UUSC is all geared up to host a dedicated group of UU College of Social Justice Haiti program alumni in Washington, D.C., for an upcoming lobby day! April 6–8 is going to be an exciting three days full of training, conversation, and legislative advocacy.

As UUSC's associate for grassroots mobilization, I'm thrilled to report that 25 service-learning trip alumni and community members from nine states and the District of Columbia will be convening on Capitol Hill to speak up for a just recovery in Haiti. They will team up with two representatives from the Papaye Peasant Movement (MPP): Mulaire Michel, an agronomist, and Philefrant St. Nare, a leader of popular education.

Plus they'll be joined by UUSC Haiti Program Manager Wendy Flick, who will have just returned from MPP's 40th anniversary celebration; Evan Seitz, UUCSJ's senior associate for service-learning programs; and Shelley Moskowitz, UUSC's manager of public policy and mobilization. And I'll be there, too!

Together, we will advocate on behalf of the men, women, and children who are slowly rebuilding their lives after the most devastating natural disaster in Haitian history. We will urge our policy makers to be accountable and transparent about the progress that is or is not being made in the reconstruction process.

The goals for the weekend include the following:

• Share firsthand experience of Haiti with our legislators
• Support the Assessing Progress in Haiti Act, which asks for accountability and transparency about how relief funding is being spent in Haiti
• Highlight the eco-village as a new model for recovery that empowers the people of Haiti
• Ensure the inclusion of Haitian civil society in the recovery efforts as well as special protections for vulnerable populations
• Keep the recovery in Haiti on the radar of our policy makers

The alumni's experience, dedication, and commitment are valuable resources. They have witnessed the resilience and innovation of the Haiti people firsthand and have been part of creating a sustainable recovery by working on the ground to build the first eco-village with MPP. And they will be translating that experience into further effective action as we meet with members of Congress.

Stay tuned for an update and more on how you too can help spread this message!

We're excited to invite you to Washington, D.C., to raise your voices for a just recovery in Haiti. Mark your calendars and join us April 6–8, 2013, for the opportunity to lobby your legislators in support of a truly sustainable recovery.

This is your chance to gather with alumni of UUSC-UUA Haiti service-learning trips and others with a passion for justice to make sure that Haiti stays on the new Congress's radar. Participants will receive lobby training and support, meet with congressional leaders, and network with national allies and Haitian partners as we lift up Haiti's continued needs and alternative recovery models.

If you have questions or are interested in participating, please contact mobilization@uusc.org.  

When: April 6–8, 2013

Where: Washington, D.C.

Tentative schedule:

• Saturday, April 6: welcome reception, dinner, and overview
• Sunday, April 7: worship service, Haiti agricultural workshop, or roundtable discussion with partners and allies
• Monday, April 8: breakfast and advocacy training, lobbying on Capitol Hill, and closing reception and debrief

Above schedule is subject to change.

Watch this video for some thoughts from Nuala Carpenter, participant in the 2012 Haiti lobby day, on the experience and importance of engaging your representatives in Washington on these issues:

A few weeks ago, the 10 families of the first eco-village in Haiti's Central Plateau celebrated their first full year in their new homes! Having joined the Papaye Peasant Movement in this endeavor from the beginning, everyone here at UUSC was really excited about this milestone. And we knew many of you, our UUSC members and supporters — who have helped make the eco-village a reality — were, too. To mark the special occasion, we decided to send holiday gift baskets and warm wishes to our friends in the eco-village.

We asked you to sign the card and share your holiday sentiments, and you enthusiastically responded — with almost 900 signatures and more than 350 personal comments!  I translated the messages into Haitian Creole and sent them to Nanouche Enaillo Forestal, our on-the-ground team member in Haiti. She included the messages in the holiday baskets, which she delivered by hand to the families in the eco-village. 

Each basket contained seven packages of organic seeds, your holiday wishes, and some extra financial support. We know the seeds will flourish in the families' growing gardens, which are key to their new sustainable lives and livelihoods in rural Haiti. And the baskets were purchased from the Haitian artisans at the Association for the Promotion of Integral Family Healthcare, a UUSC partner in Port-au-Prince.

Nanouche reports that the families were very happy to be remembered. "They put together their voices to thank UUSC and everyone who helped them," she told me. "It was a wonderful day for all residents in the village, and I have confirmed their joys in their hearts." Thank you so much to everyone who helped us celebrate not just this project milestone but also the people who are living it — together, we're redefining recovery in Haiti and showing that Haitians themselves know how to transform surviving into thriving.

With the holidays behind us, I finally have time to report a bit on my recent trip to Kenya for UUSC in which we visited four partner groups: the Kakamega Grassroots Initiative, the SoilFarm Multi-Culture Group (which runs the renowned Hope in Crops program), the Kenya National Alliance of Street Vendors and Informal Traders (KENASVIT), and Rock Women.

We met with leaders of Kenyan civil society concerning the recently adopted new constitution and the upcoming April national elections. I delivered a lecture on human rights and terrorism at the University of Nairobi. And Martha Thompson, manager of UUSC's Rights in Humanitarian Crises Program, and I even managed to slip in a visit to Karen Blixen's home at the foot of the Ngong Hills made famous in Out of Africa.

The breadth of impact we and our Kenyan partner groups are having is remarkable. The Kakamega Grassroots Initiative (KGI), for example, is supporting women widowed and displaced by the 2007 election-related violence, offering them trauma support and seeding their small businesses. With another election on the horizon, KGI is similarly investing in and training youth to run their own small market businesses on the theory that, since young people are often bribed to cause tribal mayhem in marketplaces in connection with elections, they will be less motivated to do so if they have businesses of their own that would be vulnerable to disruption in the event of violence.

Or take KENASVIT, which UUSC helped launch a number of years ago. The "informal sector" accounts for an astonishing 80 percent of Kenya's gross domestic product, but before KENASVIT came into existence, street vendors and hawkers were utterly at the mercy of the authorities who often had little sympathy for their needs. Beginning with 200 vendors, KENASVIT has grown to represent 15,000, winning numerous concessions regarding such things as working conditions, harassment by police, basic sanitation, etc.

And this is to say nothing about the SoilFarm Multi-Culture Group's planting of 80,000 trees, including in schools where they serve to educate the students about the value of rain forest and counter the illegal harvesting of trees in the Kakamega National Forest. And there is also Rock Women's efforts to end trafficking of girls or stop discrimination against Somali refugees whom the authorities stereotypically assume, given the conflict between Kenya and Somalia, are active in the al Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab.

A rewarding, if exhausting trip — but one that made me even prouder to be part of UUSC!

What does reconstruction in Haiti look like two and a half years after the 2012 earthquake? With about 390,000 people still in tents in the heat of Port-au-Prince? Well, according to the Haitian government, the U.S. State Department, and the Inter-American Development Bank, reconstruction in Haiti looks like the Caracol Industrial Park project they are building for $224 million in northern Haiti far from the site of the earthquake.

To build this "showcase" reconstruction project, the Haitian government evicted 366 farmers off fertile land in a country that cannot feed itself and where rural farmland is at a premium. According to a New York Times article on July 5, 2012, "The project includes a heavy fuel-oil power plant, a dense housing complex and a port" all supported by the U.S. State Department.  Environmentalists are alarmed about the detrimental impact on the pristine bay and aquifer of a port, high-density housing, and the burning of heavy fuel oil. Funds approved by the U.S. Congress will go to build houses in Caracol, although they have not yet built any in Port-au- Prince. This reconstruction project to provide housing and jobs for homeless earthquake survivors begins by pushing 366 families off their land and will damage a fragile environment.

But these details pale in comparison to the labor record of the Korean company Sae-A, which the project's backers have actively recruited as the anchor company for the industrial park. According to the New York Times article, the Workers Rights Consortium, the AFL-CIO, and Guatemalan labor leaders have all documented labor-rights abuses — including use of force against union members, use of riot police, death threats, harassments, and assaults on workers — by Sae-A in their Guatemala factory. Why is Sae-A the employer of choice in a country that desperately needs decent jobs?

The Haitian historian and author Laurent DuBois said, "The way I see it, in a deep, long historical way, Haiti was founded by ex-slaves who overthrew a plantation systems and people keep trying to get them to return to some form of plantation." We all agree the people of Haiti suffered terribly in the earthquake. Is a reconstruction project that displaces families, damages the environment, and offers jobs under a ruthless sweatshop enterprise with a grave record of labor violations the best the U.S. government can come up with for reconstruction?  

The U.S. government could improve this project in several ways. They could seek an employer with a good record in labor rights instead of Sae-A. They could provide funding for a labor-rights monitor. They could make sure they integrate stringent environmental protections into the project plan. They could ensure that there is adequate housing for workers and guarantee adequate pay. They could guarantee that the displaced farmers have access to ongoing livelihoods or access to other viable land. All of these actions would signal that this is a reconstruction effort that takes into account the voices of the Haitian people, that sees them as active participants — not submissive recipients — in this effort.

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) partnered with the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) on a joint volunteer trip to Haiti, April 28-May 5, 2012. In the post below, UUSC Haiti Emergency Response Manager Wendy Flick shared mid-trip snapshots of the experiences of working and connecting with members of the Papaye Peasant Movement (MPP). The UUSC-UUA Haiti Volunteer Program is made possible through the contributions of UUA and UUSC donors and a generous grant from the Veatch Program of the UU Congregation at Shelter Rock, in Manhasset, N.Y.

Just a quick note to say everything is going great here, one of the best trips yet. We've had some wonderful rain in the late afternoon or evening most days, sometimes heavy, but because of the late-day timing it hasn't changed anything in the program significantly and has actually helped keep the nights a little cooler for sleeping. It brings out the frogs, and it's nice to fall asleep to their singing.  

We have had some amazing experiences and serendipities during this trip. Last night we had finished our evening reflection circle, and some of us remained on the porch to sing a bit more. Our singing attracted some Haitians who were passing by on the path, who stopped to listen, and whom we then invited onto the porch. Gradually we were joined by more and more passersby, and we began to exchange songs: we would sing a UU hymn or other song and then they would sing a song in Haitian Creole. 

Together we were able to sing a couple of the Haitian Creole songs that our Haitian consultant Nanouche had taught us — songs about solidarity and about working together to bring about a brighter future for Haiti. It was completely unplanned, with people we didn't know at all, but in the end it turned out to be the same group we were to meet with today, who are here at the MPP Training Center for a five day course in chicken farming. Tonight they returned just as our evening reflection was ending, bringing with them even more friends until our porch was crowded with about 50 people. They also brought with them their pastor, who gave a short speech about how it was to sing "Makonnen Fos Nou" together with us. These types of exchanges are creating some profound experiences and memories that I think the participants will never forget; I know I won't. They were perfect endings to some amazing days.

A couple of snapshots from the past 24 hours were particularly moving to me. Tonight on the porch of our guesthouse when we sang "Amazing Grace" together. Our Haitian friends sang a verse in Haitian Creole, and we followed it with the same verse in English, with the backdrop of some boys playing soccer in the muddy path under the street lamp just beyond the porch and flashes of quiet lightning in the faraway sky.

Another came this morning as participants of this trip entered the original eco-village for the first time. On this journey, we have been toiling away in the sun to build the foundations for homes in the second and third eco-villages, so for most of the group this was the first peek at the original village and at a vision of what their labors on the foundations will evolve into within the next few months. As we crested the ridge above the village, chills ran along my spine and my eyes moistened. Eleven short months ago there was nothing in this valley but a few trees, and now it is a tapestry of colors — homes with bright pink and lavender flowers, dozens of tire gardens overflowing with everything from bok choy to tomatoes. It really looks like a kind of Eden. I thought to myself that if there exists something that is "the answer" to Haiti's challenges, it is right here in this place and in these people.

I know that the toughest moment is approaching, which is when, at the airport, I will have to say goodbye for now to these precious souls that I have so enjoyed sharing this experience with. Every soul on its perfect and unique path, all of us together on the path to justice. It's a beautiful thing.

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) partnered with the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) on a joint volunteer trip to Haiti, April 28-May 5, 2012. In the post below, trip participant Jocelyn Furbush writes about the hope and inspiration she experienced with the Papaye Peasant Movement, a UUSC partner in Haiti. The UUSC-UUA Haiti Volunteer Program is made possible through the contributions of UUA and UUSC donors and a generous grant from the Veatch Program of the UU Congregation at Shelter Rock, in Manhasset, N.Y.

In the United States, we mostly hear bad news about Haiti. I suspect that in the outpouring of support after the earthquake, many donors like me gave with the thought of temporarily alleviating suffering. We didn't expect to permanently lift anyone out of poverty, let alone transform the country. It's hard to imagine changing deeply rooted systems of power and oppression. It's hard to imagine restoring a depleted environment to the point where it could provide a decent life to millions of people, ensuring that the inherent worth and dignity of each is respected. Nonetheless, I came here in search of hope that both those things were possible — and that's exactly what I've found.

One example of this living hope is the home garden of Moccene, an MPP youth leader. His inspiring success in improving soil productivity (and thus family income and well-being) through creative and organic methods represents more than a single story of someone making a positive change. Because this change grew from and continues through a mature and sophisticated system of community organizing and because this young farmer connects his personal actions to the larger political struggle for food sovereignty, I truly believe it represents a movement.

Another example of hope stirring in Haiti is seen in the MPP's cooperatives, not just for agricultural production but for value-added processing from what's grown. These co-ops craft jams, peanut butter, honey, and I'm sure more to come. The twin pines logo on the jars connect the system of equal shared investment and reward that created these products to cooperatives of all kinds around the world. In 2012, the International Year of Cooperatives, I'm especially honored to learn from Haitians who are building the kind of cooperative economy I'd like to see in my corner of the world.

Just one more beacon from my short time here has been the joy and human connection I've found with my fellow UU travelers and the Haitians we've worked and eaten beside. I've discovered the power of spontaneous song and dance to cross language barriers. I've seen incredible resilience, generosity, humor, love, and faith. As I reconnect with my own UU faith and the space it creates in my life for balancing social-justice action with reflection, I'm blessed to be witnessing the community bonds here. They are strong enough to mobilize members to action and flexible enough to welcome newcomers. MPP calls their organizers "animators," which brings to mind waking the community up to its own potential and sparking it with new life. In returning home, I hope to be more of an "animatrice" than an activist, waking people like me to the hope Haiti has for itself and to offer to the rest of us.

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) partnered with the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) on a joint volunteer trip to Haiti, April 28-May 5, 2012. In the post below, trip participant Barbara Nelson reflects on the various ways to build foundations — with stones and with voices. The UUSC-UUA Haiti Volunteer Program is made possible through the contributions of UUA and UUSC donors and a generous grant from the Veatch Program of the UU Congregation at Shelter Rock, in Manhasset, N.Y.

I knew something was waiting here with this experience but had no idea what that something would be. Yesterday the form began to emerge. Much of what we had seen and heard began to fall into place. We now were participating in the helping to put the pieces together. The rain ceased, the preliminary steps were taken, and we actually began to build a home.

The organic nature of passing rocks and working side by side with the Haitians to lay the foundation of a new home was awesome. It felt so good to do something so concrete. To participate in an effort that will absolutely improve the quality of life for a family is amazing. At the start of the day it was "Yeah, stones!" At the end — tired, dirty, and sweaty — we still felt the same way: "Yeah, stones!"

Later on in the evening something totally unexpected happened. Our team was sitting on the front porch singing songs, practicing rounds, and sounding actually quite lovely in our own way. A young Haitian woman was standing on the path in front of our porch listening and smiling. We invited her up, along with some of her friends. With just very little encouragement she began to sing! Wow — how beautiful and powerful and very Haitian. Not a clue what she was singing, but we were still mesmerized. Our songs didn't quite have their energy, so we sat back and listened.

Over the next hour and a half, we sang. Well, mostly she and her friends sang, and we listened. We actually knew a Haitian song and sang it with them with gusto. And we all sang "Amazing Grace," us in English and them in Creole — that was magical. 

As the evening wore down, we invited them to join us another evening for another song fest. We hugged and said goodnight to our newfound friends. Another stone was laid.

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) is partnering with the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) on a joint volunteer trip to Haiti, April 28-May 5, 2012. In the post below, trip participant Orelia Busch reflects on tiny movements and cataclysmic earthquakes. The UUSC-UUA Haiti Volunteer Program is made possible through the contributions of UUA and UUSC donors and a generous grant from the Veatch Program of the UU Congregation at Shelter Rock, in Manhasset, N.Y.

Since our arrival in Haiti last Saturday, I have experienced moments that I can only describe as touch points, when my whole body responds to something I have seen or heard with a tingle or a shiver in the core of my being. On the drive north from Port-au-Prince through the mountains, we waited for the drivers to fix a flat tire on the side of the busy road. Haitians dressed up brightly and sharply for church passed by our car windows, and we talked about earthquakes.

Someone said that the tiniest movement deep within the earth creates what we experience on the planet's surface as a cataclysm that can wreak unbelievable destruction and chaos. One of the trip leaders told us that she didn't really understand the full impact of the earthquake until she witnessed that not only had it destroyed lives and homes, but it also left cracks in the earth that changed the pattern of the very rivers that feed the farms and the people of Haiti.

I think about earthquakes as I feel something stir in me and muddle through my own reflections on the sensory and new-experience overload of beauty and hardness that I see in Haiti. I think about earthquakes when I listen to Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, our host and leader of the Papaye Peasant Movement, describe his dreams for Haiti. He is working with 60,000 others all over this country to build a nation where the divisions that keep neighbors from working together are no more; where all people have enough healthy, locally produced food to sustain their families; and where neighbors work together to educate themselves, better their lives, and preserve the environment for future generations.

I think about earthquakes and I believe that each small motion towards sustainability and self-determination in Haiti could have such great positive impact in the future.

I think about earthquakes, I feel those shivers and tingles at my core, and I wonder what new channels, cracks, and ways of being and seeing that this experience will forge within me.

Video Diary: Haiti Day 2 from UUA International on Vimeo.

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) is partnering with the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) on a joint volunteer trip to Haiti, April 28–May 5, 2012. In the post below, chaplain and trip participant Megan Lynes talks about the powerful sense of community and interconnection she is finding there. The UUSC-UUA Haiti Volunteer Program is made possible through the contributions of UUA and UUSC donors and a generous grant from the Veatch Program of the UU Congregation at Shelter Rock, in Manhasset, N.Y.

­­­­­I came on this trip to Haiti because I felt deep compassion for the Haitian people following the earthquake two years ago. In learning about the devastation, I was aghast to find out about the centuries-long history of oppression and the long-term disempowerment of the Haitian people. When it became possible for me to participate in a UUA-UUSC service-learning trip, I knew I wanted to come here, learn all I could, contribute anything I could, and return home to teach others about what we can do together. What I didn't know when I signed up was that I would come into contact with one of the most important grassroots peasant-worker movements in the world today — and I didn't know how much hope is alive and spreading through this powerful people's movement. 

Yesterday was our second day at the Papaye Peasant Movement (Mouvement Paysan de Papaye, known by its acronym, MPP), and we spent much of it touring the compound and meeting Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, the executive director. He is warm, enthusiastic, clear-minded, and kind. It's easy to see why he has led more than 60,000 people for over 35 years, building this community into a place of health, equality, and visionary purpose.

Chavannes told us how human-rights organizations like the UUSC, and many governments all over the globe, partner with MPP. I felt in that moment that my life is intrinsically linked to the lives of the peasants here. What I have been so lucky to experience firsthand here in the Central Plateau is a sustainable community that most in Haiti can only hope to dream about. Yet, because we are all a part of the interconnected web of all existence, even the Haitians living in cities are part of the web, too. I cannot help but see each struggling or helping person as part of the entire picture. We each matter more to one another than we can ever really fathom.

"No one educates no one. We humans educate one another through the intermediary of the world." These words come from The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a book written by Paulo Frieri. Chavannes mentioned them in his talk with us, describing how one of MPP's key goals is to empower the oppressed, emphasizing that everyone has the capacity to teach and learn from one another. He described "gwoupman," the organizational system of MPP, in which groups of 15-20 people spend three months working, bonding, and learning how to be cooperative together. They then stay together as a united group through the years. This is a powerful community model with respect at its center. I think there are many elements of U.S. society that could benefit greatly from the wisdom of their organizing model. The interconnected web of life extends beyond borders. Educating one another through the intermediary of the world begins with each of us.