These photos are available for purchase as 16" x 24" C-prints (unframed), limited to 10 editions of each. Prints are $250.00 and the proceeds will go to support Bedouins International.

ON SEPTEMBER 10TH, two aid workers, four documentarians, plus a Birmingham pastor, stepped onto the tarmac at Port Au Prince International, Haiti’s only airport with service to the US. As if in a scene from an old movie, stairs rolled up to the front and rear exits of the plane, passengers slowly descended forth with bags and baskets, squinting hard against the equatorial sun.

Thus began ten days of filming in the jungles and ghettos of Haiti’s northern peninsula. We bounced around Haiti’s rutted, ruined highways, through rainforests and rice fields, passing abandoned churches, UN prisons, and some of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful, utterly isolated beaches of the Caribbean. Our mission in Haiti was twofold: first, to document the relief efforts of HIPH, a humanitarian organization based in Montgomery, Alabama, administering a school in the jungle near the remote village of Coco Beach. Second, we were there to tell the story of a vanilla plantation, the first in the country.

Vanilla is notoriously difficult to grow. It tolerates only very specific soil and environmental conditions, takes four years to bloom, and the only insect capable of pollinating vanilla in the wild is extinct in the Western hemisphere.

When vanilla is producing it’s as profitable as cocaine; furthermore, if carefully cultivated, a single plant can support a child’s livelihood all the way through college. Accordingly, vanilla seems the greatest hope of solvency for many of the poor villages in northern Haiti.

We returned home ten days later, laden with gifts, covered in dust, and carefully guarding our precious film, MiniDV tapes, and memory cards.

Bedouins International now presents to you the account of HIPH’s romantic companionship with a primitive Haitian village and the projects instituted there amidst the hardship of poverty. Be sure to check back right here to find Caribbean Gold — The Vanilla Bean Project showing in a city near you, or contact us to request a screening in your local area.

HIPH, Humanitarians Initiating Progress in Haiti, is a non-profit organization dedicated to making sure that all people living in the rural regions of northern Haiti have access to the necessities required for survival at a standard of living that views all human beings as equally dignified.

HIPH helps to provide immediate assistance to the most critical problems facing a community while working with the members of the community to create long term solutions to the sources of these problems.

hiphaiti.wordpress.com
HIPHaiti@gmail.com
402 S. Perry, Montgomery, Al 36104

Bedouins International exists with a mission to offer creative communication tools that activate culture for positive change. The purpose being to bridge the gap between those with a great story to tell and those with the means to help them.

bedouinsinternational.org
connect@bedouinsinternational.org
205.705.3123
1710 2nd Avenue North #501, Birmingham, AL 35203