More than Hammers and Nails: UUSC-UUA Haiti Volunteer Workshop at General Assembly

Recent Meadville Lombard grad Elizabeth Ladd's moving story about her experience becoming ill and being taken to a rural medical clinic opened up our Haiti Volunteer Program workshop in a powerful way that got right to the heart of what it means to volunteer in Haiti. In this one incident, she encountered the twin realities of brutal Haitian poverty and American privilege — and learned firsthand what it really means to be interdependent. Thanks to the care of Haitians and the resourcefulness of her colleagues, she got the help she needed and is now fine, but most Haitians are not so fortunate.   

I was honored to host this General Assembly workshop — Volunteering in Haiti: More than Just Hammers and Nails! — alongside my colleagues Eric Cherry, the UUA's director of international resources; Jessica York, the UUA's youth resources director; and the group of seminarians who recently returned from helping the Papaye Peasant Movement (MPP) launch their eco-village project in the Central Plateau. MPP's vision is to build a community with decent homes, potable water, and sanitation in a village that also practices sustainable agriculture, rebuilding lives and livelihoods for people that have been displaced by the January 2010 earthquake. 

Through UUSC's partnership with MPP, the seminarians were helping build the first of 10 homes UUSC is sponsoring. This ongoing work will be the focus of four more Haiti volunteer trips over the next year. The first, for youth and young adults (15–23), is scheduled for August 20–27, and it will be followed by three more trips in the fall and winter for mixed ages. Our workshop also highlighted the work of our two recent medical volunteer trips and showcased some of the curriculum resources that Jessica is developing to help bring the experience back into UU congregations.  

What stands out for me most, though, is the commitment of our volunteers. They are accumulating amazing personal stories of encountering political, economic, and cultural difference; of learning how to become allies; and of taking those lessons home. Volunteers have already given sermons, written newspaper articles, raised money, and volunteered to serve as advocates for Haiti in the halls of power. They are living out their faith in the inherent worth and dignity of every person and acknowledging through their actions that all of us are ultimately interdependent.