During his stay in Haiti [26 to 29 March], Dr. Arun Gandhi met the First Lady, Sophia Martelly, and community leaders of two difficult neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, in Bel-Air and Delmas, at the initiative of Viva Rio and Jenkins/Penn Haitian Relief Organization (JPHRO) of the American actor Sean Penn.

Invited by the Section Community Violence Reduction (CVR) of the MINUSTAH, Dr. Arun Gandhi accompanied by Brian Polkinghorn, Executive Director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution at the University of Salisbury (United States), shared with the Mission staff the foundations of nonviolence, the philosophy of his grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi who struggled against racial discrimination, poverty and human rights. Arguing in favor of introspection that can turn anger into positive energy rather than in act of physical violence or passive.

Stressing that this is a personal work, in the long term, which requires patience and perseverance, he recalled that the transformation of a violent society in a non-violent society is not done in one day and requires monitoring, perseverance and especially the transmission of acquired to those who will take over, "So that the wire does not break" and to prevent that the community targeted don't plunges back into violence.

HL/ HaitiLibre