LES CAYES, Haiti – It’s dark, early in the morning; the only life stirring is the roosters and chirping insects. Before the sun rises, the market starts to come to life – the place where people hope to earn enough money for food for the day. Moms and dads don’t make promises to their little ones, they don’t know when or if they will eat today.
Families hope to degaje (day-guh-zjay), “make do” in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
Even before the country’s devastating earthquake in January 2010, Haiti was nicknamed the Republic of NGOs (non-governmental organizations). There is no way to know the exact number of relief groups present in Haiti today, but in 2010, prior to the earthquake, numbers wer estimated at from 3,000 to as many as 10,000. So the question emerges: despite all this help, why is Haiti still considered the poorest country in this part of the world?
The answer is complicated, the challenges huge.
I spent four days with an organization devoted to helping Haiti overcome these challenges. Loving Shepherd Ministries’ mission is simple: to help the world’s most vulnerable children reach their God-given potential.
These statistics should provide you some context.
Haiti’s population is roughly 10 million, with 2.2 million living in Port-au-Prince alone. According to President of LSM Ed Schwartz, around 4.4 million people in Haiti are under the age of 18.
The country’s population density is 952 Haitians per square mile. The United States, by contrast, has 95 Americans per square mile. Of Haiti’s population, 70-80 percent have no formal employment. Over half of the population can’t read.
These numbers might elicit feelings of hopelessness, but Loving Shepherd Ministries (LSM) hopes that Haiti will turn around.
Through a long history of getting aid from NGOs, the country has been conditioned to receive handouts: LSM, the faith-based organization Richland County has a connection with, is not there to give handouts. They don’t do typical mission work.
Instead of sending teams of workers, they send one or two individuals to train Haitians to do the work themselves. Their approach is promoting success through education, which is done through the Homes of Hope model and was designed by a Haitian man and LSM.
Schwartz said they aren’t building orphanages, they are building families. Each Home of Hope (there are 18 now in southwestern Haiti) houses 12 boys or girls – and two Haitian parents. The children have been rescued from vulnerable situations. Some are HIV-positive, some were restaveks (see sidebar).
Additionally, LSM has started laying down infrastructure for a vocational ranch, where children from these Homes of Hope (currently around 220) can move on to learn a vocation that will directly influence Haiti’s economy in a positive way.
“Our goal is to work ourselves out of a job,” said Schwartz.
LSM has instilled their hope for Haiti into their Haitian employees, too. Since their founding in 2002, LSM has employed over 100 Haitians, and the number keeps growing. Employees include pastors, nurses and doctors, business developers, construction contractors and builders, agronomists, mechanics, farmers and missionary liaisons.
The vision is to some day turn everything over to the trained Haitians. They are well on their way. They have built 18 Homes of Hope, a clinic, a community center and school hybrid, a vocational ranch, and many churches.
Jan Gutwein, a missionary who’s lived in Haiti permanently with his family since 2005, said he wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world. He’s in charge of overseeing Homes of Hope through every stage, from start to finish. He interviews prospective children and permanent caretakers.
“I have the opportunity to see transformation take place in children,” he said. “I love to see that joy in them that God intends for them all,” he added as he hugged a young Haitian girl, a resident of a home of hope.
As explained in part one, the Milliron family wants to effect change in a positive way in Haiti through a partnership with LSM. Marsha Milliron-DeVito supports the organization wholeheartedly.
“I feel responsible now to see the work through, I love the Haitian people,” commented Milliron-DeVito. “The appreciation and the joy they have because they now truly can believe in the hope their lives are going to be different … No words can describe that,” she said.
When I got to Haiti, I didn’t want to smile; I felt a tinge of hopelessness for the people. I saw the immense poverty and the heaps of trash. I tasted the smoke and fume-filled air; I felt the unstoppable heat.
However, I learned that Haitians are a resilient and vibrant people. They work hard to survive, they make do with what they have – even if all they have is a toothy smile. A smile goes a long way in Haiti. That’s just one thing LSM does everyday, they smile with the Haitians. And in doing so, they keep the hope alive.
In part three, I will look into the life of a Haitian man who has hoped his whole life. It is his relentless hope that drew LSM to Haiti.
A restavek, which literally translates to “one who stays with,” is a child who has been sold to another family. The culturally accepted practice stems from Haiti’s dense population and over-sized families. Typically the family doing the selling thinks their child will have an opportunity for education in a public school with their new family.
Usually, however, families will use restaveks for daily work – some are abused physically and sexually. In recent years, the UN has condemned the restavek practice as a modern type of slavery.
