Roosevelt and Deirdre Maitre. Photo by Joy Moody.
Philadelphia filmmaker Deirdre (Dede) Maitre, the granddaughter of Irish immigrants, will screen clips from the documentary work she has done over the years in Haiti on Friday night, January 29, at the Irish Center, 6815 Emlen Street, in the Mt. Airy section of Phladelphia.
Representatives from various Haitian aid groups will also be there to answer questions about the earthquake that has left an estimate 200,000 people dead and millions more homeless and without food, water, and medical care.
Maitre, who received her MFA from Temple University in 2005, has been the recipient of many grants and awards, including the Ben Lazaroff Writing Scholarship, a Philadelphia Independent Film and Video Association Subsidy Grant, and a Thesis project Completion Grant from the University Fellowship Committee of the Graduate Board of Temple University. Her husband, Roosevelt, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
She runs her own company, Maytree Multimedia, which provides digital video services to small organizations and businesses, and she freelances on independent film projects. Her own current project is “Is God Sleeping?”—a short documentary about a young Haitian painter struggling as an illegal immigrant in the United States. She recently completed a photoessay, Permission, which features personal portraits of the residents of Saint Marie, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. You can see some of her work on her website.
Irish charities, particularly Concern Worldwide, were on the ground in Haiti when the quake struck. Concern, founded in Ireland in 1968, has had a team in three areas of Haiti–La Gonave Central Plateau, and Port-au-Prince–since Hurricane Gordon hit the islands in 1994. The Irish American nonprofit, GOAL, USA, founded in Dublin in 1977, is also there. You can donate to Concern at www.concernUSA.org/HaitiAppeal and to Goal USA at www.goalusa.org.
