The heart behind the mission of New Roots is to end Generational poverty in our village of Chiron Haiti. The way we go about our mission is quite a bit different to how many missions choose to work in poverty stricken areas. Instead of coming and treating the affects of poverty (orphan care, malnutrition, etc), we seek to end generational poverty in our village of Chiron all together. The first way we have gone about this is through sustainable, dignified, job creation.
Over the past four years since starting the farm, we have seen our community take huge strides forward. When we moved here there were only mud and stick homes; now over 15 block homes have been built. Our employees are sending their children to higher quality schools, eating more nutritious food, and are over all healthier. Our employees and many others in the village have started their own small businesses as a result of the economic boost they have seen through New Roots.
We understand that in order to truly elevate a community out of poverty, we have to work with several generations, which is why we first started our soccer program. Soccer is a means to reach the children in our community and teach them life skills that will help change their life course. One of the major problems we see here is that local children don’t have the ability to dream. When you grow up in survival mode and are only capable of getting through the day, it’s hard to think about the future or believe that anything positive could ever happen in your life. In my opinion, getting out of this line of thinking is one of the hardest parts of poverty to over come.
We are excited to announce, that after years of dreaming about this expansion, it is finally time to build our Community Advancement Center!
Over the next year and a half, we are going to develop a space that will allow us to truly be able to invest in the lives of those in our community. Our first step will be creating a permanent home for our soccer program where we can improve equipment and control who comes and goes, ensuring the children aren’t subject to emotional abuse during practice and games as they currently are. In addition we will build a community playground, library, and computer lab.
We don’t believe a community can ever rise above poverty if they don’t have access to modern day technology and books. The library and computer lab will be open to everyone and we will also partner with local schools to ensure their students are learning how to effectively use technology and books. In order to gain access to the computer lab, individuals will first have to take a typing class, and pass an age appropriate test. To gain further computer privileges, we will offer classes on many different computer programs (word, excel, etc) in hopes that their technology competency is on par with that of the developed world.
These are skills that are not taught in Haiti. Even in educated individuals, reading abilities are incredibly low. How can we expect anything else if they’ve never held a book? We will allow teachers from local schools to check out books that they can use as resources for their classroom.
The community center will also have a study hall, where students can work on homework even after dark as homes in our village don’t have electricity. It will have two classrooms where we can teach classes chosen by the community such as nutrition, adult literacy, finance management, bible studies, or really anything else that our community feels they need. The specific classes we teach will be chosen by a volunteer committee from the community. As the needs in our village change, so will the classes offered.
We envision this happing in 3 phases over the next year and a half.
Phase 1:
Land 4 acres: $25,000 (Fully Funded)
Perimeter Wall, 6ft Chain link fence: $10,000
Well: $1,500
Solar Power: $5,000
Soccer Depot/Bathrooms: $10,000
Commercial Playground/basketball Court: $25,000
Total: $76,500
Phase 2: Building the Community Center
Phase 3: Furnishing the Computer Lab/Library
Making it Happen
The New Roots Community Center and the programs it will offer will show each child in Chiron that they are loved, valued, and have so much potential. I truly believe that the life skills taught in this center, coupled with the jobs we are creating, will raise Chiron out of poverty. It may only be a small village in Haiti, but these children deserve the same potentials in life as anyone else.
We can’t make this dream come true with out your support. We would like to invite you to help us provide the children in Chiron with the opportunity to dream by partnering with us to build the Dream Center.