Celebrating the Earth's Gifts at SAKALA
News for a better world from the SAKALA community center in Cité Soleil, Haiti
Wow, wow, wow!
Got the latest pictures from the team at the SAKALA community center showing the Earth Day activities Saturday and realizing (for the millionth and one time) how much there is to celebrate there.
Let’s get to it.
SAKALA has long had a weekly environmental celebration called Vandredi Latè (Earth Friday in Haitian Creole), but this year the international Earth Day (April 22) fell on a Saturday so they had an extra special event then too.
Tree and seed planting activities were led by SAKALA’s chief agronomist, Jimmy Charles, seen here toward the back holding his peace fingers up, flanked by the children he teaches gardening skills to every day.
When I last was able to visit SAKALA last year, Jimmy gave me a tour of the garden, proudly showing the reinvigorated tree nursery with hundreds of tiny saplings.
I can see from the pictures here how much the saplings (not to mention the children themselves) have grown under the sun of Cité Soleil (in English, literally City of Sun).
I am not sure what the tree in the first photo is (I am guessing a fruit tree), but I am pretty sure the tree above is a flamboyant — or flame — tree, aptly named for its brilliant red-orange blossom the color of fire. A beautiful shade tree for when the sun gets too hot.
The activities were not limited to the SAKALA community center itself.
The youths of the new Job Power program — whose daily work is taking care of the earth through participating in such things as gardening and recycling— have also been out in the force throughout Haiti.
These photos were taken by the Job Power team in Gressier in the Nippes region in southern Haiti. Gressier is a much more rural place than Cité Soleil, which is in the same area as Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince.
Many of you have supported the Job Power program (thank you!) which provides well-paying, environmentally friendly jobs to youths throughout the country, offering both economic security and hope that better days are ahead for Haiti.
But those better days are not quite here yet — extreme political violence and economic insecurity are still holding sway.
Which brings me to an update on one of SAKALA’s chess champions, Marie “ZiZi” Bernard. Because of the conditions in Haiti it was not possible to get her a passport in time for the youth chess championships in Greece in April. (Passport offices in Haiti have been overwhelmed for months owing to a new 2-year emergency immigration program offered by the U.S.)
But ZiZi’s chess adventure — to which many of you supported (again, thank you!) — is simply postponed, not canceled.
The Haitian national federation chess team — of which ZiZi is a part — is looking at other international championships later this year, perhaps a little closer to home (and, so less prohibitively expensive than Greece would have been ).
Hopefully this will give enough time for ZiZi’s passport to come through. We will keep you posted.
In the meantime, ZiZi has been sharing her expertise by teaching her classmates chess. :)
Maybe soon she will have her students joining her on the chess team!
As I looked at the pictures of the children celebrating the earth’s gifts, I was reminded again (for the ten millionth time) how they are themselves such gifts.
Every year on Easter, it is a tradition in Haiti to fly kites — I missed it this year, but am hopeful for next.
At SAKALA, the children make the kites themselves writing inspirational messages they send out into the sky we all share.
Here is one of them:
Wishing you much peace, happiness, and love. Thank you for your solidarity with SAKALA!
Inspiring as ever. Bless you all.