16335: Pilling: Re: 16326: McEnroe: helping the poor (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Sara Pilling <sara.pilling@verizon.net>

This is Sara Pilling here - living in Philadelphia PA and I have been
traveling to Haiti on a regular basis since 1987. I'm also the [inadvertent]
founder of a program known as Scholarship Soley. Primarily, at least in the
beginning, our focus was to financially support children living in cite
soleil to go to school.

It all began with one child, the orphaned son [and my long distance god son]
of my 'foster daughter', Anet. I began with one child in 1995, having
promised his mom, dying at Sans Fil [where I'd first met her in 1988] to
educate this little boy. Today we have 80 children under our wing and now,
because of the fabulous Haitian woman, with whom I work, other individuals
have asked us to help them with their sponsorships. One young man, Ose, is
currently studying at the Univ at Les Cayes, and 5-6 others have completed
their Baccalaureate and Philo certificates!!

I say that I inadvertently founded this organization when it became obvious
that we needed more structure and there were many Americans wanting to help
but also needing to have that tax advantage and documentation of their
donation. It has made us accountable to our donors, and, yes, has enabled us
to receive small grants. And through all this the organization has been able
to respond to several of the needs of our friends in Haiti.

Beginning in 2000, my Haitian partner, Gertrude, responding to the felt
needs of a group of women living near her home in LaPlaine, and we began an
embroidery program. It too has developed exponentially; we have about 60
'graduates'. They are currently working toward forming a business, designing
and sewing clothes as well as school uniforms. But/and, the program is about
much more than sewing - about working together, trusting each other,
supporting each other and realizing that in very small ways [at first] they
can change their lives and those of their families.

Have we made mistakes? you bet - Trusted children [and their parents] when
we probably shouldn't have. Trust is probably the biggest issue - and I'll
continue to believe that IF one can develop over time a trust based
relationship, whereby we are entrusting to them funds to go to school - if
we are constant in requiring accountability [school receipts, report cards]
then we are doing more than 'just' helping kids go to school - we are
empowering people to rise up and to believe in themselves.

We are a small organization, with a modest budget [? $50,000/year] but with
ingenuity and God's grace, every time we have a real need, someone appears
from somewhere to fill that need. Right now, we have a 'staff' of 6 - all
Haitians - I'm a volunteer.

So, are we helping the poor? Yes; there's a component of 'just helping' -
but/and in between all that, there's a large dose of 'let's work together.

I'll finish by enclosing a song that the women in the embroidery program
wrote and sing at every special meeting.

³We are working together,
We are putting our heads together
so that we may change the face of our society.
Our country would be beautiful
If we work together for change.

Let us work together.
Let us walk together for a better life.
Let us put our heads together
Let us make one chain.
If we work together, walk together,
Our country will be so beautiful.
Let us put our heads together to find solutions.²

Sara