Over the last few decades there has been a striking upsurge in both severity and frequency of disasters worldwide. Developing countries are typically most devastated because of geographical location, economic status, and socio-political structure. People and governments of wealthier nations feel the need to provide relief after disaster strikes from natural hazardous events, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, or human causes such as war. Although it continues to evolve, international aid is repeatedly criticized for being detached, myopic, redundant, negligent, corrupt, and sometimes actually hinder recuperation of aid beneficiaries. One way to combat these criticisms is by involving disaster-affected people in their own recovery. Rather than short-term handouts that create and perpetuate dependency, participatory programs build long-term investment in their communities thereby increasing initiative success and enhancing the quality of life of marginalized people recovering from disaster. This thesis takes an ethnographic look at the first year of recovery after the January 12, 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti, a beautiful island of perpetually marginalized people, based on a participation continuum of disaster-affected person. The continuum consists of five participation levels: no participation, labor, consultant to recovery organizations, partnerships, and community owned initiatives. Responses from disaster-affected people, volunteers (foreign and domestic), aid organization representatives, and community leaders were all used to understand the benefits and challenges of participation in sustainably producing self-sufficient communities with capacity to cope with future hazardous events without overwhelming their resources.