Arcade Fire fans whoop it up for Haiti
Arcade Fire’s hometown fans get a double treat on Wednesday: first dibs on a chance to hear the worldrenowned indie-rock act play songs from its highly anticipated new album, while contributing to a cause close the Montreal band’s heart.
On the cusp of its fifth edition, Kanpe Kanaval has become an annual ritual wherein the group invites revellers to whoop it up like they do in Jacmel, the port town on Haiti’s south coast that boasts one of the country’s most famous carnival celebrations. As usual, the band will bring a few friends along. DJ Windows 98 (a.k.a. Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler’s tongue-incheek DJ persona), Coeur de Pirate, Pierre Kwenders, Haiti’s Gardy Fury, Paul Beaubrun and Olympian Naomy Grand’Pierre, who is this year’s Kanaval queen, plus Montrealers Planet Giza and Fwonte are just some of the names on the bill for the fundraiser at Metropolis, the event’s biggest venue yet.
It’s been a fittingly incremental expansion for an organization with humble beginnings. Arcade Fire co-founder Régine Chassagne (who is married to Butler) started Kanpe in 2010 with Dominique Anglade, now a member of Quebec’s National Assembly, as a grassroots way to help people in their shared ancestral land.
“We’re a small organization,” said Isabelle Thibault, Kanpe’s general director. “We’re young and still flexible in our way of thinking.”
The grassroots charity has just three Montreal employees (“anda-half” Thibault noted, referring to one part-time staffer), collaborating with individuals and organizations in Haiti to best help the communities it serves.
Operating in the Thomonde region in the country’s Plateau central, Kanpe keeps a tight focus on two villages, Baille Tourible and Savanette Cabral.
Beginning with the former in 2011, the organization helped fight the cholera epidemic sweeping the region, then moved on to other pressing issues. Afflicted by rampant deforestation, drought and poverty, Thomonde residents were some of the worst off in the country following the devastation of the 2010 earthquake. Kanpe’s mandate is to help families help themselves.
“Our objective is to eventually pull out (of the area) and go to neighbouring communities,” Thibault said. “In each program we initiate, we try to help people achieve autonomy — whether it’s financial or in terms of health care. At our (medical) clinic, we don’t
just offer basic services; we offer education for women about hygiene, STDs, etc.”
Kanpe’s two biggest partners are Zanmi Lasante (aka Partners In Health) and women’s microfinance institution Fonkoze. With men often away for work, women are the heads of most families in the region, Thibault said, and are thus the subjects of many of the organization’s training initiatives.
“They’re the most stable,” Thibault said, “and able to provide for their children and family members.”
Seeds are a precious commodity in the region, and are distributed to families for farming along with instruction on how to work the land. Animals such as goats and chickens are also given out, for owners to feed themselves and use as a source of income.
“Our objective is to maintain our support according to the funds coming in and according to need,” Thibault said. “We’ve been supplying seeds, now they need a dryer for them, then a silo to store them. Our objective is to meet the needs formulated by the communities.”
Some necessities are more whimsical, but no less essential. Arcade Fire travelled to Haiti in 2015 to distribute instruments to children in the community. Now there is demand for more.
“Not one family doesn’t want their kid in the marching band,” Thibault said. “And they all want instruments; but we have to store them. Currently they’re being stored in the medical clinic. There’s a list of 30 kids who want instruments. We have contacts in the U.S. through the Preservation Hall Jazz Band (with whom Arcade Fire has been collaborating, and who smart money says will appear on the new album), but we have to get them to Canada to send to Haiti.”
These are the kind of problems — and initiatives — you end up with when a world-famous rock musician is co-founder of a charity. Chassagne travelled to Baille Tourible this week for a visit, accompanied by former Arcade Fire bandmate Marika Anthony-Shaw (founder of the Plus One foundation, in which bands donate $1 per concert ticket to charity). They were greeted by the fruits of Kanpe’s labour: a marching band of giddy children.