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Summer Peacebuilding Institute News
This article is from the EMU News Archive. Current EMU new is available at www.emu.edu/news
Working for a Better Future in Haiti
Marie Rosy Kesner Auguste, right, and Guylene Clerger, an MCC worker in Port-au-Prince, were MCC-sponsored participants in Eastern Mennonite University's Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI). Photo by Melissa Engle
Marie Rosy Kesner Auguste will never forget her first view of a prison in her hometown of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Assaulted by the smell of dank cells, the split plastic jugs that served as plates and how dirty and unwell prisoners looked, Auguste vowed to work on behalf of those incarcerated.
It was a drastic change. Then a second-year law student, she had chosen her career carefully, planning to earn money, hoping to live comfortably.
Galvanized by her visit to the prison, she approached the leader of the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH), telling him she wanted to help document abuses against prisoners and make sure people were held in a legal, just manner.
He urged her to look elsewhere. It is dangerous, he told her, and you might lose your life. He told her how he'd been shot because of his work. She remained undeterred.
Now a monitoring assistant for RNDDH, a partner organization of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Haiti, Auguste meets with guards and officials and helps lead trainings to educate people about their rights.
Auguste says the most moving part of the job is meeting with prisoners and listening to their stories and their pleas and working with them to make sure their cases proceed through the justice system.
In Haiti, those who are arrested may be held at a police station for up to 48 hours in crowded holding rooms, where officials are not responsible for providing food or water. Auguste said she and co-workers have sometimes found people who have been held for weeks there.
They work to make sure prisoners are healthy and safe, investigating rapes and health crises, including a case earlier this year in which a prisoner with tuberculosis was held in a room with nearly two dozen other prisoners, exposing them all to the disease. They strive to make sure cases are moving through the justice system — and work to instill in prisoners the confidence to stand up for their rights.
"It's like you are trying to tell them, 'There is a hope. I'm here. I will help you to find justice,'" Auguste said.
This May and June, she, along with Guylene Clerger, an MCC worker in Port-au-Prince, gained new tools for their work in building peace.
They were two of 19 MCC-sponsored participants in Eastern Mennonite University's Summer Peacebuilding Institute.
The Institute, held in May and June in Harrisonburg, Va., brought together 195 participants from 45 nations to learn and share personal experiences about peace-building, conflict resolution, restorative justice and trauma recovery. MCC sponsored participants from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, South America and the Caribbean, many of whom work for MCC or partner organizations.
In the Institute, Auguste said, she learned how to present concepts of conflict resolution in a way that allows people to connect them to their daily lives. Her organization's program includes conflict resolution information, but it's often presented in an academic manner. She hopes to make it more down-to-earth.
For Auguste, the Institute also built connections between resolving conflicts and the broader vision for building peace — both of which tie closely to the human rights work she pursues.
"Now, I am looking at human rights with another point of view," she said.
For Clerger, who helps to coordinate MCC's responses to disasters in Haiti, attending SPI was a valuable opportunity to gain skills not only in conflict resolution but also in trauma healing.
"SPI gave me a new view and ability in how to deal with people in trauma," Clerger said.
In addition to Clerger's work with MCC, these skills can help her to work with street children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, and to work with her church.
Clerger also plans to meet with MCC partners in Haiti, to pass on the skills she has learned.
