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Submitted by Junior St-Vil and Daniel Tillias
From June 15th to July 7th—almost four weeks of a strong “seeding hope in Haiti” campaign—a giant step was made for the future of the work of peace in Haiti. This tour was led by Daniel Tillias and Junior St Vil, respectively the program director and executive director of the Haiti section of the international Catholic peace movement, Pax Christi.
The context of this tour was very special since this section has known a lot of difficulties to survive for the last 10 years. Pax Christi USA has shown a great commitment to see things improve in Haiti and had encouraged that through the tour more people would have a better understanding of the difficult work of Pax Christi Haiti’s staff, practice solidarity with our projects, and appreciate as well our general goal to promote peace in the whole country.
A lot of interest was shown to host the two speakers in different cities in the U.S. Again the Haiti section is grateful to our brothers and sisters from different Pax Christi USA chapters that have hosted the speakers. It was a warm hospitality. It was a great opportunity to see first-hand the incredible group of people willing to listen to the situation and want do something to help change things. Also it was a good step forward in raising awareness on the situation of violence in the last 30 years in Haitian history. We had a chance to share the untold story of the consequences of violence both in Haiti and outside of the country like in the U.S. We introduced the main point that “out of sight” can no longer be “out of mind,” “DEYE DO PA KA KONTINYE NAN GINEN”.
We visited 7 cities: 2 events in Pittsburgh (PA), 1 in Erie (PA), 1 in Buffalo (NY), 1 in Cincinnati (OH), 2 in Indianapolis (IN), 2 in Memphis (TN) and 1 in Tampa (FL). Everywhere we had a warm welcome and the hosts really made us feel at home. We averaged over 25 participants per presentation and collected a generous contribution of $2500.00 in total that will help a lot in the different projects that Pax Christi Haiti has in different places in the country, especially with our new soccer team that will promote peace while they play soccer.
We have very small projects with low-cost budgets that are happening in different places in Port au Prince. But the tour was focused on three high-cost budgets that many of the participants are willing to help with in the future. We are hoping we can make those happen. The three projects are:
1. The PC-Haiti soccer team: A pilot experience of a soccer team with the children of the different neighborhoods of Cite Soleil, the biggest slum, the poorest and most violent of the whole country, that has faced a lot of gang violence the last years. The idea is to take them to different tournaments where they will play with a different objective through the message in their uniforms and the banners with messages on peace-building, reconciliation and other social values they will help promote. The team itself will be an alternative to the situation of violence that the children have known there.
2. The second project is the tap tap project: This project is about creating a space in the decorated tap tap (a decorated pick-up truck or bus that is used for public transportation) to promote peace all along the road of Port au Prince and the rural areas through peace messages, and also promotion of new figures like Dr. King, Gandhi, Mother Teresa and so on.
3. The third project is the Pax Christi Internet Village: Since Pax Christi does not have a space to host its office in Haiti, this will be a space to host the office but also an Internet café where young people could gather to research on peace, conflict resolution and to talk about peace and to be part of a new environment where peace can be an alternative to the story of “an eye for an eye” that we have known over the years.
The last two projects are also a way for Pax Christi Haiti to generate some income for our projects and make it sustainable.
The tour was a great success for Pax Christi Haiti. It has put the section to understand that there is still hope for a better Haiti. We want to acknowledge again the wonderful welcome from the different people we stayed with and we believe that with some more visits like this, we will have ways to make significant change in Haiti and work hard to make violence past history in the country.
We will post a list of different materials and equipments that these projects require at the Pax Christi USA website and also Pax Christi Florida, so people with the possibility to help in one specific project can help us to meet it. Again, we have been more than grateful to what this tour has brought to us, the main purpose of it, the hope for a nation that deserves it.
God bless you all and let’s come together to work for peace!
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