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The
impulse to help someone in need is good. But it takes
wisdom to help in a way that preserves the dignity of
the recipient and doesn't generate more helplessness. |
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Beyond
Borders associates, Jeff and Beth
Rogers, are in their second year of service in Haiti.
They came to Haiti with a host of useful skills, but
know that they have as much to learn as they have to
teach. By offering their help
as part of a respectful exchange between neighbors,
they seek to be clay for a new model of ministry. Below
is the story of one remarkable Haitian woman who has
been part of their learning exchange. |
Clay
for a New
Model |
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by
David Diggs
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was persistence that got Milouse Josnère where
she is today. She hadn't even been invited to the first
training back in the summer of 1999. But she had heard
how a woman was coming all the way from a country called
Nicaragua to her rural Haitian community to explain
how |
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to
make jewelry from the clay that could be found right in the
Haitian soil. Milouse wasn't interested in making jewelry
for herself. She was a poor Haitian woman who struggled to
put food on the table for her children. She had heard that
making jewelry had allowed this Nicaraguan woman, Maritza
Blas Cano, to escape a life of grinding poverty and provide
for her own six children. So she persisted until she was allowed
to participate in the jewelry making training.
Initially the work
was difficult, and many of the women became discouraged.
But Milouse persisted. She continued to develop her skills
until more and more of her jewelry met the exacting standards
demanded by the market in Port-au-Prince and internationally.
Milouse became a model in her church and community. She
was able to earn enough to be able to not only feed her
children each day, but also to pay for the specialized health
care her sister was needing, and to buy a mule (an animal
of great value in the Haitian countryside).
Milouse's success led other women to seek training. Milouse
has freely trained over 50 other women to make the jewelry.
The women form and fire the beautifully crafted red and
black clay beads at home, which allows them to also attend
to children and their other household work. Together, the
women have made over 12,000 pieces of jewelry since the
project started. The average woman in the project earns
over four times what the typical unskilled worker in the
community makes. As important as the money, though, is the
new self-esteem this work generates among the women. They
aren't struggling for slave wages in a sweatshop sewing
sleeves on shirts they didn't design. These women have become
artisans who design their own jewelry and invest it with
beauty.
Beth and Jeff Rogers, who serve as
Beyond Borders associate staff members
in Pandiassou
are
working to help these women find markets for their necklaces,
bracelets, and earrings both within Haiti and abroad. Jeff,
who is a skilled professional potter, has also been helping
a group of local potters perfect their skills in a local
workshop and traveling to other parts of Haiti to advise
other potters. He is training workers in the production
of clay bricks and tiles for the local market.
Through
his association with Potters
for Peace, Jeff is also supporting the development of
a cottage industry that will produce inexpensive clay
water filters to provide Haitian households with clean
drinking water.
(Contaminated drinking water is a leading cause of disease
in Haiti.)
Jeff
and Beth report that their biggest task and most important
work is just to be good neighbors in their new community.
They do all their work in the community of Pandiassou
in collaboration with the Little
Brothers and Sisters of the Incarnation. Jeff and Beth
were commissioned to come to Haiti by their church, New
City Fellowship, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The
various projects using clay are carried out with technical
support from Potters for
Peace.
To
see past correspondence from the Rogers, click
here.
NOTE:
Jeff and Beth have recently returned to the U.S. and now
run a boutique that sells Haitian artwork near their home
in Georgia. To learn more about their new work, contact
David Diggs. |
