Elizabeth Greig Haiti Earthquake Analysis

For the first engaged activity in HIST 140, I decided to attend one of the “Humanities Happy Hour” events at the back bar grill located off of Franklin street. This was a rather laid back event where individuals could eat and drink, while listening to a guest speaker discuss a particular topic relating to the humanities. The guest speaker that they had on February 15th was Elizabeth Greig, an assistant professor of medicine here at UNC Chapel Hill. Her talk revolved around the somewhat recent events of the Haitian earthquake that occurred in 2010. The main purpose of her talk was to highlight the poor infrastructure that plagues Haiti and the Haitian people. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti, demonstrated the country’s poor ability …show more content…
Greig specifically worked within a medical NGO and was based outside Port Au Prince in Haiti, where she was able to provide hospital care to those affected by the earthquake. After the earthquake hit on January 12, 2010, a mass amount of tent hospitals were set up within a 48-hour time frame. Many of these tents were actually donated circus tents from Miami, which provided an increased amount of space to work. The amount of patients that her NGO had was up to maximum capacity. Greig described how the situation was a bit of a mess and chaotic, but her team was able to treat thousands of people. On top of funding from the university of Miami, many private donors helped aid her NGO’s cause as donors sent in mass amounts of food and water. During her experience, Greig shared how her and her team helped treat a variety of patients after the Earthquake. On top of the trauma patients that were directly affected, her NGO also treated individuals that were indirectly or not even remotely affected by the earthquake. Greig noted how her team treated those with illnesses, and how they even treated a woman giving child birth. Greig shared that immediately after the earthquake she …show more content…
Due to this outside help, the Haitian people do not necessarily have complete control over their country’s affairs. They no longer have complete control of what is occurring in their country. Certain individuals criticize aid workers as being intruders rather than helpers. Aid could possibly be viewed as colonialism. Though most are really there to help people in need, the acts of helping could almost be viewed as colonialism if certain workers were trying to infringe their country’s ideals and philosophies upon the natives of the country that they are present in. For example, if a communist from Vietnam came over to preach Vietnam’s way of life and its communistic ideals, then this could be viewed as colonialism; instead of providing help, they try to manipulate the thinking of those in Haiti. As the number of international aid groups make their way to Haiti, it can be understood why some may be fearful for their country’s future. The issues discussed hint at ideas of decolonization as discussed in