Haiti appeals to diaspora to help rebuild

Haiti needs the help of its diaspora to rebuild, said government officials as a conference focused on rebuilding the earthquake-stricken Caribbean nation started in Montreal.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive is amongthose expected to attend the two-day conference which was organized by members of Montreal's Haitian community the largest in Canada.

Almost 1.5-million people in Haiti are still homeless, including hundreds of orphans who are living on the streets, said Edwin Paraison, minister for Haitians living abroad.

"Haiti is calling on its sons and daughters spread out across the world to ... lend us a helping hand with their technical expertise," Paraison said Thursday during the conference, which is taking place at the University of Montreal's engineering school, the cole Polytechnique.

Key fields of expertise include health, education and telecommunications, said Paraison.

The Haitian government confirms its consulate in Montreal has begun putting together a list of volunteers willing to return to Haiti to help out in the short or long term.

While earthquakes can't be prevented, the magnitude of any future destruction can be reduced through better planning, said one of the conferences organizers, Jean-Marie Bourjolly.

"Haiti is not the only place on earth where there are seismic problems," said Bourjolly, a management professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal. "We have that in California. We have that in Turkey. That means they have been able to build the houses correctly.

"In Haiti we have never respected any norms let alone seismic norms so that will have to change," said Bourjolly.

Other initiatives, such as decentralizing government ministries, could also help Haiti rebound from future natural disasters, said Bourjolly.

"Everything was centralized so when the hit goes down everything is down so centralization is not the name of the game," he said.

Almost 300,000 people, including 34 Canadians, are believed to have died following the 7.0 magnitude earthquake which struck the empoverished country on Jan. 12.

Haitian-born Gov. Gen. Michalle Jean will visit the country next week to witness reconstruction efforts.