OPINION: Can Haiti rise from the rubble?

Michelle Chen is a freelance reporter and history student at the City University Graduate Center.

One morning this summer, a group of young people threw themselves into the aftermath of Haiti's earthquake and, with almost reckless zeal, started digging.

The town of Leogane was still buried under a crush of rubble and broken promises, but the international volunteer team I had joined, Hands On Disaster Response, was determined to clear the debris from as many destroyed homes as possible. So we shoveled and shifted, rock by rock . . . and at the end of the day, a mountain of debris remained.

The sense that we were attempting the impossible was a palpable metaphor for the crisis afflicting the country. Six months on, the Sisyphean task of rebuilding Haiti seems a losing battle against political inertia and deep social despair. Despite billions of dollars pledged in aid, vows of help are beginning to ring hollow.

Today, Leogane and nearby Port-au-Prince remain strewn with squalid encampments where the homeless languish indefinitely. Though aid and transitional shelters have trickled in from international agencies, legions of refugees struggle to survive in ramshackle tent cities that lack even basic sanitation. Displaced families battle the looming threats of disease, storms, eviction by government authorities and, for women and girls, rampant sexual assault.

The collective trauma of hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries is exacerbated by the loss of thousands of schools and a lack of essential medical care, let alone adequate social and psychological support for survivors.

Plagued by chronic poverty before the quake, the country has now sunk into total destitution, and far too few Haitians have access to job opportunities in the reconstruction effort. Major international aid programs, meanwhile, have stalled due to the lack of a coordinated national recovery program. Unresolved land policy issues have further stymied the reconstruction and resettlement processes.

The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, an international body charged with guiding the recovery, has rolled out a redevelopment plan that echoes Haiti's legacy of predatory neoliberal trade policies. If past is prologue, Haiti may risk becoming a bastion of sweatshop labor, missing critical opportunities to seed sustainable industries and social institutions.

And yet Haiti's resilience is evident everywhere. On a typical day in the Leogane community, stalwart women hawk popcorn and mangos amid the rubble, motorcycle-taxis sputter through bustling streets, tiny radio stations pipe out lively broadcasts, and school children take lessons in tents.

While international donors' efforts are hobbled, we could all learn a lesson from the small grassroots initiatives - many led by quake survivors - that are working toward a different vision for Haiti, a recovery that elevates human rights above politics and counters the abysmal inequalities that predated the quake. Medical initiatives like Partners in Health and Family Health Ministries not only provide emergency relief, but help build sustainable health systems based on community education and respect for Haitian traditions, such as midwifery. Various small organizations have formed the Haiti Response Coalition, unifying a range of projects such as environmental restoration, sustainable construction programs and campaigns for democratic political reforms.

Just as Haiti's problems didn't begin with the quake, they won't be solved merely through short-term injections of charity or a smattering of media attention. To make Haiti whole again will require restoring its dignity from the ground up.

And that was the idea that brought a bunch of us scrappy volunteers to Leogane this summer. Together with local community members, we moved countless piles of rubble, piece by piece, but barely scratched the surface of the catastrophic wreckage. Still, by the simple act of clearing a foundation for a few families, so that they could start rebuilding on their own terms, we accomplished what the international donors' grand plans cannot: opening a small space for Haitians to take the lead in healing their communities.

This vision could be scaled for the global community's commitment to Haiti. Through investment in civil society and support for grassroots movements, a truly equitable recovery would capitalize on the one thing the country possesses in abundance: faith.