The Spirit of the Season at SAKALA

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

Every year around this time I think of the greatest Christmas gift I ever received.

I was at SAKALA, looking on as a visiting organization passed out Christmas presents to the kids – usually a toy and a packet of cookies.

The gift of seeing the children’s joy at receiving these treasures would have been enough for me. But there was so much more.

As soon as the Christmas program was over, some of the children raced toward me. I assumed they wanted to show me their presents.

Instead, they were rushing to share their gifts with me, offering their cookies with big smiles.

This might seem a small thing, especially as we enter a holiday season where many of us have too much to indulge in, rather than too little.

But if you had only one packet of cookies, had only one gift with no certain prospect of receiving more, would you give it away?

It is easy to say yes to the hypothetical and I would like to think I would. But I am not sure that, in real life, I would not try to hide my one gift away for fear of losing it.

But here were SAKALA’s children rushing to share. Gleeful at the blessing of being in the position to give a gift.

Several years ago, when I was first learning of the miracle of this place, I interviewed Daniel Tillias, co-founder of SAKALA. I asked him about the community peace center’s beginnings in 2006, during another time of extreme political violence, when seemingly everyone in Cité Soleil (where SAKALA is located), old and young alike, had a target on their back.

Of the vision back then for what community leaders hoped SAKALA would become for generations of children, Daniel simply said: “There will be love in this place. There will be sharing in this place.”

Indeed.

In 2019, Daniel was named a CNN Hero for his work at SAKALA. I remember being there for the filming of this video, a time when the dangers shown there have since exploded through much of Haiti.

Those days, we know now, were actually relatively peaceful. The word “relatively” carrying a lot of weight in that sentence as Haiti, particularly the Port-au-Prince area of which SAKALA is a part, has spiraled downward.

In the video, juxtaposed against the scenes of violence in the streets were the scenes of the children in SAKALA’s garden, learning and playing and telling of their dreams for the future. Enjoying the peace.

It seemed impossible then. Even more impossible now.

And yet here they still are. (All the pictures below are from December and November of this year.)

Still tending the garden.

Still studying in SAKALA’s computer lab.

Still playing chess.

Still learning from their teachers (and, occasionally, goofing off for the camera. :))

In defiance of the dispiriting headlines from Haiti we read seemingly every day now, SAKALA’s children share their joy and spirit and heart with all of us.

What a gift.

With gratitude for helping make all this possible, we wish you a peaceful and happy holiday season!