WWW.YELEHAITI.ORG - Wyclef Jean - PASSION/PAIN/PROGRESS

Wyclef Jean and his Yele Haiti movement is heading up an effort to provide food, water and other essentials to a number of non-profit organizations that are helping to stabilize the lives of more than 600,000 people who were cut off from food supplies and displaced by the storms that have battered the country over the past few weeks, according to a press release. Jean's "Haiti Storm Relief Fund" also will provide tents, blankets, medical supplies, hygiene kits and money to the non-profits responding to the emergency.

Haiti's regional, historical, and ethnolinguistic position is unique for several reasons. It was the first independent nation in the Caribbean, the first post-colonial independent black-led nation in the world, and the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful slave rebellion. Haiti is the only predominantly Francophone nation in the Caribbean, and one of only two in North America (along with Canada) which designate French as an official language; the other French-speaking North American countries are all overseas départements of France.