“Before the earthquake, Haiti was twice as poor as the next poorest country in the hemisphere,” says Benjamin Krause, director of Sean Penn’s Haiti relief organization, J/P HRO, putting into context the stark reality that faced the country even before the devastating earthquake of 2010. “Every day for the last two years we’ve moved 25 dump trucks of rubble from the city,” Krause says. The reality is that the Haitian people have come tremendously far since the earthquake, but there’s still a long way to go. One point of light: Krause cites the new government as the biggest sign of hope, especially since it came in with a peaceful transition.
