Grad News Forum

The mountains outside of Petit Drouin.

Back in October of 2012, Ron Bucca, a Dartmouth Graduate student and Army veteran, traveled to Haiti with a desire to listen and learn. A month later, Bucca came back with a simple conclusion about international aid efforts in the tiny country.

“We just need to listen. So many good resources go to waste because plans are made too far from the communities they’re intended to help.”

It might seem simplistic, but for a country facing so many challenges, simplicity can be a boon. Haiti has received an incredible amount of international aid money – over three billion dollars have poured in since the earthquake in 2010  – and yet it remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.  For opponents of international relief, these statistics act as validation for pessimistic ideas like “over-dependence.” For Bucca, they suggest something else.

“It seems like the mainstream model for aid is really top-down. Theories are hatched in major institutions, researched in far-away med schools and labs, and polished in high-level meetings. Then they’re packaged for export to a place that doesn’t remotely resemble the places they were born in. Without input or feedback from the population that will use the items, things such as maintenance, practicality, or cultural nuances are ignored and make the aid ineffective.”

So, Bucca used $1,000 in personal and research funding to travel to the island nation this fall with a simple question.

“I just wanted to ask – ‘What do you need help with?’ and ‘How can we help?’”

Bucca worked with the Children’s Nutrition Program (CNP), a small non-profit based in Léogâne. Much of CNP’s staff is Haitian, and the group is committed to finding solutions with a “from Haitians, for Haitians” model.  CNP helped Bucca find a translator and locate two rural villages – areas that have been particularly passed over by relief efforts – where he might be able to find answers for his questions.

A villager in Petit Drouin poses with the cell phone amplifier.

Bucca and his translator hiked into the mountains to Petit Drouin and Guiran. For most of the population in theses villages, Bucca was the first foreigner, or “blan,” they’d ever met. He gathered demographic information and tried to assess local feelings on relief efforts. He wanted to create a picture of the Haitian perception of international relief, so as to alert would-be change agents to some cultural obstacles they might face. He also wanted to see how rural Haitians were interacting with the modern world.

“I was amazed. This far out, almost 85% percent of families owned or had direct access to a cellphone. But they had to walk hours to get any service.”

So, Bucca purchased and installed a portable cell phone amplifier in the village, at the home of the monitrice – a community health worker. As a result, the villagers will have increased access to medical information, and can get immediate answers to their medical questions. In addition, the reduction in travel time for the monitrice, will allow her to administer preventive medicine and monitor additional patients.  For a remote village hours away from the nearest hospital, this kind of instantaneous access may make a major difference in overall health and wellbeing.

After completing work in the first two villages, Bucca left the mountains and headed to Petit Harpon, a slightly less remote village closer to the center of Léogâne. Again, Bucca sat with villagers to see what they thought would help them break out of cyclical poverty and limited opportunity. He realized they had access to the Internet, but lacked the hardware or computer skills to utilize it.

“They recognized that they didn’t have the chance to learn any modern skills. They felt left out – the children would be stuck subsistence farming, because they lacked these skills and the resources required to obtain them.”

So, Bucca found a computer teacher who could commute to the village school to teach the young people in Petit Harpon the computer skills that could get them a higher-paying job in the city. Computer fluency, Bucca notes, also carries with it a compounding potentiality. Social media sites may well allow a previously voiceless population to speak up and be heard – and to interact with relief agents and communicate their needs without an intermediary.

“A lot of people have reservations about relief. They don’t trust their government and they are wary of outsiders. Letting them in on the conversation might be a good way to change that.”

Bucca presents a poster at “Haiti and Dartmouth at the Crossroads” symposium.

Now Bucca is back in Hanover, advocating for an aid model that pays close attention to the needs and wants of the effected populations. He presented his work at a poster session organized for the “Haiti and Dartmouth at the Crossroads” symposium last week.

The computer teacher is still traveling to Petit Harpon twice a week, instructing students in how to use Microsoft Office, how to conduct research on the Internet, and how to make use of various social media tools. Bucca is soliciting donations of computing equipment – computers, printers, batteries, software (especially copies of Microsoft Office), and webcams – from any person or department who might have equipment that’s no longer in use. Bucca can be reached through his Dartmouth email address – Ronald.L.Bucca.GR@dartmouth.edu.

“Every little bit helps,” he reminds us. “And it’s nice that we’re rendering a service that was asked for. This is what the people in Petit Harpon think will help them. I think that’s a good place to start.”

by Zach Williams 

Desmond Webster

This October Desmond Webster, a student in the MALS program and a U.S. Navy Veteran, helped secure a $10,000 donation for the Claremont Food Pantry in Claremont, NH. The donation will help to buoy the Pantry through the winter months, as demand for their services rises with the costs of heating bills and holiday spending.

Webster is a member of the Dartmouth Graduate Veterans Association (DGVA), a group that’s been sponsoring an ongoing food drive for the Pantry. The DGVA has brought Graduate veterans together, to foster a sense of community and to reach out to the larger community, through projects like the food drive and volunteer efforts with the national PTSD center in White River Junction and Orion’s House in Newport.

“Ron Bucca (the DGVA’s operations chair) was really the leader on this thing,” Webster says. “He’s an exceptional listener, which makes him a great leader. He went down to Claremont and he listened. From what we heard, we decided that we could help in more ways.”

That was the spark that led Webster to seek larger financial donations. After months of effort supporting the food drive—driving other students to Price Chopper and collecting fresh food to bring to Claremont in a timely fashion—he started targeting individuals in the larger Dartmouth community with the means to help out. The $10,000 he secured came from a single donor, who has asked to remain anonymous. “We have a very different pool up here in Hanover than they do down in Claremont. We’re trying to make sure people remember that towns just a few more miles out are still struggling, that they need some help.”

“I’ve been so impressed by the members of the graduate community who have already helped out,” he continued. “Everyone’s been so giving with their time and with donations—once people know what’s going on, they go out of their way to help.”

Webster is a student in the MALS program, with a concentration in creative writing. He believes that his work with Claremont is exemplary of the benefits of pursuing a liberal studies degree with an interdisciplinary framework. “MALS is such a fluid program, it puts the impetus on its students to take the initiative. It doesn’t promise you a formulaic education—pursue a specific degree, take specific courses, get a specific job. It liberates its students to tackle problems in new ways. The real world is interdisciplinary, and our students’ approach fits that model.”

Born in Houston and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Webster did his undergraduate work at Rice University, where he earned a degree in Political Science and participated in the ROTC program. After graduation, he spent six years in the U.S. Navy, serving with the Pacific Fleet in San Diego, California and Seoul, South Korea. For his MALS thesis, Webster is writing a full-length screenplay, a murder-mystery.

“I think that students benefit by taking up initiatives like this,” he says. “Putting yourself out there, listening to people, trying to help—those things let you break out of your patterns, and that helps tremendously, whether you’re studying the effects of globalization or whether you’re trying to write a novel.”

The DGVA food drive will continue through the winter months. There is a box outside of the MALS office on the first floor of Wentworth Hall, and students and community members are encouraged to leave donations there for the group to pick up. Webster also asked us to mention that he’s still happy to drive people to get groceries or other donations if they don’t have access to a vehicle—he can be reached at Desmond.B.Webster.GR@dartmouth.edu.

And for more information on the Dartmouth Graduate Veterans Association, including information on the upcoming Military Ball, visit their website.

by Zach Williams