Current News (displayed below main page slide show)
Haiti Trip (School Update) July 4, 2010
It has been way too long since I've been back to see SOPUDEP and Haiti, but Darren Ell (the photojournalist who has provided such wonderful images of the school and contributed to the content on this site) and I are getting back there on July 9. My thoughts about this trip are very polarized right now. On the one hand I am excited to see Rea, her staff and students again, but I am trying in vain to prepare myself mentally and emotionally to see the devastation and the ever deteriorating living conditions millions of people are now forced to deal with.
Malaria and other insect carried viruses have taken hold in camps as the rainy season is now upon them. It is not uncommon to see people with their hair turning blonde from malnutrition and scabies are running rampant. The tents and strung up bed sheets are now tattered and torn and chronic dehydration is now critical . This is no way for a population just hours away from top notch resorts in the Dominican to be living. Where the is the help?
It is turning out to be the start up charities with meager funds that are trying to do whatever little they can to turn things around while respecting and preserving Haiti's independence. SOPUDEP has been getting a bit of attention from these smaller organizations.
Let Hear It For The Kids! May 29, 2010
It has been a long haul for the people of Haiti over the past five months! All our efforts seem to move at a snails pace when the country suffers daily. The stress has been imminent for everyone involved in the relief efforts and I never thought my mood would be lifted. But because of the efforts of some truly wonderful young people in Canada and the US over the past few months, I feel a new sense of energy and determination.
The first group of students I am talking about are only a forty minute drive from where I live in Southern Ontario. Oddly enough, it was them that approached me. In response to the earthquake, the Lady Mackenzie Public School choir class, under the guidance of choir director Ms, Cindy Baldwin, set out to raise money for those in need in Haiti. They soon got their whole school behind the fundraising efforts.
LMPS Elementary resides in Kirkfield Ontario. It's a tiny rural town that I would have never suspected to be a promising source of funds, but one evening event revolving around student composed stories and poems about Haiti and a three day coin drive yielded over $2300. The event was called Helping Hands For Haiti.
Temporary Shelter For The Masses (May 1, 2010)
It has been a while since I've put something up here. It isn't that things are staled, but to start talking about this project as fact before we had all the details solidified might have worked against us. This of course is the temporary shelter project that will give SOPUDEP a bunch of classrooms and has the potential to house countless families that are now living on the street because of the earthquake.
The project began almost immediately after the quake when I was approached by Kathlene Mcguinness, a student in the Interior Architecture Program at Ryerson University in Toronto Ontario, Canada. She informed me that they had created a committee dedicated to helping SOPUDEP in their rebuilding efforts. After my first meeting with her I knew that this was a special project and I could see it not just being a way for there to be a temporary school, but shelter for the masses.
Well, a few months later and we have a final design. One that is fully engineered to drain storm water under the shelter and is hurricane and earthquake resistant. The design is no tent! It is a spacious design that could easily sleep a family of six or more. Two full size double mattresses can also fit in there side by side.
Réa Dol vs. the Republic of NGO's
The past few months have brought SOPUDEP's work to the publics attention through the international media and activist groups. This latest article from The Huffington Post starts to dig a bit deeper than just a program acting in a moment of crisis, but what separates them from the pact in a never ending sea of foreign and local NGO's that seem to bog Haiti down.
There has been a fair amount of healthy debate around this article. I should mention that it is easy to see big NGO bad and small good, but real life isn't like that. There are bigger NGO's doing good in the country (Rea has said so herself) and there are small ones that are trying to take advantage of the situation. It's not the word NGO that should be demonized, but just careful attention paid to the people who run them.
Yes there is too much foreign presence that everyday successfully hollows out more of Haiti's already weakened government. Yes there is not enough support for Haitian grassroots projects and lack of acknowledgment that the success of rebuilding their country falls on them, but we can't lump every foreign group together as a threat to Haiti's solidarity and call it a day.
This is a vast and serious topic that needs to be explored and talked about by charity supporters and activists everywhere. Question the organizations and people you support!
Réa Dol vs. the Republic of NGO's
Ryan Sawatzky, President
The Sawatzky Family Foundation
Living With Contradictions: by Darren Ell
This weeks update was contributed by a good friend of mine and SOPUDEP's, Darren Ell. If you haven't heard how I came upon SOPUDEP in the first place, this is the man.
Darren is an independent photojournalist from Montreal who is not someone content to do his fact checking remotely. Instead, he puts himself in the thick of it by traveling to the places that we would deem to be certain death for any foreigner (of course, he knows this fear is all media hype anyways).
It is because of his dedication to seek out the truth and not a paycheck that his perspective is unique to the popular media. He is the guy I turn to for clarity when the stories and facts I hear start to get muddled.
Oh yes, he's also the guy who provided the majority of beautiful and inspiring photo's you see on this site
Ryan Sawatzky, President
The Sawatzky Family Foundation
Living With Contradictions
Update, February 23, 2010- Temporary School
It's just a month and a half after the earthquake and we are starting to hear about a new cause for a devastated Haiti. Development! Tourism, agriculture, "industrial parks", strengthening Haiti's government or removing it and installing a new one. This has been touted the magic "new beginning" to a country that has been under foreign control since Christopher Columbus sanctioned it fit for European agriculture production way back when. Some ideas are valid and responsible, but many are opportunistic and will move a much needed income for Haiti out of the country or into the pockets of Haiti's elite. It is a very important topic of conversation and we certainly should pay attention to what's in the works for Haiti's future, but the type of rebuilding forefront in our mind should still be about providing the basics of everyday life for these affected Haitians.
Here is some info I received from Scott Weinstein, a nurse from the DC area who has been working with SOPUDEP and other groups on the ground for three weeks now. "A few weeks after the earthquake, Réa is desperately trying to get food for her community of children and their families from the school she ran before the earthquake. It now is a community center and clinic. Baz, an American medic, has told her that there might be food from the UN. But it is very confusing. The Italian Navy is also promising food in a few days. The prospect of being able to participate in that food distribution system seems daunting for Rea, whose English is not very good and whose Italian is nil."
Earthquake Update, February 14, 2010
In memory of:
Nadia Raymond taught the morning kindergarten class and the afternoon class with the street kids. She is seen here as Santa Claus.
Shella Louis taught the kindergarten class in the morning and first grade in the afternoon.
These were dedicated teachers who strived to educate and empower their communities youth despite sometimes having to forgo what little pay they did receive. All of SOPUDEP's staff deserve our utmost respect and support!
We are deeply sorry for all the loss Haiti has endured!
Update January 30, 2010
SOPUDEP did have to abandon their school building about four days ago. It was being used as a shelter, but the stench of dead bodies was getting to strong. School director Réa Dol doesn't think it will ever work again as a school anyways because there was structural damage and all but three homes were destroyed in the neighborhood. It is time now for the school to relocate!
Now that being said, SOPUDEP did start payments on a piece of land last year in anticipation of building a new school for 2012 (when their lease would run up on their current building). Thanks to a generous donor from San Francisco, all but $20,000 of the original $60,000 is owing on the land. Seth Donnelly from the Bay area will most likely head up this fundraising project to pay off the land that will secure the schools future.
The Préval government has ordered schools to resume sometime in February. So, temporary classrooms are going to be put together for SOPUDEP's new property. An architectural group from Ryerson University in Toronto is working on a sturdy temporary classroom design using readily available local materials.
We have also set to work on the plans for a shipping container school concept that we came up with last year (concept pics seen here). Professionals and organizations are joining up for this project and an engineer and architect well versed in container architecture are on board. It could include a solar roof that could potentially provide electricity to surrounding homes. The nice thing here is that these kind of structures are hurricane and earthquake resistant. It could very well be a pilot project for other kinds of buildings like residential units.