Come and join us for an evening with complementary drinks, snacks, LIVE MUSIC, and a presentation by haitian artist Patrick Boucard. For more information about the event, click here to download the press release.

The Jacmel, Haiti Relief Fund is an initiative by Bath and Bristol citizens to help Haiti survive the earthquake of 12 January 2010. This initiative is led by Patrick Boucard, a Haitian artist living in Bath. You can get more detailed information about Patrick, the committee and the members of the The Jacmel Haiti Relief Fund in the about us section.

The founding committee is comprised of Shelagh Hetreed, Heidi Rearden, Katie Cooper, Denise Coughglan, Grant Robson, Rob Weston, Seb Powell, David Rigby, Robbie Tack, William Haynes and Patrick Boucard.

We want to help the city of Jacmel in our fundraising efforts and we are also targeting the artistic community, different foundations working with children with disabilities, homeless street kids and women and children in the poorest area of the city. Below you will be able to see why we chose Jacmel and in the PARTNERS page, you will be able to see the organisations we plan to work with and links to their websites.

Why Jacmel?

The earthquake hit mostly the area around Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti and everything south of it, including the city of Jacmel. Because everything has been centralised in Haiti around the capital, the same has been seen with the way the aid is flowing there. Haiti has an estimated population of 10 Million, and around a fifth or more of that population lives in Port-au-Prince, around 2 Million + Haitians. Because of the difficulties of Port-au-Prince, a lot of the people who come from rural areas are not getting the help as quickly as they need it.

Jacmel is Haiti’s 4th largest city with an estimated population of 60,000+ and if we include the immediate surrounding areas, it reaches over 100,00 Haitians. You can get more detailed information by clicking on Jacmel .

Because Port-au-Prince is a priority and there is a very high concentration of victims there, most of the efforts are concentrated there, so the other areas affected outside the capital are not getting the help as quickly as necessary and given the overwhelming size of the problem and the lack of infrastructure, it is important to directly support these areas. Throughout the world, Haitians living abroad coming from these areas and friends of Haiti who have ties to these areas or have visited these areas are rallying to help individual communities, making up for this discrepancy in the flow of aid. Patrick Boucard is from Jacmel and has worked there on different non-profit projects that he has co-founded. This way, we know exactly who we will be working with, we are sure that these organisations are legitimate, and that we can get confirmation of who the aid is going to, making the donations are reaching the intended people.

Photos taken by Andrew Bigosinski and downloaded from www.cineinstitute.com

Jacmel aims to be the cultural capital of Haiti and has a large artist community in craft production, fine art, music and film. It holds a school of painting, a music and film school that work at a very high standard and are recognised among the best in Haiti. Jacmel is also well known for its Carnival and the creativity expressed through it.

We have chosen to help the artists and artisans of the area, children and the most impoverished communities of Jacmel and rural areas. The reason for this is that artists and artisans are one of the most marginalised sectors of the Haitian population and the other two sectors are the most vulnerable.

We have sadly lost the director of FOSAJ, (the art foundation that Patrick Boucard co-founded, with artist Kate Tarratt Cross), Flo McGarrell, in the earthquake and our prayers are with Flo who will be greatly missed. We would like this initiative to be in memory and in honour of Flo McGarrell’s dedication to Haiti, the Jacmel area, the artists and the people of Haiti.

We would also like to remember two great supporters of FOSAJ that have died during the earthquake, Carmen Delatour and Magalie Marcelin.

We hope that you will join us in this initiative and that you will donate to this worthwhile cause.

You can make financial donations by clicking on the DONATE link above.

If you would like to donate your time, make in kind donations, or organise and event, initiative, you may contact us and email us at info@jacmelhaitirelieffund.org.uk.