside and the slums. There are moments of beauty that are exquisite. They are profound. But you have to be in tune with things when you see them. Those are the moments where pride lives, where life is lived.”

Those sentiments inform “The Audacity of Beauty,” a Web site that showcases 25 years of her Haiti work. The title itself is a provocative spin on how she now looks at Haiti — where I worked alongside her in the 1980s when I was a correspondent for Newsweek, receiving a crash course on how to understand a very complicated and misunderstood place.

“The idea came about in the last couple of years,” said Ms. Steber, who lives in Miami. “This idea of the audacity of these people to have anything beautiful in their lives.”

Of course, the Haitian people showed no small measure of audacity when a slave uprising cast the French from the island in 1801. But in the decades since that historic moment, she feels Haiti has been vilified, in the international arena, in how it’s portrayed and how it’s understood. Too often, she says, how Haitians see themselves is overlooked. If anything the country — which once far outpaced its neighbor the Dominican Republic, culturally and economically — had a vibrant intellectual and creative class whose members were driven to early graves or exile by the dictator François (Papa Doc) Duvalierand his henchmen, the Tontons Macoutes.

Her first trip to Haiti was in 1980 to cover the wedding of Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier, who had unsteadily taken power after his father died in 1971. She did not return for her second trip until 1986, to cover food riots that were part of the simmering protests that would eventually end the family’s despotic rule.

 


From then on, she visited the island six or seven times a year, cutting back in recent years. Yet, as anyone who has worked in Haiti knows, there is never enough time to cover all the things you want. In some ways, it became easier for her to go there when she did not have to cover breaking news.

The 2010 earthquake, she said, strengthened her resolve to follow a different path.

“I was brokenhearted and stunned by what had happened,” she said. “And then came this onslaught, like flies swarming over a corpse. It was wild being there. Some people did good and important work, but others were looking for one thing: violence, death and suffering.”

She preferred to look for the small moments that conveyed a big truth: that there was not only beauty, but times when people came together to help each other despite the odds. Her images render those scenes well. A little girl in a blue lace dress dancing against the barren landscape in Gonaives (Slide 3). A man wracked with grief at his mother’s funeral, held by a circle of friends, as if he were being lowered from the cross (Slide 1).

“It’s biblical, so sad and tragic, yet it is exquisite,” she said. “Maybe I feel that way more since my mother died. That even in pain, there is this exquisite experience that reminds you how much you love somebody.”

(Her mother’s struggle with dementia is the subject of “Rite of Passage,” a documentary project she is doing with MediaStorm, and for which she is raising funds through a Kickstarter campaign.)

As you might imagine, she’s been busy. In addition to her work overseas for The Times and Newsweek, she also served as director of photography at The Miami Herald. More recently, she has been contributing to National Geographic.

Her busy schedule might also explain why it took so long to get the Web site going. At the urging of Kim Grinfeder, a colleague at the University of Miami, where Ms. Steber has taught, she collaborated with students in a Web design class to produce her Haiti archive.

The result is a site that not only covers her quarter-century of work, but includes multimedia components in which she discusses the images she has made over the years.

Now that she has more freedom to follow her heart, she has some plans for projects that had eluded her. Later this year, she is hoping to find a small village and do a formal portrait of every family. It will be accompanied by short videos of the families. She hopes her subjects will determine how they want to be seen.

“I’m into demystifying everything,” she said. “Except myself. I want to remain a mystery, but everything else can be open.”

(source) http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/quietly-finding-haitis-audacious-beauty/?_r=0

Kanaval of Jacmel

Sunday Jacmel, hosted its 22nd edition of Carnival. Thousands of revelers from here and outside made the trip to attend this popular festival, which was held under the theme "Jacmel Creative City" in friendship, color, music, beauty and conviviality.

From the convention center where the procession departed until Avenue Barranquilla, the quality of the spectacle offered by the various masked groups, dance troupes, masquerades made the delight of an audience pumped up, composed mostly of young people. On the course the public could admire especially the dancers of the Troupe Explosion of Jacmel, toads in paper mache, made by the artists of the Association G27, La Nouvelle Flibuste, a musical group from Belgiumwho came from Belgium to participate in the Carnival, the Grand Soleil troupe dances of Jacmel, the G27 dance troupe, Haitian Mounties http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-10606-haiti-security-on-foot-by-bicycle-by-car-or-on-horseback.html , ropes launchers, in a non-stop musical atmosphere...

The Prime Minister, Evans Paul, the Minister of Communications Rothchild François Junior, the Minister of the Interior, Ariel Henry, the Minister of Tourism and Creative Industries, Stéphanie Balmir Villedrouin, the Minister for the Status and Rights of Women, Yves Rose Myrtil Morquette and the Minister of Culture, Dithny Joan Raton have ll participated in this great cultural event.

The Head of Government welcomed the creativity, beauty of masks during the parade "[...] It's amazing the show that takes place in Jacmel. I hope that the next carnival will be more. The Carnival of Jacmel s an international reference, it is a national heritage," declared Evans Paul, who did not fail to remind revelers to celebrate in peace [...] http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-13141-haiti-social-prime-minister-calls-for-serenity-on-the-occasion-of-carnival-of-jacmel.html On this day of Carnival, the message is living together, in solidarity, brotherhood, the commitment."

Next rendezvous on HaitiLibre for the retransmission of the National Carnival 2015, to be held in Port-au-Prince, 15, 16 and 17 February in Port-au-Prince.
 

(source) http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-13142-haiti-culture-evans-paul-and-several-ministers-at-the-carnival-of-jacmel.html

Happy Kanaval - PM calls for Peace and Joy in Jacmel

Prime Minister Paul Evans calls for serenity and solidarity, on the occasion of the Carnival of Jacmel, which takes place this Sunday.

The Carnival of Jacmel is a living heritage, a popular event extraordinary. Thousands of people, Haitians and foreigners, will have fun this Sunday, at he rhythms of all musical trends, and especially appreciate the masks and disguises, masterfully made by our craftsmen.

Firmly convinced that "the people of Haiti will prove to the world that its culture is a reflection of his spirit of peace and joy," the prime minister is calling for serenity to all its citizens, and took the opportunity to wish on behalf of the Government of the Republic, a Happy Carnival 2015 to you all.

(source) http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-13141-haiti-social-prime-minister-calls-for-serenity-on-the-occasion-of-carnival-of-jacmel.html

Presidential Decree - National Holidays Fevriye 4,16,17 & 18 for Kanaval

In a note the Presidency Communication Office informs the public that "by presidential decree dated Wednesday, February 4, 2015, are declared holidays and non-working days for National Carnival festivities the day of Monday, February 16, 2015, from noon, and those of Tuesday 17 and Wednesday, February 18, 2015, in full."

Recall that the activities of the National Carnival 2015, to be held this year in Port-au-Prince the 15,16 and 17 February, expected to cost according to estimates from the Organizing Committee, about 143 million gourdes. 80% of this amount will be supported by the private sector and 20% by the State.

16 musical groups were selected officially for the course of the carnival : Djakout, T-Vice, Carimi, Kreyòl La, Barikad Crew, Rockfam, T-Mickey, Vwadèzil, King Posse, Boukman Eksperyans, Le Konpa, Deng One, K-Zino, Anbyans, Team Lòbèy, Brother Posse and Bèl Plezo. 

Moreover, the Consulate of the Republic of Haiti in Orlando informs the Haitian community of Central Florida that the Consulate will be closed Monday, February 16 on the occasion of President's Day (US) and Tuesday 17 and Wednesday, February 18, 2015 on the occasion of the carnival festivities in Haiti. The Consulate will resume its regular schedule Thursday, February 19, 2015.

For its part, the Consulate General of Haiti in Montreal, informs that his office will be closed from Monday 16 noon on Tuesday 17 and Wednesday 18 on the occasion of National Carnival. The services will resume as usual, Thursday, February 19, 2015 at 8:00. a.m.

Unmissable rendezvous on HaitiLibre the 15,16 and 17 February for the webcast of the National Carnival of Haiti as every year.

(source) http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-13147-haiti-notice-national-carnival-2015-holidays-and-non-working-days.html