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Haiti Research Paper

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The country that I chose to research for my paper is Haiti. Haiti is located in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Haiti shares the Island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. The capital of Haiti is Port-au-Prince, and the population is 9,996,731. Haiti has two official languages French and Haitian Creole. About 2.1 million people of the population live in Port-Au-Prince, which makes the capital an extremely congested city. Haiti is shared by the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. The total area of Haiti is 27,700 square kilometers. About 95 percent of the Haitian population consist of African descent. The two official languages are French and Creole. Haiti has seen a large amount of emigration …show more content…

(Country Map." Haiti Country Review (2001): 7. Business Source Complete. Web. 13 Aug. 2015.) Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Nearly 80 percent of the Haitian population live below the international poverty line of 2.00 a day. Poverty levels are also based on their literacy statistics. Around 47% of Haitians are illiterate (idvolunteers.org). This problem stems from there not being enough public schools to accommodate Haiti's children. For the children that can afford the funds, they attend private schools that cost between $100 and $200 a year. For the children in poverty, the fees are out of reach, so they are forced to not attend schools. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization over 3.8 million Haitians which is over half of the population go without food daily (Regan, 44-45). Over 23% of children under the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition. Sadly, flour and water porridge is a common meal consumed by Haitians. The island nation of Haiti has also been recognized for another reason the world’s worst “water-poor” country by the Center of Ecology and …show more content…

Farmers in Haiti grow various produce such as; rice, beans, corn, sorghum, bananas, and coffee. In 1994, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government adopted a policy that eliminated subsidies in fertilizers and other inputs that brought down the protected tariffs on grain down to between zero and five percent. The zero tariff policy brought devastating effects. This causes their products to be undersold and too much for Haitians to purchase. On January 2010 a devastating thing happened that lasted approximately 90 seconds but forever changed Haiti. January 12 a devastating earthquake struck their country leaving behind a wrath of destruction. The earthquake measured out at 7.0 on the rector scale. Sadly, up 200,000 people were lost to the deadly earthquake. Over 1.5 million people were left homeless and after 5 years over 80,000 Haitians are still living in makeshift shelters and tents in Port-au

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