Rendez-vous: Haiti

Peace and Justice: Pamela White on Haiti

11/6/2023

In a recent Bunting Peace and Justice speaker series at Loyola's McGuire Hall, former US ambassador to Haiti, Pamela White, shed light on the alarming situation in Haiti. Addressing a captivated audience, White discussed the current sociopolitical climate of Haiti in light of the recent presidential assassination and ensuing violence.

White ardently described the escalating gang violence in Haiti, emphasizing that the situation has become uncontrollable. White presented three solutions: deploying US Marines, UN troops, or strengthening the Haitian police; the current "Kenyan Solution" proposes the deployment of multinational troops to support local law enforcement but there is no infrastructure to support this. In support of finding a solution, White passionately emphasized Haiti's moral significance, pointing to its rich historical ties and cultural values.

While government organizations have offered short-term solutions, White emphasized the importance of consistent non-profit involvement. Small nonprofits in support of Haiti have steadily responded to crises, unlike bureaucratic government organizations. Their adaptability and direct community connections have enabled them to fill vital gaps left by government aid, making them indispensable in times of need. At the end of her talk, White criticized the current governmental solutions and praised the consistency of small NGOs. Her powerful conclusion resonated: "If we can’t help a country an hour from our own shores, then we should be disgusted with our government."

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March 2020 Solidarity continued

8/6/2020

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After consulting with Maud Laurent, we decided it would be safe for me to come to Haiti for a short time.  I knew I could depend on her and I followed her guidance, staying within the premise of the Foyer and asking the project leaders or artists to come to the Foyer. I departed Haiti the day the State department declared it a level 4, red, no travel zone!

How can this country with so much beauty, creativity and resourcefulness be again plagued by political corruption and renewed economic struggle leading to dire poverty, violence and misery!
It is timely for us to show, once more, that we can be in solidarity with people caught in a web of poverty.

In my short stay and because of Maud's ability to communicate and her motivation to make sure my stay is useful, a lot was accomplished.
Thanks to the help of the supporters of Rendez-vous: Haiti, together we accomplished the following:

The letter exchanged with my French 104 students at Loyola University continued and for the first time also a video clip of LUM made by French 201 classes . A similar video clip to introduce the life of Haitian young people living at the Foyer NDL was produced by the older girls of the Foyer and then shown in my class.

Among requested donations, there were razors for hair cuts and a maxi-blender to puree protein rich beans, 6 soccer balls, 1000 vitamins, toiletries, 25 pairs of flip-flops.

RVH also funded for a special meal, high school fees and transportation for 8 students

Checked on A. after his operation. He has been in a lot of pain and his legs itch under the plaster and dressing. Maud hired a full-time nurse to care for him and keep him from hurting himself by doing things he is not supposed to do, like setting foot on the floor or asking his friends to bring him a saw so he can take his casts off! The nurse is also trying to entertain him a little and stimulate him with schoolwork until he can join his friends again.

We also took a leap and gave funds ( $ 500) for  F. , a young man who was part of the original building crew of the Foyer, so he might get his four months old son a VP shunt for the hydro encephalitic condition he was born with but the prognosis is grim.

Met with 15 young adults who are living in the Transition House. Four more beds, more plates and electricity are needed. They retrieve water at the Foyer but they are still not cooking any meals nor are they paying any type of rent. Several have been hired to work at the Foyer, others given loans to start mini businesses. These young adults have become dependent and they struggle to understand that “Mamie Maud and Tatie Jo” have no obligations to keep supporting every aspects of their lives.  At the end of the meeting, everyone had agreed to contribute something every month starting in April, towards the electricity installation and I pledged Rendez-vous: Haiti would help with the balance. The hope is that this goal will get them used to contribute some funds towards their costs of living.  Now RVH has to find the electricity installation cost… by June!

Because of the unrest in Haiti, volunteers from France, Canada and the US have stopped coming regularly to the Foyer. The funds contributed by the volunteers allowed Maud to pay for food (other than rice and a broken rice/soy combination), hygiene needs, salaries, school tuition and transportation for high-schoolers among other imperatives.  To qualify as partner of a very large international non-profit charitable organization that promises support for a three to five year term, the Foyer must adhere to strict rules, stricter than those required for the current licensing by Haitian social services and those include a larger staff; one staff member for every 8 children.

The Robinson entrepreneurship initiatives are working for five women and our agent in Haiti is scanning new potential recipients of our loans. He must exert caution so as not to be perceived as the one with lots of spare moneys which would put him and his family in danger.  Three candidates are being assessed currently, one for a moto-taxi service, another for a phone charging station and a third for jeans sales.  My trip saved Western Union and bank fees and $ 500 were left in his reliable hands . A Loyola senior Evelis Casey, two time volunteer in Haiti is the  connection between our agent and RVH.

Maud and I were able to spend a lot of time defining a grant application to bring her additional support. A Loyola student, previous volunteer with me in Haiti, Julia Kasmouski has been working on this. In addition, we discussed the concept of the Community Health Center for which a major fund raiser will take place but has to be unfortunately postponed because of the Corona virus.

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Report of August 2019

9/23/2019

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by Catherine SavelL

What has been done:

The boys of the Foyer Notre Dame de Lourdes are maturing as artists and craftsmen, producing beautiful paintings and coconut bark earrings. In addition, this summer, the girls learned to make “papier mâché” bowls and colorful tropical fish mobiles.

I brought two more sewing machines to the Foyer just in time to prepare all the mandatory uniforms for the beginning of school. Also brought needed sandals and very appreciated cleats (Thank you St. Pius X church parishioners)
In addition to last year’s sponsorship of 15 children, we offered school registration fees for 2 more children.

Very happy to visit in person “Petit 2melé” (“little resourceful”), the convenience store/café started and managed by Edouardson. Brought up at the Foyer, now 25 years old, he is showing initiative, resourcefulness, grit and imagination. He fixed a nice little place not too far from the sea in a quiet country setting. Not only does he have a TV thanks to students of Loyola University but now he also has a solar panel, inverter and battery pack that enable him to have electricity. With his new DVD player and some movies and he is planning weekend movie nights for his community. This should enable him to generate a better revenue sufficient to live independently and care for his sister who has recently joined him.

Exciting also to see 9 of the older girls and 4 of the older boys settling in “Jo’s house”, the transition house we helped renovate. Not easy for them: they say the neighbors think they have been rejected by the Foyer and so look down on them! We worked on changing those perceptions and setting up a structure to make this space viable. The young adults came up with their own rules and everyone will chip in. The boys are all employed at the Foyer thanks to the generosity of Pauline, a Canadian volunteer and we are funding three salaries for six months for three girls that have important responsibilities in the kitchen and caring for the younger children. The other 6 girls have formed three teams and are starting small businesses (cosmetics sales, bread sales, and undergarment & school supplies sales). This means that all the participants of the house will have some funds to contribute to the expenses of water and hopefully propane for cooking at least some of the meals. We left funds for Jo to buy a water tank and she is hoping to get a hose long enough to get water from the Foyer. Right now, the transition house has no kitchen, no water and no electricity. I am anxious to see what the $1,300 raised by the RVH club and campus ministry mass donations at Loyola, that I gave to Tatie Jo, will accomplish

Finally, I met with Bully and Fredeline and refined the Robinson Project: a micro-credit endeavor. Named for the initiator and first funder, Andy Robinson in honor of his son, Thomas, class of 2014 at Loyola University, this venture is linking a current Loyola student, Evelis Casey (who volunteered twice at the Foyer) to the mentoring done by Bully and Fredeline in Haiti. Six women will get loans at 2% to create their own small business. Starting date? Week of August 21, 2019.

What’s next?

Latest urgent issue: the neighbors of the Foyer have complained that teens from the Foyer go over the fence at night and into their yards! So, responding to Maud’s request, RVH will fund fence modifications in the amount of $2,000
RVH seeks to fund the salaries for the mothers who are being hired by the Foyer to work there. This is part of the “family reunification” efforts promoted by organizations such as UNICEF and the social services of Haiti. Women are provided a rented house for one year, given a maximum of $ 500 and the children they had placed in homes, such as the Foyer are sent back to them, in one case familiar to me, as many as 5 children, all at once. These mothers are not prepared to manage and are unable to make this money generate the revenue they need and will need. So, Maud is attempting to hire the mothers as laundress; the children can still attend school at the Foyer, all eat there but at the end of the day all go home with their mother. RVH has started paying the salary of one of these mothers, Mme François.
It was about 5 am on my last day at the Foyer when the fan stopped!! This may not seem like a big deal, but in Haiti and at the Foyer, this means the mosquitoes and the flies make you their breakfast AND that the pump in the water well doesn’t work, therefore there is not enough water for everyone ( about 140 people ) to take their morning shower. This happened because the visiting dentist had plugged his sterilizer for one hour the night before!!!! There is power from the city about 10 % of the time, the rest of the time, the Foyer relies on the solar panels to have done their job. It had been overcast and rained the day before, so the battery packs hadn’t had a chance to fill up. Power for lights, two refrigerators, a freezer, a coffee maker and a toaster used by volunteers are all the capacity of the current installation, anything else is an overload.
RVH is inviting our two representatives Bully and Fredeline to come to the US in the Fall (a first for both of them) This will be ten days of visits, roundtable discussions, idea exchanges and learning for all . The Loyola students will learn about the challenges of a developing economy and the Robinson micro-credit project. Bully and Fredeline will learn about what is done along those lines downtown Baltimore and also have a chance to brainstorm with students and faculty from the Sellinger school to get ideas about how to grow the Robinson program and their own existing small shops. Bully has a small wholesale shop and Fredeline, a clothing stall.

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October 2018 Report

3/27/2019

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US State Department yet again travel warning… and the plane heading to Haiti is half filled with Americans! At the airport in Port au Prince, my friends greet me with a large smile and open arms as they always do. Thanks to the ticket offered by Mission Integration of Loyola University Maryland, soon I am back at the Foyer and the surprised children, unprepared for my arrival, run to me, calling my name, jumping with joy, big grins on their faces, ready for hugs and kisses. All so familiar by now, but this warm welcome reminds me of why I keep coming back.

Thanks to the generous support of Rendez-vous: Haiti’s friends, I brought shoes, clothing, jewelry for a start-up boutique stall, four solar powered chargers, funds for 8 months electricity bill, two new sewing machines to make and repair school uniforms and we are able to cover the tuition for the second year at the university so that Mirlaine and Samuel can hope to become teachers. During the summer they both worked at the Foyer and each earned a few dollars that will be used for books, and such things as printing the required documents. Maud gives them rice to eat that they can prepare themselves. Their issues remain to feed themselves (how to purchase the needed propane to cook with and other ingredients to flavor the rice and have a more complete diet? They also need the rent money and funds to pay for electricity and to buy drinking water. To make things harder, Maud has recently been told that all 6 young adults living in this location will have to vacate the premises because the owner is taking his house back. Maud is actively looking for a new place for the young adults that must leave the Foyer by law when they are over 18 years old.

Agnes

Our solution is to fix the home of Jo: this devoted woman who takes care of the children daily, cooking, dressing, and solving the multiple issues of life and soothing the sleep the latest baby abandoned at the Foyer. Agnes, 8 months old now, has taken over Maud’s double bed while Maud sleeps on a cot by her side, she is cherished by all! Few babies get this much devotion from so many: a truly heart-warming sight! It is still a wonder for me to see how welcome and loved each new baby is in this bustling home already so filled with children.

One of my goals on this trip was to catch up with the young woman I met at the airport in July. She is an American and a nurse who recently married a Haitian translator. Maud had been looking for an English teacher and Haley jumped at the opportunity to get some income and get to know a project involving children. I attended her classes, taught the other two and we talked about pedagogy. She has never taught before but is eager to learn… and available for a very reasonable cost. The day I arrived, she was taking polaroid shots of the students and had them write on index cards what their strengths and qualities were: a good way to help them build confidence, feel special and …..learn English. RVH is funding this new initiative for three months trial period hoping to find the funds to help Haley learn more about teaching ESOL with an online course as well as pay her salary for the rest of the school year. Our $320 a month investment in this program seems very reasonable when considering learning English is such a valuable tool to gain jobs. She teaches in the two new high-school classes that opened this fall on the campus of the Foyer and must follow the curriculum set by the Haitian government.

Bully - Fredline - Edouardson with the certificate of recognition they made for me.

My presence in Haiti also enabled me to have lengthy conversations with Bully, Fredline and Edouardson in particular.

Edouardson has decided to try to find a life in Grand Goave. Being an orphan, now 25 years old struggling for everyday food and not finding employment has been hard. He has been doing the necessary research, knows he can live cheaper and set up a business with less start-up funding if he is outside of Port au Prince. His plan is to start a café with a TV and to show films and soccer games for instance, in a fairly populated area where this kind of facility doesn’t exist. We have roughly estimated he could pay a year’s rent for the little house he found and get started (including building a basic bathroom) for $5,000. After mentoring him for 7 months, watching him struggle to provide for himself, I feel he has what it takes to succeed. He and I worked on a Kiva profile to help him raise the needed funds. As soon as it is ready, we will promote it on our Facebook page and…keep our fingers crossed.

As for Bully and his girlfriend Fredline now in her final year of civic engineering, it was really neat to spend an afternoon with them and go over their accomplishments and future plans. RVH provided seed money for the revolving funds that will be used to give the selected 6 adults a start in their micro-businesses. We hope this loan will stimulate the immediate area in Tabarre while providing an income for desperately poor women. Bully and Fredline interviewed 32 families and heard the ideas and plans that they had if only they could have some startup funds. Out of these, 6 made sense. Bully and Fredline will draw a contract indicating the terms of the loan and repayment schedule. The plan is to then help another group of people. We are all three aware of the weighty challenges this project presents and the real possibility that it will fail. The feeling is that, to try is better than to do nothing and that there is a very real possibility that the micro-businesses will succeed at least for some of the 6 candidates. This is happening thanks to the trust and generosity of friends of RVH.

Our other contributions were compensation for Belo’s unsolicited metal sculptures that helped him pay his tuition, pay the children for their crafts and art production. I was delighted to see how Jean Mark’s work has evolved and as always, am impressed by Samuel’s paintings and the way he brings the mundane scenes he paints to life! My trip also allowed me brings the latest increment of support for the 13 children sponsored by friends of RVH. This $40 a month donation is one of the main resources of funds for supporting as well as covering the cost of educating the 129 children currently at the Foyer. Other groups also involved in this system are Grandir en Haiti from France and Fendli from Canada and we are always looking for more committed donors.

Finally, one of the many fun things I get to do when in Haiti is to purchase Haitian craft for our fundraisers. I am always amazed by this country’s beautiful and colorful creativity. And this time, in addition to mamba (peanut butter), I was also able to buy cookies produced in the new bakery at the Foyer. Students in French 104 at Loyola are getting this treat! They wrote, as part of their course assignments, letters for the children at the Foyer and are receiving some letters back. This year for the first time, some students also volunteered a few video clips showing the life on Loyola’s campus and Thelus in Haiti did the same to show our students a glimpse of the life at the Foyer.

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Summer 2018 achievements

9/10/2018

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July 6th, my plane is about to land in Port au Prince, Maud Laurent is at the airport with a few boys as usual, when the pilot announces the airport is on lockdown and we are re-routed to the Dominican Republic. A 40 % gasoline price increase unleashes total chaos, riots, looting and road blockages. I didn’t make it to Haiti this summer. BUT, there is WhatsApp! And so, I can report on what is going on.

Rendez-vous: Haiti is pleased with the progresses made by several of our “youngsters"

We are supporting Fedeline, who graduated from nursing school in December 2017 and has been taking mandatory internships. She should be done at the end of September. Fedeline is one of the oldest children of the Foyer, dearly loved by all: she can do anything that needs to be done when she is at the Foyer and the little ones in particular are very attached to her.

Fenel is making me particularly proud: thanks to the Delco we provided him, he is able to work at welding and he recently got a job on a large project in Jacmel. He was injured fairly seriously in late May and had to use the money he had put aside for his sister’s tuition for his own medical bills. RVH paid for her whole year in school. We have been mentoring Fenel for a few years and Maud Laurent facilitated his training in iron work.

Edouardson successfully sold all the spice mix “ Epis Lakay” he invented but didn’t charge enough to replenish his stock! Maud was so impressed with him that she gave him a job running the little café at the car wash.

We are funding a workshop for him to learn about Marketing and public relation. He is going to teach what he learns to Bully and Fredeline who are both also taking business seminars. RVH funds three different ones with the condition that each of the grant receiver teaches what he learns to two other people and I get a report from those who are taught. The goal is to help all of them become successful small entrepreneurs.

Bully is supporting his family, including the little boy he adopted, with “ ABC market”, the wholesale store we helped him start. He and three other friends distributed school supplies to 32 families after identifying that indeed this was the obstacle to them sending their child to school

RVH is very happy with this local initiative and we look forward to more projects from this group of young Haitians.

The last week of August, the Foyer saw the installation of a digital media classroom and eleven teachers received the preliminary training to begin changing their pedagogy from rote memorization to more interactive learning. RVH funded the week-long workshop. This is a project started by Grandir en Haiti and funded by the Agence de Développement in France.

So, no visit from me but a lot is still going on and I am delighted to report that we were also able to send the sponsorship funds in time to start the school year on September 5.

Of course none of this would be possible without the generosity of the children’s 13 sponsors (Giuliana Robberto-Risso, John Hebb, Teri Louden, Janice Sanna (x3), Tracy Sanna, Angela Christman, Philippe Bruno, Andrea Giampetro-Meyer, Liz Sax, Nicola McQuiston, Kathy Forni, Andy and Isabelle Robinson, Heidi Brown) and in particular this summer Fr. Tim Brown, Association Terre des Montagnes, Marc Bilodeau and our most generous donor Bob Freson! To all of them and all of you, a heartfelt THANK YOU!

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Peace and Justice: Pamela White on Haiti

March 2020 Solidarity continued

Report of August 2019

by Catherine SavelL

October 2018 Report

Summer 2018 achievements

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