Haiti and the Dominican Republic may share an island, but socially, politically and linguistically, these two nations have been divided and often in conflict for generations. AJWS grantee Itinerant University of Resistance in Haiti (UNIR) believes one thing that could bring them together is the physical barrier that separates them: a mountain range between the two countries.
The mountains dividing Haiti and the Dominican Republic are rich with gold; over the years, mining companies have forced or manipulated families living nearby to leave their homes as developers pursue mining projects. Gold mining already exists in the Dominican Republic, and Haiti is currently resisting these plans in order to stop the development of gold mining before it starts. UNIR sees an opportunity for people from both nations to work together in this common struggle.
“UNIR’s mission is defending our territory — our rivers, our mountains — against mining projects,” shares UNIR coordinator Claudia Alavez. “We share this land with the Dominican Republic. Nothing will be possible for either of us if there is no unity and solidarity between us, and if there is no common work and collaboration with other countries.”
Breaking Down Language Barriers and Building Connection
UNIR was founded in 2019 to help Haitian activists defend their land, territory and resources by increasing their knowledge and power. This is achieved through exchanges with activists in the Dominican Republic and across Latin America who are entrenched in similar struggles.
But Haiti’s cultural and linguistic distinction has made this mission challenging. Haiti is an integral piece of Latin American history as the first independent Black republic in the world, but it’s largely remained isolated from its neighbors with a Haitian Creole, not Spanish, speaking population.
To bridge this gap, UNIR facilitates workshops teaching Haitian activists to speak Spanish, opening lines of communication and building solidarity between them and the rest of the Latin American world. UNIR then organizes international exchanges for newly Spanish speaking Haitian activists to learn about land defense strategies used by peer organizations.
UNIR has brought three different cohorts of Haitian activists to visit a major gold mine in the Dominican Republic to learn about anti-mining advocacy; next year, they will bring a cohort to Cuba to learn about harvesting techniques.
“We try to work hand in hand with different communities,” Alavez explains. “It’s important for Haitians to communicate what is happening in Haiti, but also for Haitians to learn what is happening in the rest of Latin America.”
Alavez says that there is an image of Haiti perpetuated by the media as being in need, but UNIR believes “it’s not about Haiti receiving and asking for things, but Haiti sharing things as well. That’s the idea we want to disseminate.”
That’s why UNIR creates learning materials in Spanish and Creole to boost people’s political and historical awareness — within Haiti and around Latin America. These tools include a Caribbean Feminist Domino set, a Latin-African songbook to help people learn Spanish through music, and a podcast that loosely translates to Women in Resistance, featuring conversations about how women fight for change in their everyday lives. UNIR also created a card game called “50 Questions on Mining” to help teach people in Haiti about the mining industry, in collaboration with local activist partners throughout Haiti; today this game is being used by Mexican activists to educate their own communities about these shared struggles.
A Woman in Resistance
There may be no better example of UNIR’s model of education and international collaboration than Alavez herself. She is a striking example of a woman fighting tirelessly for a better world. Alavez grew up in Oaxaca, as part of the Indigenous Zapotec people: one of the last matriarchal societies in Mexico. Her parents were professors and brought her as a child to demonstrations defending public education and traditional Indigenous education, which taught her about activism as a way of life.
“Activism is not something that just emerged one day,” she says. “It has been a way of growing up, of living, of being.” Alavez went to university in Cuba, which exposed her to the people and cultures of the Caribbean. She began learning Haitian Creole while in Cuba, and studied Haitian civil society organizations before joining UNIR.
“When I was a child, I never said, ‘Oh, I want to go to Haiti when I grow up.’ It was my life and circumstances that led me here. But my experiences reaffirmed the idea in me that I must be part of change and creating a fair and dignified world, and not only to create it but to sustain it and maintain it.”
Like the mountain range dividing Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Alavez, too, is caught between two worlds. But her lived experience has helped her build a bridge connecting Haitian activists and others throughout Latin America.
“We may speak other languages, but our realities are very similar,” she says. “We all want to live in peace, we all want sovereignty. And we all need to remember the story, the history of our peoples.”