President Obama and his new economic team, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have a huge job ahead of them. They will be facing down a growing economic crisis and recession in the United States from day one.

But while we must work for economic justice at home, we must also not forget our brothers and sisters across the globe in this time of need.  That’s why Haiti Reborn is joining Jubilee USA and the What’s On Your Heart? Campaign.

Haiti's debt is odious and onerous. Odious because over half the debt is for loans given to "Baby Doc" Duvalier and other dictators, who diverted the proceeds to luxury goods and repressive thugs, leaving the poor peasants, market women and factory workers to pay the tab. The debt is onerous because the debt payments- $56 million this year- literally kill. The payments divert money away from public health and sanitation programs. In a country where half the people struggle to survive on less than $1 a day, that means children getting sick from drinking unhealthy water and dying for lack of simple antibiotics.

Haiti's creditors—the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank—recognize this injustice and have accepted Haiti into their debt relief programs. But their solution is as unjust as the problem: the debt relief programs impose harmful economic conditions- including immediate cuts in government healthcare and education programs, while the debt programs will not provide relief for at least two years. In the meantime, Haiti's government will have paid the creditors $138 million in principle and interest, and tens of thousands of children will have died from drinking water. The lucky ones will have grown older without learning how to read.

Go to Jubilee USA and tell Secretary Geithner and the Obama Administration to cancel Haiti's debt.