PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti.- “The Haiti portrayed by the international media is not the reality,” says Jean Généus, Minister of Haitians Living Abroad, and leans forward in his chair. “Decades of intolerance, brutality, dictatorship and violence take time to undo. We’re doing the best we can.”

The mid-morning sun filters through the leaves of the trees outside Généus’ office window, casting a cool green glow over the room. Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) founder and CEO Ulrick Gaillard and two BRA board members, Dr. Thomas Beague and Sarah Beague, are seated around a glass table cluttered with notebooks, magazines, empty coffee cups and saucers. If positive change takes off at the community level, it’s places like this where it’s given permission to fly.

The BRA’s proposal to operate a clinic in Anse-a-Pitres, a border town on the extreme southeastern tip of the island, has been met with enthusiasm and optimism in meetings with Haitian stakeholders, a reaction that Gaillard says is unsurprising given Haiti’s tenuous but promising stability.

“[Haiti] has changed socially, politically, economically,” he explained in an interview. “It is a country that has been devastated by political turmoil and international isolation. It has no choice but to welcome, fast, anything that comes to it, and legitimate anything that will help it to change the image it has right now.”

The need to change Haiti’s image is a theme that has emerged in all the BRA’s meetings. Jean Généus says a new Haiti must include the estimated three million Haitians living abroad.

For years their financial contributions to family and friends have kept the country afloat. According to a report by the International Crisis Group released last month, remittances by Haitians abroad totalled $1.65 billion in 2006 and now account for 35 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. But Généus is working on a new strategy for the diaspora that will make it possible for them to share their acquired skills, education and experience as well, a move he hopes will stem the flow of Haitians out of Haiti if not reverse it to an extent by making it possible for expatriates to find employment and financial security here.

Under the current constitution, when a Haitian leaves to settle in another country, they must give up their Haitian citizenship, relinquishing their right to vote in elections and have representation in parliament. Généus is in the process of obtaining consensus among stakeholders for a constitutional amendment that would permit the Haitian diaspora to hold dual citizenship. Related initiatives include improving consular services for Haitians abroad and recruitment programs for qualified expatriates for managerial and technical positions in various sectors.

This is where the BRA can help. Gaillard says he wants his organization’s approach to be culturally appropriate and respectful of Haiti’s sovereignty, which is why he is meeting with members of the executive and legislative branches of government and seeking partnerships with Haitian NGOs who are in touch with the immediate needs of isolated communities like Anse-a-Pitres. “I understand the plight of the people, I respect their situation, and we will work with them to the best of our ability, taking into consideration their culture, their history and what they want to do.”

Once operational, the Anse-a-Pitres clinic will resemble the BRA’s medical centre in batey Cinco Casas in the Dominican Republic, offering HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment, dental care, gynaecological care and vision testing in addition to general medical consultations in a central location. The clinic will require qualified staff, volunteers, and consultants – positions Gaillard and the other board members say they would love to see filled by Haitians in order to make the clinic both sustainable and culturally accessible for the population it is intended to serve.

Généus says the diaspora have to do their part as well, however. Haitian cultural and community associations exist in virtually every foreign city where Haitians have settled, but Généus says they need to become more organized and vocal in order to speed consensus in their homeland, for example by writing letters to congressmen in their departments to demand constitutional reform.

The Anse-a-Pitres project has potential resonance beyond the provision of quality medical care, Gaillard says. Currently, the Cinco Casas clinic attracts patients from as far as Villa Mella, a poor barrio on the outskirts of Santo Domingo almost two hours away. Gaillard says there is no reason not to anticipate that a similar phenomenon will occur in Anse-a-Pitres. “The poor, the rich, the middle class, whoever they are, they want quality care, and I am already foreseeing that if Pedernales [on the Dominican side of the border] doesn’t have adequate health facilities, people will cross into Anse-a-Pitres to seek care.”

With the influx of people from other communities will come the potential for investment and growth in Anse-a-Pitres, both locally and from abroad, Gaillard says. At the local level, small businesses like hotels and restaurants will become viable investments to meet the needs of visiting patients, generating sufficient infrastructure to support tourism and real estate development in the years to come.

The next step for the BRA is to sign an agreement with the Ministry of Health that will outline the parameters of and support for the Anse-a-Pitres project and another initiative to stop the spread of chique, an easily treated and prevented skin parasite that typically infects the feet, in Savanette, near the Dominican border. Gaillard will also be looking for partners locally and internationally who would be willing to lend their support to the startup of the Anse-a-Pitres project, while the Beagues plan to organize a shoe donation drive for Savanette.

Gaillard says it’s fitting that a change in Haiti’s image should start at the point where it joins with its neighbour to the east, although he says the BRA’s move into Haiti should be regarded as purely humanitarian, not political. “It doesn’t matter if you’re Dominican or Haitian, or that there’s a border. It’s about saving lives, and we will do that for people who come from anywhere.”