Haiti
by Audrey, Quintynn, and Sophie P.
Population:The population in Haiti as of the end of 2014 was 10,461,409 people.
3 Most Practiced Languages:The most practiced languages are Haitian Creole and French. All Haitians speak Haitian Creole. On the other hand, only 20% of the population speaks French. Haitian Creole evolved from a mixture of different African Dialect. The native Amerindian language, the Norman French (spoken by pirates), and colonial French. Words of the Haitian Creole language have many different literary language influences; this include of African, Spanish, English, and Caribbean. Some words of the Haitian Creole language was borrowed from French such as boutik which means a family operated store and kriye which means to weep.
Major Religions:Vodou is a Haitian religion. The fundamental principle is that everything is a spirit. Humans are spirits who inhabit the visible world. The unseen world is populated by Iwa (spirits), myste (mysteries), anvizib (the invisibles), zanj (angels), and the spirits of ancestors and the recently deceased. They believe that that the spirits live in a mythic land called Ginen. The main goal and activity in the Vodou religion is to serve the spirits.
Another Haitian religion is Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism is closely related to the interpretation of Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church traces its history to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Over the Course of centuries it developed a highly sophisticated theology and an elaborate organizational structure headed by the papacy, the oldest continuing absolute monarchy in the world. The last major religion is Protestantism. It started out in Europe in the early 16th century. Protestantism became one of the three major forces in Christianity. |
General Geography & Environment:Haiti is the western third of the island of Hispaniola, located in the Caribbean between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, west of the Dominican Republic. It's Geographic Coordinates are 19 00 N, 72 25 W. Haiti is in total, 27, 750 sq km with a total land amount of 27, 560 sq km and with a total water amount of 190 sq km. This country is slightly smaller than Maryland. It only borders the country of the Dominican Republic.
Haiti's climate is tropical but is semiarid where mountains in the east cut off trade winds and the terrain is mostly rough and there are mountains. Haiti lies in the middle of the hurricane belt and subject to severe storms from June to October. There is occasional flooding and earthquakes. There is also periodic droughts. The lowest point of Haiti is the Caribbean Sea with a height of 0 miles and the highest point is the Chaine de la Selle at 2,680 miles. Haiti's natural resources include bauxite, copper, calcium carbonate, gold, marble, hydropower, and arable land. 66.4% of Haiti is agricultural land, 3.6% is forest, and 30% is used for other uses. Major Ethnicities:95% of Haiti is African. The other 5% is mulattos and whites. A mulatto is a person that has one black and one white parent.
Popular Music:The Music in Haiti goes from Zouk to Konpa to Hip Hop. Haitian Hip Hop music was created in the early 1980's. Like Michael Jackson, the king of Haitian hip hop music is Master Dji. He helped introduce the Creole genre. Click here for a glimpse of Haitian Hip Hop music.
Haitian Kompa Music is known to be the most popular genre of music in the world. Kompa Music was a very popular genre of music in the late 1950's; it was most played by Jean Baptiste and Webert Sicot. Click here for a glimpse of Haitian Kompa. Haitian Kompa Music is very similar to Jazz music. Haitian Zouk Music is known as very sentimental music. It is supposedly a very lovey dovey type of music. This music was very popular in the late 20th century. Click here for a snippet of Haitian Zouk Music. |
Haiti & Water:
Haiti has the lowest rates of access to improved water and sanitation infrastructure in the western hemisphere. As the poorest nation in the western hemisphere and is considered a water-stressed country, Haiti has to deal with the major issues of poverty and the scarce amount of water on a daily basis. Only 55.2% of the population has access to an improved water source while close to 70% does not have direct access to potable water. The poverty in Haiti is also extremely bad; around 54% of the population lives on less than one US dollar a day and 78% percent live on less than two US dollars a day. Access to clean fresh is a main concern in Haiti, partly because waterborne illnesses are the cause of more than half of the deaths in the country every year. 57 children dies for every 1,000 births in Haiti because contaminated water is also one of the leading causes of childhood and the very high infants death rate.
After the terrible 7.0 earthquake in early 2010, the problems of water scarcity have become a much greater issue. The earthquake had a devastating effect on the entire country and have helped in the fatal water issue mostly impart because earthquakes often cause damage to wells and water systems with are a major source of fresh water for the of Haiti.
How does insufficient access to clean water contribute to other societal problems?
People in Haiti don't have a clean water source right by their town. If they do have it, it is not very clean and has some type of water-borne disease organism in it. Girls have to walk miles to just get fresh water, and most of the time, they can't go to school or get some type of education. Education is just one of the societal problems that the lack of clean water creates. Another problems is without clean water, people can get fatal diseases that, without sanitation facilities, will ripple through the community and the society of the country. With people constantly having fatal diseases and with people, especially children, dying every 20 seconds, a society cannot be healthy, this causing even more societal problems.
How are some of the water problems being addressed?
Different organizations, such as UNICEF and H20 For Life., are giving clean and fresh water sources Haiti. This gives girls a chance to go to school more and to actually having an education. These clean water sources also saving millions of lives every year. This clean water is filtered therefore water-borne diseases are not killing nearly as many people in the communities that have these water systems. A different organization named Clean Water for Haiti has been installing filters in Haiti since 2001. They have installed 19,000 filters making Clean Water for Haiti the largest Bio-sand project in Haiti.
After the terrible 7.0 earthquake in early 2010, the problems of water scarcity have become a much greater issue. The earthquake had a devastating effect on the entire country and have helped in the fatal water issue mostly impart because earthquakes often cause damage to wells and water systems with are a major source of fresh water for the of Haiti.
How does insufficient access to clean water contribute to other societal problems?
People in Haiti don't have a clean water source right by their town. If they do have it, it is not very clean and has some type of water-borne disease organism in it. Girls have to walk miles to just get fresh water, and most of the time, they can't go to school or get some type of education. Education is just one of the societal problems that the lack of clean water creates. Another problems is without clean water, people can get fatal diseases that, without sanitation facilities, will ripple through the community and the society of the country. With people constantly having fatal diseases and with people, especially children, dying every 20 seconds, a society cannot be healthy, this causing even more societal problems.
How are some of the water problems being addressed?
Different organizations, such as UNICEF and H20 For Life., are giving clean and fresh water sources Haiti. This gives girls a chance to go to school more and to actually having an education. These clean water sources also saving millions of lives every year. This clean water is filtered therefore water-borne diseases are not killing nearly as many people in the communities that have these water systems. A different organization named Clean Water for Haiti has been installing filters in Haiti since 2001. They have installed 19,000 filters making Clean Water for Haiti the largest Bio-sand project in Haiti.
Photographs courtesy of the following websites:
Sources:
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Population+of+Haiti
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Empire_of_Haiti
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Vodou
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Environment_haiti_3.jpg
http://www.ereport.ru/stat.php?razdel=country&count=haiti
http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Germany-to-Jamaica/Haitians.html
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Roman-Catholicism
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ha.html
http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/Haiti.html
http://mecometer.com/whats/haiti/ethnic-groups/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Vodou
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rara
http://thewaterproject.org/water-in-crisis-haiti
http://www.outsidesource.com/blog/haitian-creole-alphabet-poster
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2290251/Haitis-nightmare-Missing-billions-aid-rebuilding-left-women-president-protected-baton-wielding-thugs.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake
http://www.haitianmusic.net/popular-haitian-music/
http://waterunit2012.weebly.com/haiti.html
http://thesocialmatrix.blogspot.com/2012/02/global-hunger_15.html#.VnQ5VPkrJD8
http://www.cleanwaterforhaiti.org/
Sources:
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Population+of+Haiti
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Empire_of_Haiti
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Vodou
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Environment_haiti_3.jpg
http://www.ereport.ru/stat.php?razdel=country&count=haiti
http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Germany-to-Jamaica/Haitians.html
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Roman-Catholicism
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ha.html
http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/Haiti.html
http://mecometer.com/whats/haiti/ethnic-groups/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Vodou
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rara
http://thewaterproject.org/water-in-crisis-haiti
http://www.outsidesource.com/blog/haitian-creole-alphabet-poster
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2290251/Haitis-nightmare-Missing-billions-aid-rebuilding-left-women-president-protected-baton-wielding-thugs.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake
http://www.haitianmusic.net/popular-haitian-music/
http://waterunit2012.weebly.com/haiti.html
http://thesocialmatrix.blogspot.com/2012/02/global-hunger_15.html#.VnQ5VPkrJD8
http://www.cleanwaterforhaiti.org/