Fellows & Editors
Sokari Ekine
- Trip:
- New Media Fellows 2013
- Affiliation:
- Black Looks
- Country:
- Haiti
- Year:
- 2013
- Find me on:
Sokari Ekine is a feminist writer, blogger, and educator and is founder and principle author of Black Looks. She has been active in struggles for social justice for over 20 years and has written for various online and print publications, including Pambazuka News, Feminist Africa and New Internationalist. Ekine’s writing and organizing addresses issues like gender and militarization, queer politics, art and activism, immigration in Europe and community organizing, and focuses on Africa and the Diaspora. In 2010, she edited SMS Uprising: Mobile Phone Activism in Africa and in 2011 she co-edited African Awakening: The Emerging Revolutions. She is co-editor of the Queer African Reader to be published in April 2013. Ekine is presently working with Growing Haiti and teaching English to high school students in Port-au-Prince.
Stories
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Who Is Michael Martelly and Why Is the Haitian Grassroots Movement Protesting Against Him?
Today [the anniversary of the Battle of Vertieres (1803) in the war for independence] marks the second of a series of planned street protests against the government of Michel Martelly....
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Liberation Ecology: Poo to Compost to Nutrition and Sustainable Living
World Toilet Day [on 19th November] reports that 40% of the world’s population do not have access to toilets, which is about 1 in 3 people. Sanitation and waste disposal...
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The Environmental Cost of the Construction Boom in Haiti
The construction boom in Haiti--driven by Diasporan money, UN [MINUSTAH] and government funds--is destroying the local environment around the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Hillsides are being cut away and river beds decimated to...
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Haiti on Camera: Photojournalism or Poverty Porn?
{image-1} I was alerted to the website Turning World by some friends here in Haiti. The site is run by photojournalist Brad Workman, who has an ongoing photo documentary in...
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In Conversation With Souzen Joseph
Souzen Joseph is an independent journalist, a musician, community activist and vodou practitioner. In addition to her job at TNH [Haitian National TV], Souzen is the host of a...
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Haiti and the White Saviour Industrial Complex
Make a cursory online search of mobile clinics in Haiti and you will come up with thousands of results. I searched the first three pages and found clinics operated mainly by...
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In Conversation with Paulette Joseph
During his campaign for presidency of Haiti, Michel Martelly made education was of his priorities. Once elected he quickly established the “Program for Universal Free and Obligatory Education (Programme...
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The Last Camp Standing
On Monday, August 19, four residents of Camp Acra & Adoquin and their lawyer, Patrice Florvilus, were summoned to court following criminal charges laid by Reynold George, the...
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Bondye From the Mountaintop
Last Sunday, I took a trip up to the highest point overlooking the city of Port-au-Prince and took a few photos – it wasn’t particularly inspiring. {image-1} Until I...
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KOURAJ: Be True to Yourself
The evangelical churches responsible for driving homophobia in Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia and the USA have begun a campaign of violence and hate in Haiti. On Friday, an all faith coalition of homophobic...
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Haiti: Missing Healthcare on the Frontline of HIV
Long before 9/11 and the subsequent incarceration of hundreds of so called ‘terror suspects’ in Guantanamo Bay, thousands of Haitian refugees fleeing the military junta in the early 1990s were detained...
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Climbing Mount Canaan With a Mobile Clinic
On Sunday, a dream came true. Organized by Rea Dol, women from Le Phare in Jalouzi and SOPUDEP, including volunteer nurses, came together to provide the women of Canaan with their first...
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Evictions, Hunger, Continued Persecutions, and One Victory
Last Wednesday, agents of the state and local police forcefully evicted residents of Camp Bristou in Peguy Ville. Bristou is overlooked by Mojub school, which is part of SOPUDEP community, and many...
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Mistakes Plus Negligence Equals Death
Recently, I passed through the high-security zones of Petion-Ville and Delmas on my way to Cité Soleil, where policing is limited to the neighborhood parameters. It’s very possible I...
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Willgesta’s Hole in the Heart Surgery
Recently I passed through the high security zones of Petion-Ville and Delmas on my way to Cite Soleil where policing is limited to the neighbourhood parameters. It’s very possible I...
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Nigerian Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill 2013
{image-1} The Nigerian SSMB 2013 was passed by the House of Representatives on May 30th. It is now in the hands of President Goodluck Jonathan who must decide whether or not...
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Persecution and Death Threats to Haitian Camp Activist and Human Rights Lawyer
Following the death in police custody of camp resident, Civil Meris on April 15, 2013, Jean-Louis Elijah (Elie) Joseph and Esther Pierre of Camp Acra and Adoquin in Delmas 33, along with the camps' lawyer,...
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Haiti’s Camp Canaan
This is not a story of great revolutionary heroes nor is it a story about Haitian elections, political parties, NGOs, the UN or even cholera though no doubt many of the residents...
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Haiti’s Poor Majority Pushed to the Margins
‘Now is the time to seize opportunities in Haiti, a nation which can provide “incredible value” to other countries as well as to itself, especially by virtue of its...
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“The Wasps Have Been Knocked Out of the Nest”
UPDATE President Aristide today held a press conference in which he announced that Lavalas’s participation in the next elections – mobilization begins! {image-1} Two years after his March 2011 return...
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Growing Haiti – Piti, Piti, Wazo Fe Nich Li.
Growing Haiti is a South-South collaboration which focuses on strengthening Haitian women and families via sustainable micro gardening initiatives. With the support of friends and family, Mark Jacobs, a Guyanese farmer,...
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Speaking Out For Justice in Haiti: Evel Fanfan
{image-1} Evel Fanfan is a Haitian human rights lawyer and activist. He is the co-founder of AUMOHD [Association des Universitaires Motivés pour une Haiti de Droits) or Action for...
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No Doctor Available
In writing this piece I searched the internet for definitions of ‘access’ and came up with a range of gobbledygook that really says nothing. So I came up with my...
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Bayakou: Why I’m Talking Shit and Cholera on World Water Day
We are born, we eat, we shit. And so it continues till at the end when we pass on. We talk about birth, maternal health, and choices we have or do not...
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In Conversation with Flaurantin Marie Enise
Jalouzi is a hillside neighborhood of about 200,000 people overlooking lower Petion-Ville. It is accessible from two roads, one at the top and one below. The view from the top is stunning. From...
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Doctors For Liberation
Last Thursday we visited the Medical School of the Aristide Foundation [UniFA] and had the privilege of an audience with former first lady, Mdm Mildred Aristide. She spoke about the history...
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Cholera and Health Care in Haiti
It is impossible to talk about health care in Haiti without mentioning the 2010 earthquake and the subsequent cholera epidemic, which so far has affected 630,000 people and taken the lives of 7,500. It would...
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From AIDS to Aid, an (Un)Humanitarian Story in Haiti
The third anniversary on January 12, 2013, of the earthquake in Haiti was marked yet again by a flood of new reports, opinions, facts and figures: a repetition of the past two years in...
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We Want Homes, Not Handouts
This is my third visit to Haiti since the January 2010 earthquake, which devastated the island, killing more than 300,000 people and making more than a million homeless. As always, I am staying with...
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Dol House
Tuesday 12th January 2010 began like all other weekdays in the Dol household. The children, all in their teens, woke at 5.30 am and in the half sleep readied themselves quietly and left for...
Blog Posts RSS
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November 21, 2013 | by Ekine, Sokari
Fortress Europe
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September 17, 2013 | by Ekine, Sokari
After the Bees and the Frogs, We Are Not Far Behind
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September 07, 2013 | by Ekine, Sokari
Haiti: Occasional Musings 20, A Brief Encounter With King Henry
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May 17, 2013 | by Ekine, Sokari
Interview With Haitian LGBT Organization, KOURAJ
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April 09, 2013 | by Ekine, Sokari
Tap Taps, Okada, and Guns
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