Nauset Community's Collaboration
with Grassroots Programs in Haiti
AJMPD:
Matènwa Youth Association for Development
AJMPD Mission:
Our Mission is to work together with students, teachers and members of the community to help our Matènwa and overall Haiti regions grow its development in order to help educate people expand agriculturally and to embrace the many parts of our culture that make up our heritage. We wish to also work with student groups from the United States to collaborate on solving issues and promote the rights and priviledges of children and students.
AJMPD: Our Past Work
Education:
In Haiti there are two major types of problems when it comes to education. The first is that some families are too poor to send their children to school.The second is that for many reasons (including limited or no access to quality education, the necessity to work to feed the family, ailing family members, etc...), children often are forced to leave schooling at an early age. The Matènwa Community Learning center asked AJMPD to go around to all the villages on La Gonave and ask the village elders/ leaders for children and families that fit this criteria. Below is a fraction of the 200+ names that they have come up with. It costs between $8 to $25 American dollars to send children to school for a year. Our Nauset HRA goal is to try and raise between $3,500 - $5,000 a year to try and help make that 200+ number decrease exponentually. If you would like to help us reach our goal or to learn more please contact us
Agriculture:
Haiti has always struggled with astronomical weather atrocities. The most recent was the 2016 Hurricane Matthew that brought torrential rain causing many farms and crops to get washed away. As a result there is a tremendous shortage of fruits and vegetables. AJMPD has a plan. Working on land donated by local farmers, the AJMPD are creating a nursery to give away plants to the community and to the Matènwa Community Learning Center. With the help of Nauset HRA and The Charter School we were able to bring together funds and many seeds in order to help them begin their nurseries. In addition to supporting community agriculture, both AJMPD and LKM are working in partnership to build using recycled materials. Below is a wall at LKM made of 1/3 plastic bottles filled with dirt and stones. This method uses 1/3 of the amount of cement needed to build structures and walls. If you would like to help AJMPD'S efforts to grow plants for food or to make use of harmful plastics please email us in the contact section below.
Above AJMPD is tilling land given to them by a local farmer, in hopes of bringing high amounts of plants and crops back to the village.
Child Rights Initiatives:
We want to share a story. This story is about a mother and father that have a child they love very much. One day the family brings home another child. Everyday the two children wake up but when it may seem like time for breakfast the adopted child is told to walk 3 miles to go get water for the family. Meanwhile the mother gives her child all the food and money to go to school. When the boy returns home from fetching water he receives the leftovers for food, with little to no gratification for his work and is not given money to go to school. The young boy is called a Restavek or in english a child servant or slave. In Haiti it is very hard to make money and even more hard to give money to send a child to school. It has also become a common theme for children to not get the affection they deserve similar in the case above they are not their children or the family just doesnt care enough.
AJMPD wishes to help change this. They along with the Matènwa Community Learning Center are creating plays and speeches that focus on teens showing parents of the community the importance of children and their education.They have successfully helped families understand the rights of children, including importantly the right to attend school. But this is not always the outcome, the school and AJMPD have trouble locating children who are restaveks because a family will usually hide the child from the public and deny any involvement. We as Nauset students with our goal of raising between $3,500 to $5000 a year we hope locate children at risk and help advocate for their rights. "Every child must do chores for their family in order to survive but no child deserves to be miss treated and forced to not take part in education." If you would like to help us reach our goal or learn more please email us in the contact section below.
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"Children are not things to be moulded but people to be unfolded" - Jess Lair
Connect, Create, Collaborate
In 2017, AJMPD reached out to Lisa Brown and the Nauset Human Rights Academy to create a collaborative partnership. As a result American students from Nauset had the unique experience to go to Haiti and meet first hand the amazing teachers and students that work to try and make the lives of students, families and their communities better. From all of us being inspired by the amazing people that make up AJMPD we are working to help raise awareness and funds to help aid in their efforts. All money raised will go directly into changing the lives of children and the community. Every time a child receives enough money to go to school LKM and AJMPD will send us a photo and name of a child that has the opportunity to attend school. With every seed grows the opportunity for the beautiful flora of Haiti to return to its former glory and for the local communities to have the fruit and vegetables they need to survive. There is hope, and there are people willing and able to act on it. To learn more please email us in the contact section below.
Nauset Haiti Project distributing shoes to children at Wana's House Orphanage.
Nauset Students playing with children while wearing AJMPD and Nauset HRA shirts.
Nauset students showing AJMPD the Human Rights Academy tee-shirts.