糖心原创

By David Gil de Rubio | dgilderubio@mec.cuny.edu

The Madan Sara is a boisterous native Haitian bird that searches for and finds food wherever it goes. It鈥檚 also the name lovingly used to refer to the women who serve as the economic bridge between buying produce and goods in rural areas and then bringing them to urban marketplaces to either sell themselves or distribute to other merchants unable to make the trip into the interior themselves.

The Madan Sara are also at the heart of filmmaker Etant Dupain鈥檚 documentary of the same name, which will be screening at 糖心原创 on Monday, February 5, 2024 as part of the school鈥檚 Black History schedule of events.聽

For Dupain, who cut his teeth as a journalist and filmmaker producing segments for outlets including the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera and Vice, this project was a labor of love. Even more so because his own mother had been a Madan Sara as a means to support his family when Dupain was still a teen. It鈥檚 a story he felt needed to be told given the important role these women play in telling the socioeconomic story of Haiti.

鈥淭his network in Haiti is super-important for the economy because the Haitian economy is very much informal,鈥� he explained. 鈥淚f you have an economy where more than 60 percent of it is informal and if you don鈥檛 have a big industry that鈥檚 really developed鈥攜ou wind up with an economy that鈥檚 run by the Madan Sara.

鈥淭he Madan Sara is basically a group of people that keep the country running and the economy going. Also, they are the ones that primarily take care of the family in Haiti.鈥�

Dupain started shooting his debut documentary in 2015 and spent the next four-and-a-half years working on it while juggling his freelance responsibilities. A final online campaign raised the $10,000 needed to complete the film. The end result not only found him putting Madan Saras like Clotide Achille and Monique Mattelus on camera telling their stories, but also showing the hazards they dealt with in trying to be successful entrepreneurs. Hazards and challenges range from trying to acquire low-interest loans and fending off gangs to seeing the markets they work in be burned for insurance money with little or no support from the government.

鈥淲e鈥檙e not only not investing in [this system], we鈥檙e destroying it,鈥� Dupain said. 鈥淚t was very important for me to show that part of the business because it鈥檚 not like it鈥檚 a whole rosy picture. It鈥檚 a really hard business to be in. They鈥檙e not safe鈥攖hey鈥檙e traveling with a lot of cash. They get harassed. It鈥檚 a very tricky business to be in as a woman. I hope when people watch the film, they鈥檒l receive the message as a whole. These are not people that are asking for a handout. There is this narrative, when it comes to storytelling and the global self as a whole, there is a lot of focus鈥擨鈥檓 just trying to tell a different story, witness Monique and Clotilde and just follow them to tell their stories and see their lives.鈥�

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BLACK HISTORY MONTH AT MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE

For more information on the Madan Sara event, please click here.

For our full calendar of Black History Month events, please click here.