Towards building a good database of Haitian-Americans and Haitian-Canadians in the Diaspora
By Lance Durban
Although I am quite skeptical as to whether or not the Haitian Government does have a database for Haitians living abroad, some ideas come to mind when thinking about this issue.
This is a project which I have long favored, through use of those immigration forms collected at the airport. God knows what is done with them now. However, what if the immigration officers were trained to check the U.S. (or Canadian) addresses to make sure they were legible and complete, then ask verbally the incoming passenger if this specific info was accurate?
Then, two reasonably competent data input operators would type in all the data in a large database. Two of the data fields would be:
- date of file that was created; and
- last revision data.
That way, the proper authorities would be able to sort by date. Evidently, the most recent data would be the most accurate. Plunking in some 1200 names and addresses every day for all of the incoming flights, the Haitian Government would very soon start to have some meaningful data.
I can see all kinds of possibilities for mass mailings:
- selling the list to various local hotels, carefully-crafted
- fund-raising appeals, invitations to return for special events, etc. Eventually, political candidates could even "buy" the lists if they wanted to send out poop on their candidacies or fund-raising appeals for their parties.
Obviously this latter approach would open the doors to potential abuse by whatever party happened to be in power. Still the question remains, how does one overcome the traditional Haitian reluctance to trust Big Brother?
Make it a contest. Every year 10 free round trip tickets will be randomly selected from Haitian Americans and Haitian Canadians who have correctly filled out their immigration card. Addresses must be correct so the free ticket coupon will be received.
The Ministry of Tourism could oversee this "Diaspora Project" and maintain the database, working from an office provided by the Airport Administration.
Lance Durban is an American entrepreneur living in Haiti.
