>> hi, i'm lisa fletcher and you're in "the stream." billions in unpricable donations, and cholera. we talk to haitians after the earthquake that devastated their country. >> my colleague, and typically behind the scenes guru, omar is with me. >> nice to do that. >> our community is keen to the fact that all of this money has

been donated, but there's not a good paper trail as to how it has been sent. >> there is, and nobody knows where this money went. we have a lot of people weigh in in the community: >> we want to know what you think. and so go to the hashtag that you see on the screen right now. >> just how far has haiti come since the earthquake four years ago? 84,000 people still live in makeshift shelters, ie tents,

and this makes their extremely has cuss conditions, and they face expulsion. many are sickened by cholera, which they believe has been caused by un workers. though the u.s. has pledged $1.5 billion in aid, the vast majority of that money went straight to u.s. companies and organizations. only 1% went directly to haitian groups. and also a lack of transparency. the state department was not required to track anything after the official $1.5 billion pledge. and in the end, the u.s. has pledged even more. a total of $3.6 billion in all. so how can there been so little progress and so little tracking of all that money? joining us, the senior analysis

of action aid usa. small farmers and women in developing countries. pierre, a citizen journal history in haiti and phil michelle, he is the cow founder of prosperity of god minute freeze, and his ministry does a lot of things, including building schools and supporting orphanages in the aftermath of the quake. and also, ben, and welcome to all of you. obviously a big part of our discussion tonight is going to be digging into this money trail. before that, ranelle, take us to that cafe where you were before the quake hit. and you had a near-death experience. >> we were just in the cafe with four friends, and the earth started to shake, and we go into

the internet cafe and it fall down. we were in the middle of the street. and we feel like we were the only person who survived for like 30 second, and after we hear all of the people screaming, save us, god, help. and everything, and it's like a zombie movie. every face was black and everything. i don't really love to talk about it. but it was a very, very bad experience. >> how long after you left the cafe did it collapse in front of your eyes? >> we just go out and it fall down, but like 15 people died inside. >> oh, goodness. bill, sadly, you lost your grandfather that day. and we have a photo of thank you standing in front of the building where your dad worked. and it was a pile of rubble. what was it like for your father and your sister like that day? >> actually, i just want to say

had i not lost my father -- my sister was in that school, there were like 500 students. and only three of them survived that day. so -- >> and so your sister, you initially thought she was dead. and how much time transpired until you thought otherwise. >> i found out after a few days. because when me and my friend -- my best friend, ricardo, when we rent to port-au-prince to look for her, it was like a tragedy. what you saw on tv is nothing comparing to if you were there. like in the flesh. so i found her, and we have a

clinic down there, and and she had injuries really really bad. >> your parents are there, and talk a little bit about what's going on there day-to-day, four years after the earthquake. are families getting the support they need? >> well, i think nowadays if you go to haiti, you find most people are still hoping that things are hoping things will get better, but they don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. and they're not sure that the policies are being implemented and the policies are not being implemented in their lives. >> what's the biggest complaint that you hear. >> i think the lack of inclusion that the haitian people say, the decision making process. it's one of the biggest hurdles that we're facing right now. >> and the basic needs that they're struggling for every day? >> as basic as the right to food. they need to see themselves every day. in haiti, it costs about 11 to

$12 a day to feed yourself. and the pages they're offering are not enough to feed that amount of people in the family. >> we have some people weighing in, the fact that the earthquake took people by surprise: can you talk a little bit about how that lack of preparation impacted the situation that we find ourselves in today some. >> well, clearly haiti was a very vulnerable country before the earthquake and the earthquake was the worst natural disaster in history. so when you have a very vulnerable people that can be impacted by an earthquake, you will see very serious damages occurring.

in this instance, i think that there were many things that could have been done better in order to help the haitian people deal with the impact of the earthquake, and part of what needed to be done was to make sure that there were decisions made where their lives were being discussed. >> we want to get into a limb more of that in a couple of minutes, but then omar mentioned in one of his tweets, this idea of lack of access to clean water and the sewage situation. and there was a horrific outbreak of cholera. and talk about what that impact has been on top of the devastation of the quake. >> well, people already don't have basic services, and then the available water they have is contaminated. cholera is something that can be treated. and it's one of those diseases that can actually be addressed

with proper effort. we'll get into the money later, but there are resources to deal with these things, and the question is whether or not the groups that have these resources have the capacity to deliver services, and if they have been wrong and deceitful and corrupt in asking for these dollars, because maybe they're not the ones to have this money. >> so you're suggesting that these groups have positioned themselves as something that they're not just in order to get ahold of the money, but they're not capable of taking care of problems that they say? >> disasters happen all over the world, and there are a lot of people who want to help. some organizations are capacity to deliver services and others don't have any capacity at all. in the notes on their websites, the stock photos they have, maybe they only have a few people on the ground when a disaster happens, and they might raise $10 million or more to respond. but they can't ramp up their services until they ramp up

their capacity. meanwhile, there are other society organizationings in haiti that are not raiding much. and they're dependent on non-cost al organizations to give them money instead of allowing the organizations to help themselves and we're seeing a greater dependency on outside organizations. >> you mentioned this inability for most patients to just access a sustainable amount of food every day, and talk about that from your perspective on the ground. >> for me, i think people see haiti sometimes. i feel that it's destroyed by -- people sometimes think that they can do things for haitians. i spoke to my friends, and even

if you were -- you can't do things to hagues, you have to do it with haitian. because most people, i use that example. it's like when you go in a zoo and you're not interested, and you saw nice little animals, and you fell in love with that little animal and you feel like you want to bring that animal home. but somebody says, no, that animal is just there for people to come watch. most people [ unintelligible ] they use the haitian people like animals in the zoo. they come and say, this is what we're doing, but most of them keep buying car, 60 or $50,000, which can feed the whole village, which can build a nice school building for the haitian people.

>> those are powerful accusations, and when we come back, where has all of the money gone? we're talking about billions in aid and there's not much to show for it, including an effort led by president bill clinton. a $300 million industrial park outside of port-au-prince, near the epicenter of the quake.

>> that's a harsh reality. welcome back, we're talking about haiti and however it has come four years after the devastating quake. ben, is there any way to know how much of the money donated actually got into the hands of the haitian people or into projects that directly benefit them? >> overall, not really. organizations that are raising these dollarsa are not subject to information laws. you can look at the tax returns to see how much they have spent in the caribbean in the past years. you look at it, and it says operations in the caribbean, and

that's it. it's hard to know. but a lot of the trouble is that a lot of groups take credit for what other groups do because some organizations are contributing to the same program. and they say we did this, and that inflates the success of what happened. >> before the break, a group of ngo folks are driving around in a 50 or $60,000 car on the way to the beach, driving through the disaster area. >> so the relief is expensive. it's not like the stuff can be done so cheaply. but at the same time, the results should show a lot more than they have. and local organizations in haiti should be much more resilient now. and organizations are not that much more resilient. and overall, haiti is still dependent on outside support. looking at the numbers, people see the pictures on the show of people in such dire straits, and

the immediate reaction of people around the world, they want to help. and you can't blame them. so the question is, how can people give effectively and give without middle men? we don't need organizations regranting and doing things for the people in haiti. we need people in haiti getting the dollars directly and doing things themselfed. 95% of the organizations left. >> he has worked for organizations like the red cross in the past before starting this organization. >> we have a lot of people weighing in on the money. but look at my screen here: the prime minister of haiti asked us: we want to point out that we reached out to him to see if we could get somebody from his office, but we didn't hear back from him before the show started. we have bud here: gabe here:

mary says: and finally. >> i want to go to you with this. do you believe that the aid has actually divided haitians, and how exactly? >> i think that some people give the aid love to show haiti. and most people don't look for good meals. it ii don't have any problem wiy government. more than the government in the past. the problem is, if anybody would like to help haiti, they must go to the haitian people. and so many people don't have

any skill. when you don't care for the people, you don't know their feelings, and you don't know what they really want to do. haitian people don't really have a dream. they do have it, but they don't have any opportunity to access that dream. >> i know that you want to jump in. >> sorry to say that it's not the people not coming to see, but the way this they do it is not the best way. like when we are not seeing that the same person, fighting, i mean, because it was distributed in a bad way. the people came in and said, hello, haitian people. this is uncle sam coming to help you. but this is what we can offer you. we have the technicians, and what do you want to do?

that would be better. it's not helping, more distributed. and also, how it's being organized. for example, when you see tons of rice in the haitian market, do you know what is produced? they continue sell their race anymore because too much rice on the market right now. and people can get it for free. so it's more about when you send shoes for the haitian people, they will wear it. but if we really need shoes and rice and stuff like that. >> i to the pause this and give you the chance to jump in. >> it's not about who is to blame. but exactly what is to blame. and i think that the structural

inequities that are embedded, not just in haitian society and haitians, but also with the international community and the united states government make a big difference, and they make it so that after the earthquake and billions of dollars pledged to haiti, four years later, we're asking, where did the money go? and the haitians did not see much realized >> and that brings up these land issues that you deal with so closely in haiti. can you explain why hundreds of haitians, 100 miles north of the quake, have been displaced by it? >> it's a good question, and it's a question puzzling quite a few people. i would like to say that the majority of haitians don't have stocks, bonds, or bank accounts, or retirement accounts. so their land, outside of their family, is their most important asset. in haiti, the land governance

structure is extremely weak. 95% of haitians do not have secured access to land. they may have a title to the land. the title can be taken away. it can be contested and lost in court. the title may be out of date. and sometimes they're occupying the land and using the land for decades in what you call a social relationship. and that land is easily teach away from them now in the social structure. this is what's happening in haiti, indeed, far from the epicenter of the quake, 250 hectors of land was taken away from 366 farmers and their families, and the agricultural workers who used that land regularly to feed their communities, to send their kids to school and pay for healthcare, and that has been taken away. >> those people were dismayed

and an industrial complex was built there, and has that helped the people? >> if you speak to the communities, not at all. the wages that are being offered in that industrial park are about $5 a day. and they're still struggling so none whatsoever. >> clearly, haiti was struggling before the quake, so what is it going to take to rebuild the nation, at least to that level. but preferably stronger than that. we'll be right back.

>> welcome back. that video you're watching was taken days after the quake, very much showing the resilience of the haitian people. and something that we don't usually talk about as we see a lot of images of poverty and destruction. ranelle, you tapped into the needs of the haitian people very early on after the disaster, and that was that need to express their emotions of what's going on, and you did it yeah, after ,

like [ unintelligible ] we take a hair brush and a camera, and a plastic bottle. and we go and we were asking the people, what do you feel tonight? and what do you want tonight? who did you loose and what did you lose? they would say, i lose all of my family and friend and house. and we asked what do they need tonight? they say we need everything back to the normal. and i think it reflects what all haitians want, all things back to normal. but what is the normal? what is the normal for haitian people? because the [ unintelligible ] after we get dominated by almost

20 by the u.s., you know, when they were taking possession of our land, after we got the capture, and then demonstration, normal for haitian people. >> bill, there's a tremendous amount of resiliency among haitians, and do you see that or do you see a sense of resolve that still exists? >> i think haiti is in a process. and young people in haiti, we stand up to change our country, because the one thing, how can someone, i just and myself that question, and i'm going to answer it again, how can someone change a country if you are trying to change the people's life?

>> good evening, everyone, welcome to al jazeera america. i'm jonatha john seigenthaler in new york. warnings and worry intensi intensify. travel alert for sochi, and will u.s. olympians be safe. we'll talk with jackie joiner kerry. and the class where opportunitiestudentslearn and i.