Sheryl Oliver and her son Kendall visited Haiti this winter on a humanitarian mission. According to the mother of three, the trip benefitted them more than it did the community they were helping to rebuild.
For ten days in late January into early February, the Olivers worked with an organization called Haiti Arise Ministries, which is a multi-faceted outreach program focused on providing a hand up for the people of Haiti. Their vision is to 'strengthen the people spiritually while expanding their skill base to influence positive change around them'.
"They have a clinic, a technical school, an elementary school and they are in the process of building a children's village," said Sheryl Oliver, noting that the technical school was damaged in the 2010 earthquake, so they are in the process of rebuilding and it should reopen this fall.
"We raised funds for the children's village," she said. "That's the first children's home. It's a duplex, it'll house 16 orphaned babies and they are set up in a family structure. They will be hiring widows to care for the children, thereby fulfilling the biblical mandate to care for orphans and widows."
Oliver noted that her team raised $20,000 in total, with $2,000 raised just in Weyburn.
"Eventually, when they complete building all of the homes, there will be room for up to 140 children in three duplexes and three four-plexes plus an elementary school, a secondary school and a sports centre. They've got a fenced compound and they are just completing the first home now and have walls up on the second."
One of the co-founders of the organization, Mark Honorat, is a local and was in fact a 'restavek', which is an unpaid servant child. They are literally sold into slavery as young children and are kept as household workers who receive no education, family affection or freedom. Honorat was enslaved at the age of five and rescued at 12. A certain portion of the village, therefore, will be designated specifically for rescued restavek children, complete with a two-parent family setup and extra counselling services.
"The goal is simply to provide a stable home," said Oliver. "Eight children will live in each home and that will be their family unit. They will, essentially, without being legally adopted, become adopted into a family that is their family and they will be considered siblings."
When the children turn 18, they are being put through technical school and trained for careers.
Oliver said that Haiti Arise wants to go in and help empower the community. For example, their home building program requires recipients to acquire their own land, to contribute labour and extra workers and to also work on two other homes for other families.
"They want to sponsor these children and have them become educated so that they can return and contribute to the community or neighbouring communities," said Oliver.
The official language of Haiti is Creole, which is very closely related to French. A lot of the interpreters donate their time, because they were also brought up within the organization.
"Most of their interpreting is done as their ministry," noted Oliver. "Several of them are sponsored or are awaiting sponsorship (for university). One of our interpreters wants to become a doctor and return to work at the clinic."
Haiti Arise is in the process of hiring a Haitian doctor to work in the clinic full time so that it is not open only when there are teams visiting.
"Right now it's only open when teams come down," she said. "This means that you're not just getting people who are on death's door. Children with earaches can see a doctor when they need it."
"We spent the bulk of our time at the technical school," said Oliver, adding that they were painting and doing tiling. "In our last week we all spent a day at the Children's Village and we poured the roof on the home. So, we did about 2,000 pails of cement, transported by bucket line."
"We had a Canadian engineer, so everything is happening slower than it would have in years past," she said, "but it's because they are taking the time to do rebar to make sure that things are structurally sound. In the event of another earthquake, these homes should not come down on these children."
Most of the homes that were destroyed were not built with modern standards, so part of the ministry is to teach the Haitian people how to build their homes to last.
"It's their land and they need to have some ownership and responsibility in building it back up again," said Oliver. Haiti Arise approaches helping the communities of Haiti while being respectful of its culture.
For example, if a machine can do the work of ten men, the Haitians would prefer to have those ten men employed doing more intense labour than to have them replaced.
"If they're not working, they're not feeding their families," she said, noting that minimum wage in Haiti is $5.50 per day. Haiti Arise pays workers $6.50 per day. "It costs a little more to use the man power instead of using the Bobcat, but ultimately, even when you're accomplishing this purpose, you're still building up the community, because more men are providing for their families."
The more people who can support themselves, the fewer will require sponsorship.
The Olivers noticed that there was a marked difference between the children who were in school and those who did not have sponsorship.
"It's not uncommon if a poor family has got one change of clothes, one kid will wear the shirt, one will wear the pants and the third will wear the underpants," said Sheryl. "There is a pretty stark difference between the families who are starting to get a leg up and the families that are really living in poverty." She noted that since birth control is not well understood, it is common for there to be families with more than six children and that many extended families choose to live in little communal arrangements.
Sheryl said she had gone to Haiti as a young woman and that she intends to take each of her three children before they graduate from high school.
"I always thought it was important for my children to understand that the things we want and the things we need are two very different things," she said, "and that there are a whole lot of people who understand what the word 'need' means."
"It's worth it to sometimes just go do something that costs you," she said. "Ultimately, you think you're the one giving, but you're not. You go down there and you gain this whole different perspective on the world and you understand that the things that we 'can't live without' don't even matter. We had no television. We spent time with people having conversations, connecting with humans and playing in the ocean. It was fabulous."
Kendall, a 17-year-old, who is in Grade 12 at the Comp, said that although he didn't have the luxury of technology while in Haiti, he embraced the opportunities he was given. He made a lot of friends and he even learned a bit of Creole.
"I would definitely go back," said Kendall. "I would spend the rest of my life there. I didn't want to come home."
Sheryl said that her family has been slowly changing their spending habits in order to save up to sponsor a post-secondary student in Haiti.
"Let's make treats a treat and try to live a little less selfishly," she said.
For more information about sponsorship opportunities, visit haitiarise.org. The Olivers will also be presenting the details of their trip and showing pictures at the Weyburn Free Methodist Church on April 14.
