Saturday 13 October 2012

Wyclef Jean's 'Yele' Charity Shuts Down Under Financial Scrutiny And Debt

What was meant to be a good natured charity organization created by a music star looking to help his home country has turned into a heavily scrutinized headache that has now closed down.

'Yele', which means ''Cry For Freedom'', was created by Wyclef Jean back in 2004 but became best known after the devastating 7.0 earthquake struck back Haiti back in January 2010.
An already poor country was almost completely destroyed the nation and over 200k people were left dead.
While 'Yele' brought in a lot of money, there's little of anything on the ground today that can be found from it.
Diaoly Estime runs an orphanage and told the NY Times“If I had depended on Yéle,these kids would all be dead by now.”
Even as Yéle is besieged by angry creditors, an examination of the charity indicates that millions in donations for earthquake victims went to its own offices, salaries, consultants’ fees and travel, to Mr. Jean’s brother-in-law for projects never realized, to materials for temporary houses never built and to accountants dealing with its legal troubles.
On the ground in Haiti, little lasting trace of Yéle’s presence can be discerned. The walled country estate leased for its headquarters, on which the charity lavished $600,000, is deserted. Yéle’s street cleaning crews have been disbanded. The Yéle-branded tents and tarps have mostly disintegrated; one camp leader said they had not seen Yéle, which is based in New York, since Mr. Jean was disqualified as a presidential candidate because he lives in Saddle River, N.J., not Haiti.
Yéle was small before the earthquake, with only $37,000 in assets. Immediately afterward, money started pouring in. Mr. Jean said he raised $1 million in 24 hours when he urged his Twitter followers to text donations. His charity also benefited alongside more established organizations like Unicef when he co-hosted MTV’s “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon with George Clooney.
In 2010, Yéle spent $9 million and half went to travel, to salaries and consultants’ fees and to expenses related to their offices and warehouse. In contrast, another celebrity charity, Sean Penn’s J/P Haitian Relief Organization, spent $13 million with only 10 percent going to those costs.
Though Mr. Penn’s group spent $43,000 on office-related expenses, Yéle spent $1.4 million, including $375,000 for “landscaping” and $37,000 for rent to Mr. Jean’s Manhattan recording studio. Yéle spent $470,440 on its own food and beverages.
Some of Yéle’s programming money went to projects that never came to fruition: temporary homes for which it prepaid $93,000; a medical center to have been housed in geodesic domes for which it paid $146,000; the revitalization of a plaza in the Cité Soleil slum, where supposed improvements that cost $230,000 are nowhere to be seen.
There were questionable contracts, too: Mr. Jean’s brother-in-law, Eric Warnel Pierre, collected about $630,000 for three projects including the medical center and the plaza — what Yéle’s tax forms called “the rebuilding of Haiti.” Mr. Pierre did not respond to messages left for him.
In his auto-biography titled “Purpose: An Immigrant’s Story”, Wyclef denies any financial wrongdoing stating “I have a watch collection worth $500,000” and that doubters will someday understand Yéle is Haiti’s greatest asset and ally.”Full Story

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