VIDEO:Grammy-winning band Arcade Fire visits PIH sites in Haiti

Arcade Fire performs outside PIH's hospital in Cange, Haiti.

	Arcade Fire performs for patients and staff.
	The band tours Mirebalais Hospital construction site.

Members of the rock band Arcade Fire, winners of this year’s Grammy for Best Album, visited PIH projects throughout Haiti last week. In addition to performing informal concerts for patients and staff, the musicians came to learn more about PIH’s work and the issues faced by the communities PIH works with.

Arcade Fire has supported PIH since 2007. During that time the band has raised over $1 million for PIH’s work in Haiti. More than that, they have introduced thousands of their own supporters to PIH. 

After reading Tracy Kidder’s book Mountains Beyond Mountains, the group contacted PIH to ask how they could help. Since then, their support has included organizing special fundraising events and donating a portion of ticket sales from recent concert tours to support PIH’s work. Last year, they licensed their hit song “Wake Up” to the NFL for a series of commercials, donating all proceeds to PIH’s work in Haiti. 

In addition, the band’s relationship with Haiti runs deep. Cofounders Win Butler and his wife Régine Chassagne have always remembered Régine’s Haitian roots; her family emigrated from Haiti to Canada before she was born. Fans know that Win sometimes decorates his guitar with the Haitian proverb “sak vide pa kanpe”—“an empty sack cannot stand up”—as a reminder of the crushing poverty that afflicts Haiti.

Chassagne and Butler, along with the rest of the band—Richard Reed Parry, William Butler, Tim Kingsbury, Sarah Neufeld, Marika Shaw, and Jeremy Gara—have supported relief work in Haiti through donations and, equally importantly, by spreading the word around the world about Haiti and PIH’s work.