63000 reasons for hope

Well today was day one of our project visits. We went to two different projects. The first one was a CSP project. Let me explain.

Compassion have four different projet types - CSP is Child Survival Program (2400) . This deals with kids from 0-3. CDSP is “Child Development through Sponsorship” Program. Ages 4 + (63,000). Then there's “Leadership Development Program” (102) for kids who excel and at age 18 they are given a scholarship in their country. Then there are CIV's, Complimentary Interventions, where they support a particular project in a community. The numbers in brackets are the current numbers for Haiti.

So the first project this morning was kids from 0-3. I was blown away. I think it's the most alive I've felt in the last 10 years. Interestingly, another guy here with us from the US said exactly the same thing to me about his feelings. The kids and mothers were so warm and welcoming. Make no mistake, Compassion has completely changed their lives. A little two year old girl got up in a beautiful white dress and sang a welcome to us.

To my right a mother sat with her little one year old boy, he was missing a right leg and right hand. You could see the sadness in her face. So I went over and picked up the little kid and her face lit up because someone took an interest in him. All these kids when they turn 4 will move on into the sponsorship program.

We went to visit a local home, it was reminiscent of a Romanian home, a ten foot square room which slept six people. Then Timothy told us that this was probably the best house that any of the 50 women had. They’d brought us here because everywhere else that the ladies lived was too dangerous for us to go. We really were the only white people visible in the city, apart from the UN.

There are 5000 UN soldiers here to try to keep the peace.

We then went downstairs to see the workshops that the ladies do. In case I haven’t explained very well, this project is as much about training the mothers as looking after the kids. So they learn cooking, sewing and even how to scrub the dishes! To get to the workshops we had to go through a group of around 50 kids who had gone through the CSP project and now were sponsored and in primary school. I have never experienced kids so excited. They crowded around us, one guy blew up a balloon and all the kids literally went beserk trying to get it. A little clip fell out of a little girls hair and I picked it up. I pretended to put it in one hand , then showed here it was in the other. She giggled with laughter and soon I had an audience of 25 wanting their turn to guess. It sounds stupid, but it was a connection with God’s heart. Bringing joy and laughter to little souls. It really touched me.

These kids really are the lucky ones, Compassion pay for their schooling, their food and so much else. There is NO free education in Haiti, everyone has to pay. It’s only £1 a week, but they still can’t afford that. So over 50% of the population are totally illiterate.

Let me explain another main problem with Haiti. Because families are so incredibly poor, many of them give away their children as Restaviks. A restivik is a child who has been given away by their parents in the hope that they will have a better life with another family. In reality, the vast majority of Restaviks are abused sexually and made to do all the menial tasks that the family don’t want to do. So most of them are up at 4am and work all day long. The host family feed them the scraps and don’t allow them to go to school. It’s a terrible, unimaginable existence.

So this afternoon we went to a CIV, a complimentary intervention. It’s a school run by a church which is designed for Restavik kids. It runs from 2pm until 6pm, when they know the kids will have finished most of their chores for the day. They have gone to the parents of the kids and requested permission for the kids to come to school. They do amazing work with them, but you can’t escape the incredible sadness that there is over these kids situation. They were truly beautiful kids, aged from 10 up to 16 or so. After that, most of the kids run away from their host families. They in turn have no-where to stay and end up in prostitution or whatever. And so another cycle of problems begin.

What really brought home their plight was when one little girl with tears in her eyes, pleaded with one of our group to let her come home with her. It was soul destroying.

To end our first active day, we had dinner with students from the LDP, the leadership development program. When Max, the guy at our table, told us that he was one of 14 children and Compassion had sponsored him since he was 5, it really brought home what an amazing work this is. Max is a fantastic young 25 year old and has just graduated in civil engineering. So we saw today the “cradle to adult” care that Compassion give. I’m privileged to be here, and so so challenged by it all.