Via The Globe and Mail: Arcade Fire: Stars shine light on Haiti. Excerpt:
Arcade Fire sings a lament for Haiti's murderous past rule, but the song is also an anthem of hope that the country some day finds renewal.
Régine Chassagne, who sings the tune and founded the internationally renowned Canadian band with her husband, Win Butler, is determined that it will.
Nearly a year ago, home in Montreal, Ms. Chassagne, 34, was knocked breathless by news of the earthquake that flattened the capital of the homeland her family fled four decades ago: “It wasn't exactly despair, it was … emergency. It was more like your whole body is shaking with emergency,” she said. “It's a rare feeling. … You're ready to walk out in your PJs and start doing what you need to do.”
On the world tour supporting its new chart-topping and Grammy-nominated album The Suburbs, Arcade Fire raised – and then matched – $1-million in donations for Partners in Health, an NGO operating in Haiti that it supported even before the quake. Proceeds from licensing its song Wake Up to the 2010 Super Bowl also went to PiH.
Ms. Chassagne took matters a step further: She helped found Kanpe, a non-profit offering health, educational, farming and other assistance for rural Haitians to achieve a sustainable living. In 2011, Kanpe (Creole for “stand up”) aims to start with 150 families in Thomonde in Haiti's central plateau.
“I know there is a way to make things happen for the best in Haiti. They're not easy – it always takes longer than the ‘Band Aid' solutions,” she said, referring to We Are the World-style rock-star charity projects. “They're less glamourous, but … somebody needs to care for the long term.”
