Happy Birthday, SAKALA!

News for a better world from the SAKALA community center in Cité Soleil, Haiti

It all started with a dream and a soccer ball in 2006.

Daniel Tillias, leader and one of the co-founders of SAKALA, was a young law student visiting a prison in Port-au-Prince with some of his classmates studying human rights law.

Daniel heard his name called out by some of the prisoners. His law classmates teased him. Had Daniel been a prisoner himself, were these his friends?

The idea seemed very funny to them.

Daniel had never been a prisoner, but, looking closer, he saw the young men calling out his name were indeed his friends. They were people he had grown up with in Cité Soleil, one of the poorest and most stigmatized places in Haiti. A place synonymous with hopelessness, where for too many the only choice was which gang to join in order to survive.

Daniel’s old friends had ended up on a very different path in life than he did.

If you grew up in Cité Soleil and made it out as Daniel did, you might never admit to anyone you were from there. You might pretend not to recognize old friends. That was the way it was then.

For a little preview of how this story ends (or really continues) here’s a scene from SAKALA’s 14th birthday party recently — complete with glitter face paint. :)

When they called his name, Daniel went over to speak with his friends in the prison. This was the only gift that Daniel could give them that day. To know who they were and understand where they came from.

Daniel was going to law school to fight to give people like his friends a better chance in life. But what he realized after that visit was that by the time anyone ended up in prison in Haiti – guilty or innocent, young or old – it was probably already too late.

There needed to be a way to keep them off the path to prison in the first place and create a path to opportunity and a better life in its place.

So Daniel got together with some friends who also grew up in Cité Soleil and together they created SAKALA. The name SAKALA is both a Haitian Creole word meaning “approved by the community” and also an acronym standing for the Community Center for Peaceful Alternatives.

But it was not enough to have a dream or beautiful ideals. You needed something inviting for the youths to choose, something fun and inspiring, something that could unite them.

Soccer (known as football pretty much everywhere outside of my native US :)) fit that bill.

A few months ago I talked to a young man who was one of the first kids to join SAKALA. He remembers the day Daniel walked up to a group of kids, soccer ball in hand, and invited them to play in a game.

That was the start. Simple, but powerful.

Soon kids who were in danger of fighting each other in rival gangs were playing together on the same team. Eventually they became ambassadors for peace not only in Cité Soleil, but throughout Haiti, taking home the top prizes for good sportsmanship at tournaments that would have once been very nervous about accepting a team from Cité Soleil to play.

But it was not just about playing soccer – soccer was just the bridge to a better life.

Most immediately it meant the kids playing soccer for SAKALA could get a meal – which beyond quelling hunger each day meant they were less likely to feel the need to join a gang just to be able to eat.

SAKALA gave these kids the chance to choose hope.

Playing soccer for SAKALA was also a bridge to school. To be on the SAKALA team meant you had the opportunity to go to school, which would be the real life saver, the real path to a better life.

In the beginning, SAKALA did not have the funds to help parents pay school fees, but education was always the goal.

(Here is a picture of one of SAKALA’s kids practicing writing his numbers in preparation for his first day of school in 2018. I love how super focused he is.)

Not long after those first soccer games in 2006, Daniel was working as a translator for a group of missionaries from the US and they all got to talking about SAKALA. One of the members of the group, John Smart, gave Daniel $100 to support the work in Cité Soleil.

It was SAKALA’s first big donation and they made the most of it. To this day, Daniel talks about how much John Smart’s act of faith and confidence meant to him. It is a reminder of the impact we can have – even years later -- when we give of ourselves what we can. We can nourish the soil so a seed can grow or we can keep a mighty tree strong. You never know.

I remember my first visit to SAKALA in 2010, just a few months after the big earthquake that destroyed much of the Port-au-Prince area.

SAKALA did not have any buildings then – just a few small tents around what had been the concrete floor of an old factory long since knocked down.

But that concrete floor made for a great soccer field.

They did not know it then, but the large dumping ground next to the soccer field would become Haiti’s largest urban garden.

Today more than 1000 moringa trees grow there along with the vegetables and flowers – which in turn brought back birds and butterflies and bees.

The garden is also another classroom for SAKALA where educational and entrepreneurial opportunities grow.

And, of course, they still play soccer — and basketball, volleyball, baseball, and chess — too.

This picture is of a SAKALA’s girls’ soccer team practice from last year. When the little girl outside the circle was walking with me over to the practice field she told me she didn’t like sports, but seeing how super cool the older girls on the team were she decided she loved soccer and took part in the stretching. (I love how her shadow is so long and joins the team — just like she will some day.)

Fourteen years later, SAKALA -- with your help and solidarity for which we are so grateful – is making for a more peaceful and hopeful world for all of us.

So let’s celebrate with more pictures from SAKALA’s birthday party. Here are some smiling faces to lift all our spirits.

And finally, back to the beginning: the SAKALA birthday smiles of two of its co-founders and current leaders. Daniel Tillias, (left) who in 2019 was named a CNN Hero, and Herode Laurent, who back in 2006 offered a small house he had in Cité Soleil as its first headquarters.

One of the most important lessons for me from SAKALA’s 14-year (and counting) journey is that this beautiful place grew and was nurtured under some of the toughest conditions in the world.

And it is still a place where nothing comes easy, where the challenges can seem overwhelming.

But as many in the world now are dealing with their own trying times it is good to know that SAKALA’s motto — “With a dream, anything is possible.” — really is true.

A dream is just the beginning, but it is the best place to start.

Wishing you much peace, happiness, and health!

Happy Birthday, SAKALA!