Haiti and ECAW Could Help US Unemployment

Posted on | January 29, 2010 | No Comments

By Xelan Bonn (Jan 29, 2010) www.XelanBonn.com

We have all heard the sad stories of Haiti and the lack of supplies, including housing, water, food and medicine. Among the primary issues keeping such things from reaching their mark is logistics issues and the lack of personnel both in Haiti and in companies supplying Haiti.

When we donate help to Haiti it should come at a price and that price should be, we take control of emergency operations until there is no longer an emergency situation—why, because we are better trained and equipped than Haiti and its all but nonfunctioning government (that is highly corrupt even when it does function).

President Obama pledged millions of dollars in relief to Haiti but instead should have pledged a few million less and pledged a US workforce instead.

In the US, close to 18 percent of Americans are unemployed, including those who no longer receive unemployment benefits and have given up (are not generally included in official figures). This means there are plenty of people sitting around doing nothing that could be put back to work benefiting the US and the world—let’s start with Haiti where it’s needed most.

The President could have formed say something like the Emergency Corp of American Workers (ECAW) and simply put out a call for applicants with basic skills in areas of logistics, building, manufacturing, etc. and within days, hired over 100,000 skilled workers to go to Haiti and begin major relief efforts—let this group lead and organize the secondary phase of relief and third phase of rebuilding as opposed to simply handing over money to Haiti.

Right now, there are vacant fields that have been cleared for tent cities but no tents. US manufacturers could either provide ready-made tents or raw materials that could be dropped by parachutes onto the sight and ECAW crews could begin the assembly process in preparing the city. If there is a need to build the tents from raw materials, then ECAW could hire locals to do the manufacturering using makeshift tools, such as portable generators (airlifted and parachuted down), sewing machines, etc. There would be no need for planes to land, hence no delays in receiving materials to build the city.

Once ECAW crews built the city, they could move on to the next city location until all the temporary housing facilities were completed, then on to building permanent infrastructure using Haitian employees under their skilled management.

The result would be that Haiti would get quicker action and relief in a more timely manner, and the US wins by putting many Americans who want to help and who want to work back to work—that’s win win for both countries (not to mention a positive news opporuntiy for a president that could use some positive news about now).

Unfortunately, such innovative, common sense ideas are far too intelligent, humanitarian, and actually helpful for both countries and traditionally not in the thinking of most presidents—Obama is no exception and we all know the history of President Bush with Katrina.

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