Sean Penn lauds Israeli aid agency as Haiti ‘mentor’

From a first conversation about sharing out kosher food, Israeli humanitarian organization IsraAID was a source of inspiration in earthquake-battered Haiti, actor Sean Penn said Monday, as he praised the Israeli aid agency in the keynote address at its Tel Aviv conference.

“They became mentors in moving forward,” Penn said, saying the agency had provided him with greater understanding of what could be done in Haiti.

The IsraAID nonprofit was present in Haiti four days after the devastating 2010 earthquake, providing emergency aid and support and later implementing short and long-term programs focused on community needs.

Penn’s group, which eventually became his nonprofit, J/P Haitian Relief Organization, set up its own camp before encountering the IsraAID team.

“We had moved to an old clay tennis court,” said Penn, where they were starting a school overlooking the growing displaced persons camp.

Noting his lack of experience as a formal public speaker, Penn warned the audience that he would be delivering “less a keynote speech than a story told perhaps through the fog of disaster.”

The actor told the room full of Israeli aid workers that he started paying attention to the Haiti earthquake following his son’s surgery for a traumatic head injury.

He told of the “incredible relief” he felt upon knowing that his son had access to the proper pain medications following a bad fall from a skateboard.

Following his son’s release from the hospital, Penn turned on the television and began watching coverage of the earthquakes, hearing about the lack of appropriate medications and surgeries being done without intravenous medications.

“I had learned over time that governments can’t always handle the chaos of natural disasters,” said Penn, who also volunteered for relief work following Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. “With good will, you can do work.”

J/P HRO also ended up formalizing itself as a nonprofit, embarking on subsequent fundraising rounds — “that brutal thing called fundraising,” said Penn — and worked in other areas of Haiti, including drainage, demolition, construction, community relations and health.

The actor, who apologized for his tangential stories — “it’s been a long flight,” he said — told the tale of a young Haitian who ended up setting up one of the X-ray machines by himself, just from following the instruction booklet. He described bringing in heavy earth-moving equipment in order to remove rubble from the streets.

“With each of these efforts, you saw that you gave a sector a boost, that the Haitians would rise it up another notch,” he said.

He’s hopeful, counting on the “extraordinary will and inventiveness of young Haitian entrepreneurs,” said Penn.

“We started, IsraAID started and I invite you all to start,” said Penn. “There are doable, replicable actions we can take.”