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Notes
Posted 5 months ago
From Francoise Leon, Child Advocate in Port-au-Prince Haiti. Katrine-Louise is 15 years old. She is from the south of Haiti, near Les Cayes. I met her in the street in Port-au-Prince. She’s been a restavek since she was 10 years old, but this coming school year, she will be a new student in our Child Advocacy Program. Each time I look in a new face and hear about a young girl or boy’s hardships I am saddened and sometimes overcome by the gravity of this problem in Haiti. I remind myself that her story is not over and I hope that by this time next year I will have a better story to tell you about how Katrine-Louise is doing. For now, here is her story… When Katrine’s mother died, her father took her to live with a woman where she became a restavek. That woman has 4 kids and she sends all of them to school. But she told Katrine: “I don’t have any money to send you to school”. Every day, Katrine wakes up at 5 AM and goes to sleep at about 11 PM. She has to cook, clean the house and the yard, make the dishes, carry water, do the laundry, go out every now and then to buy things for the woman’s use. She works all the time. When she doesn’t finish her work, her host aunt beats her. Her father used to visit her sometimes, but she was afraid to explain him her situation. If she does and her father would talk to the woman about it that would just mean another beating. One day, she couldn’t resist any longer, she called her cousin and asked her if she would accept her to come to live with her because the cousin had her own house. Now, for about one year she’s been living with her cousin. She hoped her situation would be better, but there was not really great improvement, only, her cousin doesn’t beat her. She still works very hard and has no chance to go to school. Every day she cooks for her cousin, who sells soup in the market place. Each morning she has to cook 5 big pans of soup and get all of the utensils and bowls ready before 5 am. Katrine doesn’t have enough time to sleep. And she doesn’t have enough to eat. Katrine, does not eat soup. Her cousin leaves her without food every day, until evening. She says “if you can’t eat soup, that’s your business, I can’t give you money to buy yourself something else to eat while there’s plenty of soup here.” It is hard to realize how brave Katrine was to call her cousin and how much she hoped to find a better life, but she is not yet living the “better life”. What saddened me the most – perhaps - was when she told me “Well, I guess I would say that they treat me well, because my cousin doesn’t beat me and she buys some clothes for me too sometimes.” Is this the best that Katrine - or other children in Haiti - can hope for: to not be beaten and have clothes sometimes. I want so much more for her, for all of the children of Haiti. I want her to know what it feels like to be loved, to laugh out loud, to have time – even a little - to jump rope or play jacks. The best news is: she is now in our program. And that means there is something in my power that I can do. I can offer Katrine encouragement and care for her, meet with her teachers and her cousin and talk with her and show her that there is at least one person out there that is pulling for her – ME! Zoom

From Francoise Leon, Child Advocate in Port-au-Prince Haiti.

Katrine-Louise is 15 years old. She is from the south of Haiti, near Les Cayes. I met her in the street in Port-au-Prince. She’s been a restavek since she was 10 years old, but this coming school year, she will be a new student in our Child Advocacy Program. Each time I look in a new face and hear about a young girl or boy’s hardships I am saddened and sometimes overcome by the gravity of this problem in Haiti. I remind myself that her story is not over and I hope that by this time next year I will have a better story to tell you about how Katrine-Louise is doing. For now, here is her story…

When Katrine’s mother died, her father took her to live with a woman where she became a restavek. That woman has 4 kids and she sends all of them to school. But she told Katrine: “I don’t have any money to send you to school”.

Every day, Katrine wakes up at 5 AM and goes to sleep at about 11 PM. She has to cook, clean the house and the yard, make the dishes, carry water, do the laundry, go out every now and then to buy things for the woman’s use. She works all the time. When she doesn’t finish her work, her host aunt beats her. Her father used to visit her sometimes, but she was afraid to explain him her situation. If she does and her father would talk to the woman about it that would just mean another beating.

One day, she couldn’t resist any longer, she called her cousin and asked her if she would accept her to come to live with her because the cousin had her own house. Now, for about one year she’s been living with her cousin. She hoped her situation would be better, but there was not really great improvement, only, her cousin doesn’t beat her. She still works very hard and has no chance to go to school. Every day she cooks for her cousin, who sells soup in the market place. Each morning she has to cook 5 big pans of soup and get all of the utensils and bowls ready before 5 am. Katrine doesn’t have enough time to sleep. And she doesn’t have enough to eat. Katrine, does not eat soup. Her cousin leaves her without food every day, until evening. She says “if you can’t eat soup, that’s your business, I can’t give you money to buy yourself something else to eat while there’s plenty of soup here.”

It is hard to realize how brave Katrine was to call her cousin and how much she hoped to find a better life, but she is not yet living the “better life”. What saddened me the most – perhaps - was when she told me “Well, I guess I would say that they treat me well, because my cousin doesn’t beat me and she buys some clothes for me too sometimes.” Is this the best that Katrine - or other children in Haiti - can hope for: to not be beaten and have clothes sometimes. I want so much more for her, for all of the children of Haiti. I want her to know what it feels like to be loved, to laugh out loud, to have time – even a little - to jump rope or play jacks.

The best news is: she is now in our program. And that means there is something in my power that I can do. I can offer Katrine encouragement and care for her, meet with her teachers and her cousin and talk with her and show her that there is at least one person out there that is pulling for her – ME!

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Notes
Posted 7 months ago
By Adorah Pierre, Child Advocate This week I discovered a lot of things, but one thing in particular really struck me. In this work as a Child Advocate in Port-au-Prince, I meet and come to know many different children and their lives, but this week I spoke with a girl named Katie* and her story really impacted me. Her story is not too different than the other children I met with last week; it is a story full of sadness. Katie explained to me: “I live with my aunt, but it is not the kind of life I expected. She’s sometimes kind with me if I have all of my work done. My aunt is not the one who gives me many problems because she’s not there most of the day because she works. Her daughter, however, is really hard on me. She beats me a lot, blames me without any reason. That hurts me, I feel sad and I don’t like when people treat me badly, I feel exhausted living in this condition”. She ended her story differently than the other children I’ve spoken to and it really impacted me. I understood a new painful reality that I had suspected, but was not sure about. Katie said that when she is alone, she often imagines bringing harm to herself, she thinks her life is too much of a mess. I realized that many of the children I know and meet with may also be thinking of suicide, but perhaps would not be as brave as Katie to tell me. Because they don’t have the privilege to live with their biological parent, they come to feel that nobody loves them. Because they are beaten and talked down to, treated as nothing every single day, it is often difficult for them to see a future that offers anything positive. Hearing the sorrow from Katie is heart breaking. It makes me see my work is so important. It is not just to help children in restavek get an education, but to make sure they know they are valuable and that there are many, many people pulling for them. Restavek Freedom is about ending child slavery in totality and today, for me, that means that my job is to help Katie find hope. Thank you, to all of you who are supporting this work, my work, Katie and all of the children in our program. Zoom

By Adorah Pierre, Child Advocate

This week I discovered a lot of things, but one thing in particular really struck me. In this work as a Child Advocate in Port-au-Prince, I meet and come to know many different children and their lives, but this week I spoke with a girl named Katie* and her story really impacted me.

Her story is not too different than the other children I met with last week; it is a story full of sadness. Katie explained to me: “I live with my aunt, but it is not the kind of life I expected. She’s sometimes kind with me if I have all of my work done. My aunt is not the one who gives me many problems because she’s not there most of the day because she works. Her daughter, however, is really hard on me. She beats me a lot, blames me without any reason. That hurts me, I feel sad and I don’t like when people treat me badly, I feel exhausted living in this condition”.

She ended her story differently than the other children I’ve spoken to and it really impacted me. I understood a new painful reality that I had suspected, but was not sure about. Katie said that when she is alone, she often imagines bringing harm to herself, she thinks her life is too much of a mess.

I realized that many of the children I know and meet with may also be thinking of suicide, but perhaps would not be as brave as Katie to tell me. Because they don’t have the privilege to live with their biological parent, they come to feel that nobody loves them. Because they are beaten and talked down to, treated as nothing every single day, it is often difficult for them to see a future that offers anything positive.

Hearing the sorrow from Katie is heart breaking. It makes me see my work is so important. It is not just to help children in restavek get an education, but to make sure they know they are valuable and that there are many, many people pulling for them. Restavek Freedom is about ending child slavery in totality and today, for me, that means that my job is to help Katie find hope.

Thank you, to all of you who are supporting this work, my work, Katie and all of the children in our program.

Photo
Posted 8 months ago
One of our newest staff members in Haiti, Osbert Victor, reflects on his first weeks working with Restavek Freedom… Coming to the Restavek Freedom Foundation has impacted my life already. I was reminded of how important it is to give affection to every single child no matter what their state or appearance could be; beautiful or not, clean or dirty, happy or sad, each one of them needs special and sustainable attention and someone to help them look forward to the future. Every kid needs to be treated with respect so they can feel they are somebody.  I met some children last week and talking with them about their living conditions made me feel a great sadness deep inside. Those kids took me into my past, when I was taken from my parents’ house to a host family. They were telling me stuff about what their expectations were when they first got to the families that they live with and how it felt when they found out they couldn’t get home, education, food, protection, affection, etc. It’s like they ran from the rain into the river. Some of them told me if things home could be ok, they would go back home.  Above all that, what saddened me the most were the ones who don’t even know if they have a parent or not. I feel honored and privileged to help save those children by working together with Restavek Freedom organization to realize our tremendous dreams for those children who are suffering and scattered throughout Haiti. I believe that every single child has a future and the right to accomplish their destiny. Zoom

One of our newest staff members in Haiti, Osbert Victor, reflects on his first weeks working with Restavek Freedom…

Coming to the Restavek Freedom Foundation has impacted my life already. I was reminded of how important it is to give affection to every single child no matter what their state or appearance could be; beautiful or not, clean or dirty, happy or sad, each one of them needs special and sustainable attention and someone to help them look forward to the future. Every kid needs to be treated with respect so they can feel they are somebody.

 I met some children last week and talking with them about their living conditions made me feel a great sadness deep inside. Those kids took me into my past, when I was taken from my parents’ house to a host family. They were telling me stuff about what their expectations were when they first got to the families that they live with and how it felt when they found out they couldn’t get home, education, food, protection, affection, etc. It’s like they ran from the rain into the river. Some of them told me if things home could be ok, they would go back home.

 Above all that, what saddened me the most were the ones who don’t even know if they have a parent or not. I feel honored and privileged to help save those children by working together with Restavek Freedom organization to realize our tremendous dreams for those children who are suffering and scattered throughout Haiti. I believe that every single child has a future and the right to accomplish their destiny.

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Notes
Posted 10 months ago

Elizabeth reflects on Winterfest in Rochester, NY

A few months ago we created an interactive exhibit for Unbound, a student-led movement that helps people get involved in fighting modern day slavery. We shared Restavek: A Day in the Life at their annual conference and also at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center here in Cincinnati. It was so impactful that we are now getting many requests to bring the exhibit to other places.

A few weeks ago we packed ourselves into a borrowed Ford Explorer (thanks Camilla and Claude) and our exhibit into a borrowed horse trailer (thank you, Clint) and hauled it 500 miles north to Winterfest 2011 in Rochester, New York. Winterfest is a faith-based conference for high school and college students and this year they invited us to bring our exhibit and talk to students about the issue of restavek.

The exciting thing about this conference was that young people from all over the East Coast came, including many Haitians!

At Restavek Freedom our staff is almost all Haitian. I am one of just a few Americans out of 33 employees and my role is here in the US, so while I email, Skype or call our team in Port-au-Prince and hear stories about the children in our programs in Haiti, I don’t often get the chance to have live face-to-face interactions with hundreds of Haitians in one day. I was excited to be interacting with people who know and love Haiti and, to be honest, I was a little nervous.

I love to talk with people and have presented our work often to school groups, volunteers and basically, anyone who asks me what I do. Talking about restavek doesn’t make me nervous, generally speaking, but this time I would be in a crowd that already knew about restavek or perhaps even had a restavek in their home. I expected it would be a different experience entirely. Perhaps this time I would be asking rather than answering the questions.

I am kind of a justice news junkie. Reading about historical and modern day slavery and making connections between the two is part of my daily life. And I definitely keep an ear out for what Nicholas Kristof, IJM, Free the Slaves, and Sojourners are writing about and what (sorry to all you conservatives) NPR and Huffington Post are reporting on. After the weekend at Winterfest, I want to tell you that nothing - nothing at all - comes close to learning from people one on one, learning from people who have lived in Haiti and who have seen the cultural dynamic of restavek up close.

I met many wonderful and kind, insightful and friendly Haitians like Rebecca and Timothy, Djellounda and Saida (just to name a few). I am so thankful to them for sharing their perspectives. They articulated the difference between physical discipline to a biological child and abuse of a restavek. They shared their thoughts on whether the system could change and end. They shared their personal stories about their own childhoods, families and personal questions. Their stories reminded me that all of us are doing our best within our cultural norms.

The discussions reminded me of a concept from author and priest Henri Nouwen – that we are all susceptible to carrying out injustice simply by carrying on what is accepted in our cultures. It reminded me that given different circumstances I too could be living with a restavek child in my home. It reminded me to question my own behaviors and attitudes and examine what I may be doing that perpetuates injustice or marginalizes others.

Restavek Freedom lives by a principle that we will not demonize people who have restaveks. Adults who have children in restavek are doing so because they learned that it was ok, normal, and acceptable from the generations before them. This is why in addition to working directly with children our team in Haiti also spends much time talking with adults and inspiring new thinking that challenges the ways of prior generations.

Over the next few days I will post a few videos of some of the stories people shared at Winterfest. They are fascinating and helpful, insightful and sometimes sad. Most of all these stories give me hope. They show me that as we all begin to question our norms – whether Haitian or American, Korean or Mexican - we will move further away from the damaging practices of our past and toward a future full of justice and opportunity for all.

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Posted 11 months ago

Great meeting with parents, from Francoise.

Francoise, one of our Child Advocates in our Port-au-Prince office, writes about a recent meeting with host parents.

> Last Thursday, Nadine and I organized a meeting with some of the host parents of our children. The main goal, it was to talk them about the exam results of the kids. We believe the children can do better and wanted to motivate the parents to take their own responsabilities about the kids and give them time to study at home and do their homework.

We were very encouraged by the meeting. In addition to talking about the academic situation of the children, we also talked about the system of restavek. I asked them to think about two 8-year old children, one that was their own and one that was not. I then asked them to think about why one should do all the work, while the other child played and had freedom. Each of the parents gave their opinion. They all agreed, abusing a child is a terrible thing and they promised us, they are going to do their best to ameliorate the situation of the kids. I suggested to them that they could become leaders in their community and stand up against abuse and for the kind treatment of all children.

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Posted 11 months ago

Theories and Reasons

From Roslyn…

In my epidemiology classes we talk about infectious diseases mostly as they apply to developing countries.  There are always numbers thrown around—as they apply to public health.  As someone who has seen a little of the realities behind these numbers, I often find myself defending them.  I get defensive because I know that many who have not seen the context will only see the number and not the human beings and the lives behind those numbers.  Individuals and groups will be dehumanized, and in the end the poor themselves will be blamed for their own misfortunes.

In 2000 UNICEF estimated 300,000 children living in Restavek in Haiti.

It’s a big number, but the significance of this numerical value is intensified for those of us who have seen the innocent eyes, the withdrawn expressions, the small and calloused hands, the tiny dirty bare feet, the new scars on top of the old ones, and of course the hopelessness of it all.  Real children.     

There is a quote by Winston Churchill that usually puts things into perspective for me: “Once in a while you will stumble upon the truth, but most of us manage to pick ourselves up and hurry along as if nothing had happened.”  Sometimes as I retreat back to my home and think about the days work, I realize my defensiveness is not only because of my desire to show people the numbers mean much more than simple numbers in textbooks, but it is also my way of rationalizing the injustice.   If I could only understand why so many mothers die while giving birth or why parents send their children to live in servitude, than maybe it would make more sense in my head and I will feel more at ease in my world.  After all, would child servitude exist if there were not poverty?  My way of picking myself up is figuring out the so-called reasons.  As individuals sometimes we get caught up with the reasons and theories that we miss the point entirely. 

The danger is that these perceived reasons make us more comfortable with the problem and more willing to brush it off—as something that will pass when other problems are taken cared of.  For me, I pick myself up by continuing to live as I always did despite knowing that such a human’s rights violation exists.  It is an injustice that should not subsist—regardless of the reasons.

 

I am learning to put my energy and force less on defending my home country and people and more on teaching others what I know the 300,000 means and what I know can be done about it.   300,000 children in servitude may have to do with the fact that 80 % of this nation lives on less than a dollar a day or because our country is broken, but the biggest cause of child slavery is that so many of us are OK with the fact that children live in servitude.  Too many of us have picked ourselves up and continued on our way.   

The point is and has always been:  No child should be stuck in servitude—period.

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Posted 1 year ago

Reflecting on the year since the earthquake

     From Joan Conn, Executive Director

This coming Wednesday marks the one year anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti - a day likely all of us remember, whether we saw it on tv or lived through it in Port-au-Prince. It is painful to revisit those images and we are all remembering friends and family and children we have lost.

As the media come to take stock of what has changed since last January, it is disconcerting to hear the reports that nearly 365 days later there has been little progress.

I want to tell you that there has been progress in Haiti - and you have played a key role in impacting many lives in a positive way. I see progress every day in the faces of our staff who are giving so much of themselves to be creative and smart and tenacious in helping their country find hope. I see it every day in the stories about children who have been living in servitude and who are now increasingly finding joy and freedom despite the chaos around them. Do not lose faith in Haiti. There is progress and there is hope and hope looks like…

  • Hope looks like Oscar, who packed his backpack full of food and walked for hours in the mountains to look for children in our Advocacy Program and deliver food to those who needed it.
  • Hope looks like Dr. Glaud, who leaves Les Cayes every Friday night and takes a 5-hour bus ride to Carrefour Feuilles to give free medical care to people who line up outside our clinic starting at 4AM.
  • Hope looks like five girls moving out of abusive homes and into our Transitional Home and hearing them laugh and play hide and seek after school.
  • Hope looks like 426 children in restavek going to school and learning to read and write and 130 adult women also learning to write their names for the first time through our literacy program.
  • Hope looks like every one of you - every school, church, restaurant, company, group of friends, or individual - who decided not to stand on the sidelines, but to actively help people in need.

There is no denying that there is still tremendous need in Haiti, but please know that every single gift that was intended to help the people of Haiti after the earthquake has been deployed and children, families, and communities have benefitted from your generosity. Click here to see more stories of our progress. Please know that your contributions have brought much encouragement to people in Haiti and to me.

With gratitude,

Joan


Joan Conn
Executive Director
Restavek Freedom Foundation

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Posted 1 year ago
Roslyn talks about living and working in Haiti.  So I have been back in the US for nearly 4 months now.  Everyday I wake up, get dress and go about my American way of life as I did before I went to Haiti to work for the foundation.   It would seem that I am the same person that I was before my time in Haiti.  However there is one difference between who I was then and who I am now.  I now know slavery exists.  I am having trouble living with the fact that the same world that has given me so much is the same world that has taken so much away from them.              While in Haiti I served as the Child Advocate program coordinator.  I was responsible for managing a group of child advocates and keeping up with the children in our program.  I started out thinking I knew what I was doing, only to come to the realization that I did not.  I found out very fast that reading about restavek and child servitude in India is very different from actually working on the ground in Haiti.   Additionally, as many Americans who have worked in Haiti may have found out, the work culture in Haiti is very different from that in the US.  Firstly, there are many more obstacles in the way of getting things done.  For instance, to get to our partner schools by public transportation to see our children was often a 3 hour ordeal.  There were times when we would make the trip to see one child who we had not seen for a few days, only to get to the school and realize the school director decided not to have school that day.  Other times we would attempt to get to schools only to get half way and have to turn around because of violent riots in the streets.                Another important, and perhaps the most crucial, lesson I learned from my job was that my way of doing things is not always the best way.  I learned that to get work done efficiently I had to be able to humble myself and simply learn form those who know more about Haiti and the restavek system than I do.  I think often it is very easy for us who have lived or gotten educated in the west to believe that we know what is best for the poor.  We attempt to help people by teaching them our way of doing things.  This leads to the belittling of individuals and a disregard for their experiences and the things they know.  Naturally, this leads to a resistance of what people see as a dominant force.  We in turn have a difficult time understanding why people are resisting something that will be beneficial to them.  Being somewhat of an aggressive person, this lesson was difficult for me to take in.  However, at the end I had no choice; I was either going to continue trying to do things the way I have always done them and be frustrated or I was going to be a less aggressive and learn HOW to help children who in restavek.                     Along with managing the program I was also a child advocate for children in a few of our school partners.  This was the hardest part of my job.  So what does one say to a child who wakes up everyday living not as a child but as a slave?  And once a person has learned of such realities and heard the personal stories, what does one do with this knowledge? It turned out there was nothing I needed say.  I only had to listen and care.   As for what do I do with the stories that I was told; I hope that the stories I retell will motivate Haitians, Americans and the global community to take more action to end child slavery in Haiti.             As I reflect on my time in Haiti and especially the time right after the earthquake I wonder if I could not have been more helpful or acted in a way that meant a betterment in the life of more people.  After having settled down from the shock of having gone through an earthquake we set out to locate the 400+ children in our program.  Although we were able to find most, many were unaccounted for.  We assume many of them were sent back to the countryside, but we don’t know for sure.  The likely case scenario is that they continue to be restaveks at different locations.  Often, in my time of stillness their stories will come back to me and I am overwhelmed with the burden of knowing this reality exists.              In A Midsummer Nights Dream, Shakespeare closes the play by saying: “if we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended…if you pardon, we will mend.”  I suppose for those of us who work in the area of social justice, we relate to this idea well.  We play out the act as we think it should be played; when the time calls for it we give our best with sincere and honest hearts and hope that in some minimal way or another, what we did and the ways we chose to act will lead to some greater good.  We pray that our actions will be judged, not for the visible results or lack of, but for how they were intended.  Seeing as there are still so many children in servitude in Haiti as before my two years of working for the foundation, it is hard for me to see what I did as being of great significance.  I am a different person now than who I was before I went to Haiti because I can no longer live my everyday life without remembering that somewhere,  not too far away and in my birth country there are children living as slaves.   

Roslyn talks about living and working in Haiti. 

So I have been back in the US for nearly 4 months now.  Everyday I wake up, get dress and go about my American way of life as I did before I went to Haiti to work for the foundation.   It would seem that I am the same person that I was before my time in Haiti.  However there is one difference between who I was then and who I am now.  I now know slavery exists.  I am having trouble living with the fact that the same world that has given me so much is the same world that has taken so much away from them. 

            While in Haiti I served as the Child Advocate program coordinator.  I was responsible for managing a group of child advocates and keeping up with the children in our program.  I started out thinking I knew what I was doing, only to come to the realization that I did not.  I found out very fast that reading about restavek and child servitude in India is very different from actually working on the ground in Haiti.   Additionally, as many Americans who have worked in Haiti may have found out, the work culture in Haiti is very different from that in the US.  Firstly, there are many more obstacles in the way of getting things done.  For instance, to get to our partner schools by public transportation to see our children was often a 3 hour ordeal.  There were times when we would make the trip to see one child who we had not seen for a few days, only to get to the school and realize the school director decided not to have school that day.  Other times we would attempt to get to schools only to get half way and have to turn around because of violent riots in the streets.   

            Another important, and perhaps the most crucial, lesson I learned from my job was that my way of doing things is not always the best way.  I learned that to get work done efficiently I had to be able to humble myself and simply learn form those who know more about Haiti and the restavek system than I do.  I think often it is very easy for us who have lived or gotten educated in the west to believe that we know what is best for the poor.  We attempt to help people by teaching them our way of doing things.  This leads to the belittling of individuals and a disregard for their experiences and the things they know.  Naturally, this leads to a resistance of what people see as a dominant force.  We in turn have a difficult time understanding why people are resisting something that will be beneficial to them.  Being somewhat of an aggressive person, this lesson was difficult for me to take in.  However, at the end I had no choice; I was either going to continue trying to do things the way I have always done them and be frustrated or I was going to be a less aggressive and learn HOW to help children who in restavek.        

            Along with managing the program I was also a child advocate for children in a few of our school partners.  This was the hardest part of my job.  So what does one say to a child who wakes up everyday living not as a child but as a slave?  And once a person has learned of such realities and heard the personal stories, what does one do with this knowledge? It turned out there was nothing I needed say.  I only had to listen and care.   As for what do I do with the stories that I was told; I hope that the stories I retell will motivate Haitians, Americans and the global community to take more action to end child slavery in Haiti.

            As I reflect on my time in Haiti and especially the time right after the earthquake I wonder if I could not have been more helpful or acted in a way that meant a betterment in the life of more people.  After having settled down from the shock of having gone through an earthquake we set out to locate the 400+ children in our program.  Although we were able to find most, many were unaccounted for. 

We assume many of them were sent back to the countryside, but we don’t know for sure.  The likely case scenario is that they continue to be restaveks at different locations.  Often, in my time of stillness their stories will come back to me and I am overwhelmed with the burden of knowing this reality exists. 

            In A Midsummer Nights Dream, Shakespeare closes the play by saying:

“if we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended…if you pardon, we will mend.”  I suppose for those of us who work in the area of social justice, we relate to this idea well.  We play out the act as we think it should be played; when the time calls for it we give our best with sincere and honest hearts and hope that in some minimal way or another, what we did and the ways we chose to act will lead to some greater good.  We pray that our actions will be judged, not for the visible results or lack of, but for how they were intended.  Seeing as there are still so many children in servitude in Haiti as before my two years of working for the foundation, it is hard for me to see what I did as being of great significance.  I am a different person now than who I was before I went to Haiti because I can no longer live my everyday life without remembering that somewhere,  not too far away and in my birth country there are children living as slaves.   

Video 1
Notes
Posted 1 year ago

A few people from our US office - Joan and Ray Conn and Camilla Warren - were in Haiti for the past few weeks, including Thanksgiving.  Our team from Port au Prince and their families and our US folks got together and had Thanksgiving dinner - though we did serve rice and beans Haitian style too!

This year we really did have much to be thankful for and everyone enjoyed going around the table and sharing their stories!  Hope all of you Americans enjoyed your Thanksgiving too!

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Notes
Posted 1 year ago
Many people have asked us about whether the children in our Child Advocacy program have been affected by cholera, as is being reported in the news.  So far, thankfully, we do not have any cases.  Here is an update from Dr. Jean Yves Glaud, the doctor in our medical clinic in Kafou Fey. Thank you for thinking so much about Haiti. They only find 5 cases in Port-au-Prince but those person come from the Artibonite Department. They came to see doctors. But they put them in isolation. Up today we do not find any cases at the clinic and I don’t hear any complains from the children in our program. We keep counseling our patients as We always did it before and we’re preparing ourselves to face that situation if there are cases that come to our clinic. We need Oral Serum and other elctrolytes, antibiotics like( Chloramphenicol, tetracyclin, Doxycyclin,.. If you have contacts of person that can provide us those meds please let me know otherwise we’ll need to purchase more.  Once again I don’t hear any cases among the children in our program. Zoom

Many people have asked us about whether the children in our Child Advocacy program have been affected by cholera, as is being reported in the news.  So far, thankfully, we do not have any cases.  Here is an update from Dr. Jean Yves Glaud, the doctor in our medical clinic in Kafou Fey.

Thank you for thinking so much about Haiti. They only find 5 cases in Port-au-Prince but those person come from the Artibonite Department. They came to see doctors. But they put them in isolation. Up today we do not find any cases at the clinic and I don’t hear any complains from the children in our program. We keep counseling our patients as We always did it before and we’re preparing ourselves to face that situation if there are cases that come to our clinic. We need Oral Serum and other elctrolytes, antibiotics like( Chloramphenicol, tetracyclin, Doxycyclin,.. If you have contacts of person that can provide us those meds please let me know otherwise we’ll need to purchase more.  Once again I don’t hear any cases among the children in our program.