Job Power in Haiti

News for a Better World from the SAKALA community center in Cité Soleil, Haiti

The news you see about Haiti these days is admittedly not good.

The images and stories are too often of violence and despair – and they are true images and stories.

But this does not mean they are the only stories, the only pictures of life in Haiti now.

Here is another story.

“I produced 500 fruit tree seedlings as part of the campaign to provide one million hours of work for youths in Haiti,” says Meslande Sauveur of the small city of Gresye in Haiti, in an early brochure for the Job Power program that has grown from the work of the SAKALA community center in Cité Soleil.

Here is another story.

“I collected 3,000 plastic bottles as part of the campaign to provide one million hours of work for youths in Haiti,” said Louis Charles Onel, a SAKALA beneficiary from Cité Soleil who is also a member of the Job Power program.

Louis’ and Meslande’s stories aren’t the only ones. So far more than 500 youths throughout Haiti have had well-paying jobs that have provided the economic security that allows them to resist the pull of violent gangs and choose a path of hope instead.

Job Power’s goal, right now, says Daniel Tillias, SAKALA’s leader and creator of the Job Power program, is to provide 10,000 jobs for youths in Haiti.

Actually, that was the goal a couple of days ago when I talked to him, and Daniel, a CNN Hero from 2019, is never one to think small — and 10,000 is really too small.

Here by the way is Daniel celebrating with two champions, Merisena Cadeau and Geralson Simon, from SAKALA’s chess program — another thing that seemed impossible until it was done.

Merisena Cadeau went on this year to compete in the Chess Olympiad in India.

Here she is at the airport in Port-au-Prince on the way to the tournament, her teammates from SAKALA (and future chess champions themselves) draped her in the Haitian flag.

But I digress. Can’t help myself. So much good stuff going on at SAKALA.

If Daniel’s goal a couple of days ago was 10,000 jobs, I’m sure it is one million now. Maybe 10 million.

If infinity was a workable number in a spreadsheet, that would frankly be Daniel’s goal — and I would not bet against that the team at SAKALA will find a way to make even that happen.

Because that is the real story of Haiti, these young people showing great courage at a very difficult time who are leaping at the opportunity to work and make a better life for themselves.

But not just themselves.

A better future for Haiti as well, a better world for all of us.

Or as the sign this young woman is holding says in Haitian Creole: “Only by working together can the country change.”

The jobs are not just any jobs, they are all in the environmental field. Everything from collecting plastic bottles for recycling and upscaling (into things like building materials) to planting trees.

These are crucial jobs in a country that is on the front lines of climate change and battling a huge waste management and pollution problem.

Here for example is the trash stuffed drainage canal just over the wall from SAKALA’s garden. A canal meant to alleviate flooding actually exacerbates it, pouring waste into the streets after even a gentle rain.

Many of SAKALA’s children live alongside this canal. It is unforgivable. I can think of no other word for it.

But the same children who grew up in places such as these are the young people now, the future leaders of Haiti, determined to change it.

And one of the ways they will make this amazing transformation to the world they deserve is through Job Power.

If you would like to join them and be a part of the Job Power movement, you can send a donation through the SAKALA site and put “Job Power” in a note. (Or, if you prefer to send a check, make it out to SAKALA International and mail it to P.O. Box 490, Camden, Maine 04843. That’s a U.S. address.)

Many thanks for your solidarity with SAKALA throughout the years and wishing you a joyous holiday season.

I will let the kids, our future leaders, have the last word.

“We are a group of youths who set up a tree nursery as part of a campaign to provide one million hours of work for youths in Haiti.”