Posts Tagged ‘World Relief Haiti’
Get to Know Our Staff: Haiti
In 2021, we’re giving you the inside scoop on the work World Relief is doing in communities around the world through a new series called, Get to Know Our Staff.
Today, we’re excited to introduce you to Esther Pyram, World Relief Haiti’s Integral Mission and Church Empowerment Zone Manager. Esther is a writer, a wife, a sister and a friend. Her prayerful spirit and joyful work ethic are contagious, and today she’s sharing more about her role at World Relief and the transformation she’s personally experienced while leading alongside others in Haiti.
What is your name?
My name is Esther Phtama Pyram Louissaint, a Christian believer. I am a wife, a sister, a friend and a beloved daughter.
What is your role at World Relief?
I have been with World Relief since February 2016. I joined as a field coordinator. Currently, I work as the Integral Mission and Church Empowerment Zone Manager.
What is your favorite thing about your job?
There is nothing more exciting than doing what you know you were called to do. It is a complete joy to serve, to participate in this holistic transformation we are looking for in our community. Therefore, in the past five years, I have always considered myself a servitor rather than an employee.
Can you share some stories that excite you?
I had the privilege of witnessing churches’ growth and seeing them proudly standing up for the most vulnerable. I saw children going to school for the first time in communities where there was no school before and where State Institutions are absent. I have observed church leaders contributing generously and with inexplicable joy to organize community weddings regardless of religious or denominational backgrounds. I saw widows’ homes restored, gardens planted, and crops at their feet to face the new season. I have seen life blooming, and hope being restored for many brothers and sisters.
Yet, the most wonderful part of it all is to witness my own transformation through this process. I have become stronger, more confident, empowered and impacted. I am working with more tact, joy, love and a constant quest for excellence in all areas of my life.
How have you grown in this role?
My relationships with God, with myself, with my family and others have been transformed beyond belief. Areas of my life which I struggled with in the past have been restored, including my finances, my ministries and my dreams.
My increased mental strength allows me to face nasty critics with steadiness and an unwavering attitude. Such critics can no longer put me down. In short, I know who I am: a loved, gifted and blessed girl, and all the assets in the world cannot compensate for such newly built confidence in myself and in Our Loving Father.
What are your hopes for the communities where you live and work?
Like World Relief, I want to see local churches empowered to serve the most vulnerable. I diligently pray, and I long to see women in our communities, and especially those in our local churches, rise to their talents, gifts and abilities so they may answer their divine call and enter their destiny.
I want to see our youth plan their future with more hope, certainty and dignity. I want to see my community rise and move forward on the road to progress, success and development. I want to see families becoming stronger by the days and despite the challenges. I long to see respectable citizens taking the lead in their communities in this new generation. In short, I want to continue witnessing blooming life and daily revival of hope for all.
What do you like to do when you’re not working?
I work with a wonderful, competent, and dynamic team under the supervision of Athanase Ndayisaba (World Relief Haiti Country Director). In my spare time I read, sing, pray and write beautiful novels that one day may be published. I inspire others to stay motivated and confident.
It was a pleasure to share a little of me with you.
Do you want to create holistic transformation in communities around the globe? World Relief is growing our team to meet the increased needs of our world, and we’re looking for people like you to join us.
Rachel Clair serves as a Content Writer at World Relief. With a background in creative writing and children’s ministry, she is passionate about helping people of all ages think creatively and love God with their hearts, souls and minds.
Change: Reimagining the Future for Families
This new year, we’re making space to reimagine the future and build a better world together. In the final post in our Made for Change series, Joanna Kretzer Chun and Debbie Dortzbach recount the way World Relief staff reimagined their approach to HIV prevention.
This reimagining led to the creation of a new program known as Families for Life. Families for Life is a couple-strengthening curriculum that continues to be adapted and reimagined in countries around the world.
“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.”
― Brene Brown
A Quandary
In 2011, World Relief staff were faced with a quandary. We were in the middle of partnering with a church in India to start a typical HIV awareness and prevention workshop. Although there had been a decrease in HIV cases across India, the rates in 2011 were still quite high. In spite of governmental efforts as well as those of World Relief and other organizations like it, we weren’t seeing the results we had hoped to see.
I (Debbie) remember being kept up at night feeling disturbed that we weren’t making progress. I was at a loss for how to make the workshop more engaging and effective. But all that changed one day when I was riding on the train.
I remembered a report that told the story about how truck drivers in India were motivated to change their behaviors, not because they were afraid of contracting HIV but because they wanted to return to their families.
That little word “family” stuck out to me, and I wondered, “If this is what is motivating truck drivers to change their behaviors, why aren’t we using that as a motivator in our churches to prevent HIV and strengthen families?”
Surely the strengthening of families was something the church was called to do.
I shared these thoughts with some other team members, and that day on the train we began dreaming about what this new program could be. Change can feel vulnerable and unknown. But we knew that in order to foster greater programming effectiveness, we’d need to embrace a change, and thus the Families for Life (FFL) model was born within World Relief.
A New Way Forward
Implementation in India quickly showed that this new idea for engaging couples to spark behavior change was a huge success and filled a gap that no one else had been addressing. We soon realized that FFL could not only be effective in preventing HIV but also in helping couples address other critical issues like marital conflict and even domestic violence.
Groups began multiplying organically within churches and the wider community in southern India to meet the demand, and over time FFL blossomed, expanding out to an additional six countries, reaching thousands of couples across the globe.
At its core FFL seeks to strengthen the couple relationship as a foundation for a healthy family and calls for participants to be open to change and reimagine their futures together.
Using a combination of story, scripture, interactive discussion and personal reflection, these FFL groups go through a journey of growth together. Couples learn important skills like valuing one another, communication and problem-solving as a foundation to adapt to life circumstances and different seasons of life.
As couples work through our scripture-based curriculum, harmful beliefs about marriage and family begin to shift. Gender-based violence, alcoholism, poverty, abuse and unfaithfulness decline. Husbands begin to include their wives in everyday decisions; wives are empowered to contribute to their families’ economic growth; parents come to realize the value of educating both girls and boys; families begin intentionally planning for their futures.
Reimagining Again and Again
Families for Life is a unique model in that it can be reimagined again and again to meet the needs of a particular community, growing with that community as couples reimagine the future for their families.
Recently, in Burundi, we reimagined FFL to meet an unmet need for Family Planning. The curriculum was adapted to include information on family planning in order to prompt conversations around healthy timing and spacing of births.
This adaptation, while small, sparked new collaboration between couples, church leaders and community health workers, seeking to increase use of family planning services to reach 120,884 beneficiaries including 9,600 couples and their children. This adaptation has been successful in cultivating a trusted partnership between couples and community health workers and church leaders leading to a stronger demand for family planning services in the community.
In Haiti, we learned that one church network we worked with began hosting couples events that included games nights and all-night worship events. Once a month these churches host a family Sunday where pastors create sermons from the FFL manual. This is a community where we are no longer working, but the fruits of FFL continue to grow.
In Haiti, we learned that one church network we worked with began hosting couples events that included games nights and all-night worship events. Once a month these churches host a family Sunday where pastors create sermons from the FFL manual. This is a community where we are no longer working, but the fruits of FFL continue to grow.
Being open to change takes courage. This is true on a personal level for the couples we come alongside, but it’s also true for organizations seeking to implement effective programs. Knowing that change can lead to growth and even larger impact, World Relief continues to innovate and reimagine the future for couples and communities across the globe.
Give today, and join us as we reimagine the future alongside couples and communities across the globe.
Debbie Dortzbach was privileged to raise her family in Kenya and spent most of her professional career in community health non-formal education training. During her many years working with World Relief, she helped to create and build the Families for Life model. She recently left full time work with World Relief and now enjoys reflecting, writing, serving her grandchildren, consulting, and advising.
As the Director of the Program Resource Team, Joanna Kretzer Chun leads a team of global technical advisors that support World Relief international programs spanning Health and Nutrition, Savings, Agriculture, Child Development and Protection, and Couples’ Strengthening. With over fifteen years of international development experience, Joanna’s programming background spans the areas of gender mainstreaming, women’s empowerment, child protection, child development, faith leader engagement, and social norm change. Joanna holds Master degrees in Intercultural Studies and Family Studies from Fuller Seminary and a BA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. She resides with her family in Washington, DC.
Love in Action: Volunteering with Outreach Groups in Haiti
This week, our World Relief U.S. offices have been celebrating Volunteer Appreciation Week by sharing stories and celebrations in honor of all the volunteers who serve with us across the United States. Today, we’re expanding that celebration by highlighting one of the many volunteers who serve with us globally.
Recently, World Relief Haiti’s Esther Pyram connected with Suzette over the phone. Suzette is a volunteer with World Relief Haiti’s Outreach Group Initiative (OGI). Suzette’s brother, Dieuquifait, is on staff with World Relief Haiti, and her mother and husband also serve as volunteers.
You can read Esther’s interview with Suzette below to find out what volunteering as an Outreach Group volunteer in Haiti is all about.
What is your name? Tell us about yourself and your family.
My name is Suzette Louis. I have been married to Prince Octavius since March 31, 2012, and God has given us three boys. It hasn’t always been easy for us because he was a widower with children, but God helped us to find balance in our marriage. We have been living in the town of Terre-Rouge for eight years, and we are members of the Gerizim Baptist Church.
Tell us a little more about yourself. What are your favorite foods to eat? What kind of music do you listen to?
I really like small ripe bananas with ground corn. I don’t have a favorite kind of music, but I do have a dream to learn dressmaking. I think it would allow me to help my husband with some of our household costs.
What is your favorite thing about where you live?
I love Terre-Rouge because it’s an agricultural area and I love the culture. We don’t have problems with livestock or farming and the people here are very supportive.
How did you get connected with World Relief and what made you decide to sign up as a volunteer?
Our church is part of one of World Relief’s Church Empowerment Zones (CEZs) in Haiti. This means we work together with a network of other churches in our region to meet the needs of our communities and share the Gospel at the same time.
When a church joins a CEZ, the pastor chooses someone to attend trainings with World Relief. This person then shares what they learned with their congregation. Illiteracy is a big problem in my community, but since I attended high school and can read and write, my pastor chose me to attend the training. Since then, I have been assigned more tasks and responsibilities as World Relief has brought more programs to our community.
World Relief is like a branch of my family. My husband works to recruit other churches to join our CEZ, my father and brother-in-law are both pastors and their congregations are part of our church network. My mother volunteers with World Relief’s outreach groups (just like me), and my brother is on staff with World Relief Haiti.
Suzette is pictured here on the left with her brother, Dieuquifait who works for World Relief, her mom and her husband — both of whom volunteer with World Relief.
Tell me more about what an Outreach Group is. What kinds of things do you do as an Outreach Group volunteer/team member?
Outreach Groups are teams of church volunteers that go into the community and visit families that are struggling and need help. I help train volunteers using the information I receive from World Relief. Those volunteers then provide their communities with lessons in things like marriage and family, finance, health and faith. I support these volunteers as they go out into the community and visit homes. Sometimes Outreach Group volunteers are nervous, but after training and encouragement, they take charge of the work and enjoy it. The changes we have seen in families that have received visits from our volunteers have been very encouraging.
Every week I also volunteer with World Relief’s Families For Life (FFL) program by providing married couples with lessons on God’s view for marriage, gender equality and how spouses can love and support one another.
What is the most challenging part about volunteering with World Relief?
In the beginning, volunteers were not welcomed by some families. But today there is a very good relationship between our volunteers and the families they visit. Families testify to the positive impact these visits had on them and keep on thanking us.
The other thing that was hard for some volunteers initially was that World Relief doesn’t pay them for this work. In Haiti, volunteers in other programs have often been paid for their work. It took some time for people to understand that what they are doing is a part of God’s call for the church and an act of ministry. In the beginning this was really hard for our volunteers because many households they visited were unkind and humiliated them a lot. But I thank God that this has changed and there is a lot of progress in the community now.
Can you tell us a memorable story about one of your home visits?
I helped my brother-in-law and his wife who were experiencing trouble. The couple was separated, my sister-in-law had abandoned the family home for several months and was preparing to move to Port-au-Prince. I started meeting with each of them separately for a time, but then I organized some sessions and insisted that both of them should be present together. I am always happy to say now their life is much better. The husband agreed to buy a piece of land in Thiotte and they went to live. They have built their house, the husband is working, they are doing very well now.
I also had a volunteer who refused to go for training because she wouldn’t receive any money and she is a very busy woman because of various activities she already had. So I went to her house and taught her the lessons and then I also accompanied her to visit the households. I am happy because she is now one of my best volunteers. Her name is Dieunise.
What do you dream of and hope for your community?
Terre-Rouge is a good area, but I would like to see the people in my community continue to grow in respect for one another as we work together. Sometimes people are not well organized or have a bad habit of not respecting the time or showing up for meetings. I would like them to be more conscious of that. I also want to see more development for Terre-Rouge. I pray to God to send us the support for the construction of a health center and a school for the area. The children are young and they have to walk for more than an hour to get to the pre-school in Marchasse.
How have you seen lives transformed through the lessons you share as a volunteer/team member?
As soon as World Relief started coming with the programs we saw a lot of change. Husbands began accompanying their wives to church. Thanks to the Outreach Groups, many new people have joined savings groups and are now members of our Families for Life program. They have learned to respect basic hygiene principles and many have built tippy taps — simple outdoor hand washing stations, which has become very important right now in fighting the spread of the COVID-19 virus. There is a lot of good change.
How has your life changed personally since becoming a volunteer/team member?
I have learned that if you only give advice and you never take it, you will struggle because people only will follow if you practice what you say, if your testimony is strong. I’ve also learned that there will always be things that will bother you, but being in a leadership position means you have to approach issues with tact and discretion. Volunteering has helped me to communicate better with my husband when we disagree about something. It has also helped me to practice the rules of hygiene and follow the advice we give to other families.
How do you spend your time when you’re not volunteering?
I live off the land. My husband is also a farmer, and I thank God our children can go to school, their school fees are paid and they have enough to eat. But apart from volunteering with World Relief, I also support other child health and agricultural programs in my community.
How can World Relief staff and volunteers around the world be praying for you?
Pray for my family to know God. Pray for a better financial situation in my family, because it is not always easy for us. My husband is getting old and can no longer work the land as he used to. Pray for my dream to learn dressmaking too. Pray for more love between the children, my community and my church. Pray for me, pray for everyone. I will do the same for you.
We are grateful for volunteers like Suzette who put love into action by serving others right within their own communities. Our mission to serve the most vulnerable would not be possible without Suzette and the thousands of other volunteers who serve with us across the globe.
Rachel Clair serves as a Content Writer at World Relief. With a background in creative writing and children’s ministry, she is passionate about helping people of all ages think creatively and love God with their hearts, souls and minds.
UPDATE: Relief for Haiti
Since Monday, when Hurricane Matthew struck Haiti, we’ve been getting reports from our staff and local partners in the country. The situation grows worse by the day. Please consider taking action and donating today.
Haitian officials are reporting that at least 400 people have died, and the death toll is likely to continue rising. The UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs is also reporting that 350,000 residents are in need of immediate aid.
Because of our longstanding relationship with churches throughout Haiti, World Relief has a built-in system to deliver that aid, one that empowers local leaders in Haiti to lead their own relief efforts.
As the death toll continues to climb and reports of widespread damage and destruction pour in, now is the time to act.
For the sake of the men, women, and children of Haiti, please donate today.
The Greatest Recovery Effort Yet
Joseph Bataille serves as World Relief’s Haiti Country Director. Born in Port-au-Prince and raised in the US, he moved back to his native country after college to work with NGOs and churches as they assisted the vulnerable. The following is his personal account of the devastating earthquake that shook Haiti to its core 5 years ago today as well as the hope he sees in his homeland.
I was in the bed of a truck when the ground started to shake. There was a magnitude 7 earthquake going on, yet I hardly noticed. This is partly because I was somewhat distant from the epicenter, but it is also because the “taptaps” that I commuted in to and from work always passed through numerous rough spots. Sometimes they cannot avoid the larger potholes strung along the road. I was used to bracing myself for a little bit of shaking. Aside from that, I had my headphones on and my eyes were closed as I was praying… for my workplace, for my church, for myself, and for the nation.
Then I noticed that the shaking lasted longer than I was accustomed to. I paused my prayer and I opened my eyes to see what was going on. That’s when I noticed that the taptap was actually stationary and I could see a cloud of dust all across the horizon. I had just been in an earthquake. My first reaction was to send a message home, but all communications had been cut off. All I could do is wait to see for myself how everyone fared.
I soon learned that everyone at home was fine. So was my workplace, so was my church, and so was I, but the nation, well, I was confident that God would help us to recover, and perhaps even build back better.
As I worked to lead my church’s relief effort, the days that followed passed like a blur. This was the first time that I had been in a place that was in a 24/7 state of emergency. Setting up emergency clinics, running logistics between several organizations on the ground, dispatching our local Scouts for rescue and clean up missions, organizing the transport of certain victims to a hospital on the Dominican frontier, translating for foreigners. I had my hands full at all times.
In those days I saw and heard of more tragedy than I cared to. Dealing with major injuries and amputations became normal, and I grew accustomed to the stench of cadavers hidden under piles of rubble that were yet to be removed. But perhaps the greatest tragedy that I witnessed was the sense of helplessness that I observed among many of my countrymen. I recall seeing several smaller camps with signs painted in broken English “We have no ting,” “We need help, plese!”
It was true. They needed help. They had lost everything. But the signs written on the walls and on everyone’s faces testified to the fact that we were looking mostly to the outside for help. We weren’t looking to each other. We weren’t looking to the local church. We weren’t looking toward the strength that God had deposited within our own hearts and minds.
While I can tell you many stories of local heroes, I was sad to see that of all of the people who could have given a hand to the relief effort by volunteering their time, their skills, or their knowledge, the vast majority of us “took our place” in tent camps, waiting for someone else to save them and their countrymen. It was almost as if we were used to this role-play from the many tragedies of the past. This, for me, was most tragic.
After the earthquake, World Relief responded rightly with food aid, temporary and permanent shelters, and with efforts to reach out to orphans and vulnerable children. We gave unnumbered thousands of people a much-needed boost back up onto their feet. After five years of recovery, most of the people that we have helped are now back to a sense of normalcy.
If you read the current news about the earthquake relief effort, most articles remind us of the vast amount of physical work that remains to be done. There are places where rubble still remains; there are tens of thousands still living in tent camps and sanitation remains an ongoing problem. However, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are still living with a spirit of helplessness and dependency. This is where World Relief has chosen to focus our efforts.
Tomorrow we will hand over the keys to twelve brand new houses to twelve families in our Orphan and Vulnerable Children program. This is the last official earthquake-related effort on our agenda. From here on out we will be building the hearts and the minds of the ones who God has called to transform this nation. By this, I am speaking of the Haitian people, a nation with thousands of heroes-in-waiting.
This year we will continue our efforts to help small farmers to build up their livelihoods in order to increase their self-sufficiency. We have also chosen to spearhead two new and exciting programs that will help to rebuild the foundations of two of the nation’s most fundamental institutions: the Church and the Family.
In some of World Relief’s other countries of intervention, the Church Empowerment Zone has proven to be effective in uniting churches across a region as they work together to accomplish God’s call to preach the gospel in word and in deed. Through this program, we hope to help churches across the nation to take their rightful place as agents of spiritual, social, cultural, and economic transformation. We want the Haitian community to look first to the church when they look for agents of sustainable development in the nation.
Finally, the family is the building block of a society, and it is the very first institution created by God. By transforming families, we can begin to touch all of the underlying issues in our society, changing the state and the inheritance of the next generation. This is what we hope to do through our Families for Life program. By working in collaboration with the thousands of churches in our network, by building on the successes of many of our former programs, and by working alongside a number of local partners, World Relief hopes to spark a nationwide movement that will transform the life of the Haitian family for the current and the next generation.
In 2010, I was in the back of a vehicle on the outskirts of the epicenter of a disaster. This year, with World Relief, I have the privilege of taking a front seat in the most important “recovery” effort yet: the recovery of Haitian dignity, hope and responsibility.
Haiti faces a great number of challenges, but we at World Relief are very hopeful. Not only do we see and affirm Haiti’s beauty, significance, and potential, but we have also witnessed and can testify that Haiti’s “light” is already here. The light that can dispel the darkness that covers this nation is in the Church of Jesus Christ, which is alive and well here.
The mission of World Relief in Haiti is to help the light of the church to shine brightly. We seek to support the Haitian church in such a way that its light takes its rightful place up high, for all to see, not hidden under the basket of our organization’s accomplishments. In this present darkness, the Church of Haiti will shine, and God will get the glory.
“…Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” – Matthew 5:16
Empowering Family Farmers in Haiti
Derivaux Lesson is a young entrepreneur from Gressier, Haiti. He has a wife and a seven year-old son. Before the tragic earthquake of January 2010, he used to provide public transportation as a source of income, which allowed him to buy his own car and build houses for his family. But when he lost everything in the earthquake, Derivaux was left with great debt, despair and pain. “I was worried about my honor, integrity and respect in the community. I saw no future for myself and my family,” he said.
After some time, Derivaux learned about World Relief’s work through local affiliate DANRE in developing value chains for farmers to help restore their livelihoods, generate revenue and establish economic sustainability. Through this program, World Relief provides farmers technique training, technical assistance and loans and improves their access to inputs and markets. Derivaux took out a loan from DANRE’s poultry program to start a small-scale business. Starting with only 100 chicks, Derivaux has since grown his business into a large barn that houses about 1,500 chickens.
“I am happy and proud for the support I received from DANRE,” said Derivaux, who has also just purchased two plots of land for vegetable production. “My economic situation is much better now than before.”
In 2012, Derivaux was able to go back to school. He aims to receive his high school diploma so he can attend college and become an agronomist while continuing to grow his own business.
Investing in agriculture has proven to increase the income of the poor in Haiti by 2.5 to 3 times. Agriculture growth in places like Haiti is the primary source of poverty reduction because it builds local capacity for transformational, lasting development (IFPRI, 2012). For World Relief, agriculture development is a vital aspect of empowering the local Church to serve the most vulnerable. We are excited to celebrate stories like that of Derivaux as we enter 2014, the International Year of Family Farming.