I went to Paris for a meeting with Jean-Marie Theodat on Monday after a short weekend in the snow with some climbing in Fontainebleau (I’ll post some pictures later.). Jean-Marie is a professor in geography and came to France 30 years ago from Haiti. He is one of the few who actually did profund research on Haiti. The main task for our meeting was a conference about Haiti and some bigger projects that will start in the summer. He is going back to Haiti soon in order to do research about the biggest needs and ways to build a sustainable future for the country. One part of this will be a documentary project we started working on these days, what might also bring me to Haiti in the summer for some time. On the long run helping to build a working education system for the country might become his biggest and most important project.

Before i left to get back to Germany in order to pack my stuff for going back to Copenhagen on Saturday, we found some time to sit down and Jean-Marie gave me a short interview about Haiti’s history, geographical influences, Port au Prince, problems and possible ways to build a sustainable future. I think it is really important for all future concepts that intend to help Haiti for a sustainable future to get as much understanding for the country as possible with it’s history, culture, social and geographical structure. So Jean-Marie Theodat might be a good start to listen to someone who knows about all that. Here is the Interview:

Part I: Introduction…..Part II: History…..Part III: Port-au-Prince…..Part IV: The Problem of Brain Drain…..Part V: The Earthquake…..Part VI: A Path for the Future

(click on the links to get to the films)