PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - A World Council of Credit Unions effort to develop a new credit union here was stymied for a week as violent demonstrations shut down the capital city just as the team arrived to get started.
WOCCU’s Paul Wendland told Credit Union Journal that the tumultuous situation in Haiti was almost as unique as the mission he is still trying to accomplish there. Though Haiti already has some 200 credit unions, WOCCU was not called in by them or any other credit union-related organization. Rather, the country’s finance minister reached out to World Council in search of consultation on the feasibility of creating a new credit union that would serve employees of the public sector.
But when Wendland arrived in Haiti, the capital was already wracked by violent demonstrations. “There was systematic looting, people have died in the confrontations with police and the UN Peacekeepers,” he related. “Everything was shut down. We couldn’t go to our hotel downtown. We had to find a different hotel outside of it.”
And from that hotel, they could see the black smoke from tire fires rising into the air. “Haiti is a country where 80% of the population is living on about $2 a day, and food prices are rising,” Wendland explained. “It is a country that has long been politically tenuous, but it’s been relatively quiet the last few years, so we weren’t expecting this. I’ve been to Afghanistan with WOCCU, which is known for violence, but it’s predictable. This was unpredictable.” The decision to stick it out is finally paying off. WOCCU was able to hold a number of meetings.
