'Hope and A Future': Returning Haiti to Good Life

Emeline will sing a few songs for Haiti at “Hope and A Future – A Celebration of Haïti.” Photo from Emeline Facebook page.

EMELINE Michel and BelO are building forward together and invite others to do so, too.

This building is serious business – the very serious and multi-pronged business of returning Haiti to its long-ago glory days after fed-up (and underfed) slaves repelled the French. Indeed, shedding its current image as an economic basket case, poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and de facto charge of the United States. Serious business, to be sure.

But building is fun, too. The New York-based Haitian performers are two of the acts that organizers are counting on to draw crowds Friday evening (from 6 p.m. on 10 May) to Brooklyn’s Christian Cultural Center for “Hope and A Future – A Celebration of Haïti.”

The jollification, the theme of which is Building Forward Together, also ushers in May as Haitian Heritage Month and introduces Ayiti Marché or open market. And what a marketplace it purports to be! It’s a bazaar that will serve as the venue for Haitian aromas, sights, scents and sounds. Aside from the aforementioned artists, sounds produced by Haitian jazz ensemble, Mozayik, and singer Melanie Charles. (See Mozayik video above).

Others making some noise, Friends of Haiti, various local artists given to rapping, dancing and speaking poetic words. A few Friends are expected to perform vignettes that draw attention to Haitian culture and history, as well as the country’s water shortage.

Eyeing a better distribution system in Haiti for water and other essentials. Photo courtesy of Community2Community.

“Hope and A Future – A Celebration of Haiti” is brought to the world by the Brooklyn-based do-gooder nonprofit, Community2Community (C2C). The event is a fundraiser through which C2C plans to funnel resources to the Haitian water initiative it began in 2011.

Visit http://www.bit.ly/s2NUGp to learn more about “Hope and A Future – A Celebration of Haïti,” including how to make a donation.Rx