Ben Stewart is the Greenpeace activist who took time to chat with us whilst occupying Chevron drill ship, Stena Carron's anchor chain,. Thus preventing the evil vessel from driving a mile-deep stiletto into the bottom of the North Sea. Oil, y'know...makes ya crazy if you let it...
The Three Merc-cateers: Mercy Corps, Seattle-based Trilogy International Partners, which owns the Haitian telecom, Voilà and Haiti’s Unibank a Haitian financial institution, have banded together to create the ‘Missing Link’ in the Haitian aid chain of strength, sweat and determination: Money. It works like this; Over the next nine months, about 100,000 Haitians will get cell phones that accept payments and allow them to spend, transfer or save their money wirelessly. Unibank, a Haitian financial institution, will provide the banking services. Voilà, a mobile-phone company, will furnish wireless connections. And Mercy Corps funnels in the money. Because Haitians can rebuild their own country. A tent is a good thing in the rainy season…but in order to weather plural rainy seasons, you need a house. And to build a house you need money. The US and other western nations have built a very large ‘house’ on the backs of the world’s poorest…Now it’s time to give back to those backs.
- KBOO