A Letter From Ryan Sawatzky

In the late summer of 2007, while routinely searching on the net for information about human rights work, I came across a fundraiser being held to purchase a new camera for Haitian grassroots photojournalist Wadner Pierre. Prints depicting life in Haiti that had been taken by Wadner and Canadian photojournalist Darren Ell who started the site online, were selling the prints for $20 a pop. In the weeks before I had started reading information on Haiti's history and the disturbing foreign big business that was eroding this country and its people. Wanting to support the journalists that were bringing me these stories, I thought this was as good a time as any to get my feet wet with charitable giving. What started as a simple email to Darren inquiring about payment methods for the 8 x 10 glossy soon escalated into me planning a trip to Haiti to scout out projects that our family business could support. Darren suggested right off the bat that the project in question should be a school in Petion-Ville that took in the poorest children of the community. The school was SOPUDEP.

Over the next few months I opened up a line of communication with school director, SOPUDEP founder, and Haitian native Rea Dol. I was surprised by her openness and trust in sharing with someone she had never met. I expressed that I wanted to come down from Ontario Canada to see her and her school, to talk about what I might be able to do to help her situation, and take video to put together a presentation to raise money. Rea welcomed this opportunity with open arms and our January of 2008 Garry my father and myself landed in Port-au-Prince Haiti for an experience we hope never to forget.

Although I was well read on the current leftist views on the country, surely my North American expertise on progress was the light at the end of the tunnel. New cars, better bundled cable packages, a career which fully expresses my individuality while giving me complete financial freedom?! I couldn't imagine as many of us here can't, that this is simply a human story blanketed with corruption and indifference that cause day to day struggles we can't fathom. It's the daily battle to find enough food to feed your family or the fear of you or your children getting sick or dying because there is no way to pay for basic medicine.

Never being to a third world country other than the one you see from the bus going from the airport in the Mayan Riviera to your five star resort, stepping off the plane in Haiti felt like being pushed from a pitch black room in which you had spent several hours into the midday sun with a hangover. All at once any preconception that maybe it wasn't so bad here was blown away. The airport itself looked as though it had just suffered a fresh bombing.

After presenting Rea with a check for $2500 and a stack of books and dictionaries, that first night in our room in St. Joseph's Home for Boys ( a hostel run by ex street children ) , we knew one thing, that we could never turn our back on what we were seeing. I had lived in and frequented some pretty bad areas in Vancouver and Toronto in my day, but I simply couldn't process this. From our rooftop deck I could see people eating dinner in homes with missing exterior walls, bathing in filthy water on their roofs, children playing in and around burning piles of garbage, and families of 5 or more living in ten by fifteen foot rooms.

The next morning with the initial shock wearing off we were picked up by Rea and her brother Dodo and taken to SOPUDEP school. I tried to capture as much of that first morning at the school on video, but my nerves were still a bit shot and much of the footage didn't turn out, but what we experienced was nothing short of magical. A small sign was taped to the outside wall that read in broken english "Welcome Ryan Son and Father" ( Haiti's official language is a mix of French and West African called Creole ) and in the courtyard after the students sang their morning song and raised Haiti's national flag we were ushered up front for an official introduction. My first thoughts were that these kids must be thinking " Oh great, some more foreign guys to come to make some promises and never do anything for us." If they were, they sure hid it well because we spent our time with some of the most truly bright, funny, well mannered, outgoing, and happy kids I think I've ever met.

In Rea's office that doubled as the computer lab, we sat down for a meeting with her Haitian staff members to discuss the pressing issues facing Haiti and the school. With the help of her assistant Watson doing the translation, we listened to the story of SOPUDEP, about the amazing amount of work that Rea has put into the school and her other programs including an adult literacy program, a women's empowerment program, and a HIV/AIDS treatment/prevention program. Rea said that "the first order of business was to stabilize the teachers pay." To pay 35 teachers only comes to $20,000.00 US a year. Rea explained "while these teachers make incredible sacrifices for the school they are these children's lifeline for education and to keep them they need to be paid." All the teachers are university educated and a few left careers as lawyers to teach at SOPUDEP. During our talks of bringing in more computers a little girl was brought to the office and was barely able to stand or speak. Rea instantly recognized this child was suffering from hunger and sent the janitor down the road to get her a cookie and juice. From that moment our conversation shifted significantly.

I had been led to believe on SOPUDEP's old web site that they had a food program which supplied many of the children and staff their only meal of the day. The government subsidized the lunch program, but it was discontinued the day President Aristide was kidnapped in 2004. Hence the students at SOPUDEP as well as most Haitians are starving. Impossible to learn when the mind is on an empty stomach. It was decided that the lunch program needed to be implemented without hesitation. While we were visiting SOPUDEP School we gave them $200 to have a party and that fed 550 people or more. Many of them ate some and took the rest home for their families. This boggled our minds.

Our outlooks have been radically altered since our return home. The first thing we put in place was that we are taking at least 10% of every project our company does to donate to SOPUDEP school to ensure the promise we made of paying every teacher and feeding every child. Secondly we are right now in the process of establishing a foundation that will fund some activities at SOPUDEP. Once the foundation is set up if you require a tax receipt we will then be able to issue one. When our foundation has been established I will be posting it on the web page with online donations asap. However if you feel that you would like to donate right now without a tax receipt you can pay by clicking the PayPal Donate button or please contact me.