Please Give Generously To Our 2020 Fall Education Fundraiser https://allsaintscr.com/resources/donate/

By Kelly

What is our mission? – support education in our sister parish.

What is our ultimate goal? – Well, I think it is for them to not need us anymore.  Au revoir Iowans!  Love you, but don’t need you.  We love you.  Come visit us and see our beautiful country and excellent schools.

Sustainability

That seems to be the buzzword these days.  Maybe overused a bit. But what does it really mean? One definition in reference to social sustainability is:

meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

 “Meeting their own needs”.  Is that not what we all hope for ourselves?  We don’t want to depend on others for our well-being.  As solid mid-westerners, we want to do it ourselves! As we continue with our mission to help our sister parish in Haiti with their educational needs, we are trying to take these concepts to heart and to practice.

A few of us on the committee have taken, or are taking, a course on “sustainable development” given by an organization that is VERY successful in Haiti.  It is called P4H Global. They are training Haitian teachers.  More importantly, they are also training organizations to think sustainably.  They are pushing us to look at our organization with the ultimate goal of “they don’t need us”.  What a wonderful goal!

We are not redefining our mission, but reevaluating our methods and developing a plan to move forward.  We truly desire to have a team of teachers to be educated in teacher training that would travel to our 24 schools and provide continuing teacher training.  Without us!  On their own!  In Kreyol! The current political environment in Haiti, as well as the pandemic is preventing us from a true collaboration in this plan. But we are working on it so we are ready. We hope the situation changes soon.

Ultimately, we want to continue to keep the current teachers employed!  Retention is critical.  But, they need to be compensated for their hard work and continued education. AND, we need to work to provide them a team of educated trainers to keep their development going, on and on, so they DO NOT NEED US anymore!

Sustainable:  Sounds like a great goal. Let’s get going guys.  Pay the teachers.  And a bit extra to send a few to training to learn to train each other!

 Your donation of $175, or whatever you can offer, helps give the people of Notre Dame du Lourdes a future.

Please Give Generously To Our 2020 Fall Education Fundraiser https://allsaintscr.com/resources/donate/

Renmen Bondye, Sèvi Lòt Moun, Fòm Disip
Love God, Serve Others, Form Disciples.