As our nation’s public health experts urge us to do our part over the next 15 days... “Yon Sel Ko”: Timely wisdom from the Haitian peasant movement at the root of the CIW Representatives from worker and women’s rights organizations from Lesotho in Southern Africa join with representatives from the CIW and the Fair Food Standards Council in Immokalee last year following a multi-day workshop on the structure and function of the Fair Food Program. The visit was a crucial moment in the development of an important new replication of the Worker-driven Social Responsibility model that broke ground in Lesotho later that year. The painting in the background is by a Haitian artist and farmworker from Immokalee, Denis Remy, and hangs at the heart of the CIW community center. As our nation’s public health experts urge us to do our part over the next 15 days to limit the death and devastation that COVID-19 will ultimately wreak, a lesson from the Haitian peasant movement at the root of the CIW, the Peasant Movement of Papaye, provides a timely reminder that we are, in fact, all connected… Earlier this week we wrote that the horrible COVID-19 pandemic in which we find ourselves enveloped today “serves as a reminder that we do not, we can not, live alone in this world if we hope to survive… to borrow Dr. King’s metaphor, we live in a “world house” and if we are to protect that house, we must protect it together.” Two days ago, our public health officials let us know exactly what we must do to protect our house, and underscored the crucial importance of the next 15 days in determining the extent of damage that this terrible virus will visit upon us: WASHINGTON — The U.S. Surgeon General, Jerome Adams, emphasized in a media phone call that the next 15 days would be critical in combating the coronavirus pandemic. “We are in a crucial inflection point in this fight,” he said. “And we feel like the next two weeks are critical in our response. And therefore we are asking Americans to lean in for the next 15 days to slow the spread.” Adams said that the number of sick people in the U.S. on Friday resembled the numbers in Italy from two weeks ago. For that reason, he said inaction would lead to dire circumstances. He said he was hopeful that Americans would take the threat seriously. “It’s going to be a tough several weeks ahead,” he said. “And things will get worse before they get better. But if we work together, and support our neighbors and each other, I’m confident we’ll get through this.” The prescription was simple: Social distancing. Stay home. Young and old. The Surgeon General added a special message for the American youth who may have mistakenly taken the fact that the virus is more deadly for older people and those with underlying conditions to mean that they were somehow immune from harm and so exempt from the nationwide call for solidarity through social distancing: While the elderly and sick are the most vulnerable, Adams urged all people to take this seriously. Adams spoke directly to younger people, who might feel less inclined to practice social distancing: “You don’t want to be the one who gives it to your grand-pop, your nana, or that loved one who you are going to see over Easter,” he said. We here in Immokalee – a community that is particularly vulnerable to the potential devastation that this moment holds, due to the grinding poverty, crowded living conditions, and harsh working conditions unique to farmworker communities and labor camps around the country – join in urging our allies, young and old, to heed our public health officials’ warnings and to practice strict social distancing, particularly in the 15 days to come, to flatten the curve and help limit the death and destruction visited upon those more vulnerable among us. The immortal words of the poet John Donne ring as true today as they did when he wrote them in 1623: “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main… any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” “Yon Sel Ko”… As it happens, we here in Immokalee also have a unique message from our own history to share at this critical moment that reminds us that we are, each of us, “part of the main.” A photo by Daniel Zwerdling from an NPR story following the Taco Bell boycott victory in 2005 featured the painting hanging in the CIW’s first community center. Also pictured is Romeo Ramirez, an early CIW staff member. The photo at the top of this post features a painting that welcomes all who enter the CIW’s community center in Immokalee. It was painted by a Haitian artist and farmworker, Denis Remy, in early 1996. Denis was a leader in the first general strike in Immokalee in November of 1995, during which he was (unjustly) arrested. After his release he painted the piece and donated it to the CIW to hang in our first-ever community center (right), a small, storefront office just a block from where the CIW center stands today. The work represents the essence of the CIW’s message in the immigrant farmworker community of Immokalee, where for years ethnic and linguistic divisions were exploited by farm bosses and owners to keep workers from coming together around their common interests and pressing for more just conditions. At the upper left corner are the words, in Haitian Creole, “Yon Sel Fos,” translated in Spanish on the right, “Una Sola Fuerza,” or “One Strength”. It was that message – that only when we realize that we are one community of workers with common interests, regardless of race or nationality or gender, can we truly come together to defend those interests as one, unified force – that overcame the historic divisions that had left Immokalee vulnerable to the predations of crewleaders and growers for generations and launched the movement that ultimately gave birth to the Fair Food Program... Read the full reflection from CIW on how you can stand with your community in this time of crisis. Coalition of Immokalee Workers (239) 657 8311 | [email protected] | www.ciw-online.org Connect with us ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ Coalition of Immokalee Workers | 110 S 2nd St, Immokalee, FL 34142 Unsubscribe [email protected] About Constant Contact Sent by [email protected] in collaboration with Try email marketing for free today!