Photography by Jeff Antebi (Click images for slideshow)

In light of the earthquake and ensuing tragedy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti yesterday, we’d like to encourage our readers to help in any way they are able. Here are links to two international aid organizations that have longstanding and effective aid efforts on the ground there, Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders. We just made a donation on behalf of PLANET through Oxfam and hope many of you will, too, whether through these organizations or others you support. Haiti is only 100 miles from South Florida and has been the most neglected country in our part of the world. The magnitude of the death toll, estimated to be over 100,000, has much to do with poor housing and infrastructure throughout the city and countryside. The people there will simply not be able to cope, nor the country recover, without help from the rest of the world.
     Photographer Jeff Antebi, whose work on Juarez we published earlier this week, made many trips to Haiti in the last several months photographing the people there, who, despite crushing poverty – the worst in the Western Hemisphere – maintain an irrepressible spirit. We wanted to include these images to put a human face on the tragedy as well as to show the innately beautiful spirit of the people. Obviously these images are in stark contrast to the scenes we have been seeing out of Haiti for the last day. The safety of the people in these images, photographed a few short months ago, is not known, but certainly all of them have suffered and are still suffering. Please help the people of Haiti and help us spread the word.