about us
August 2009
Another human rights/humanitarian trip scheduled!








Dear Friends,

Thank you! So far we have received almost $2,000 in pledges and cash donations.

We're still packing. Our tickets to Haiti have been delayed a few days, so there is still time to reply back with a pledge of support. As you know, Children's Hope (in alliance with the Progressive Alliance), goes regularly to Haiti to do solidarity, human rights and humanitarian work, and all our donations are hand-carried; each school, clinic or prison is visited personally. This is our 10th trip since 2004. Every time is a new challenge, every time our hearts break in some new way, every time we are inspired by the strength and determination of this proud people.

Haiti has a horrifying tradition of being pillaged, and the result is that after thousands of years of abundance, this country is now the most impoverished place in this hemisphere. Children sadly are found wondering the streets, or sold into slavery; fathers can’t find work; women are targeted so systematic political rapes (19,000 of the 100,000 young women in the city of Port au Prince alone in the first year we went to Haiti following the recent coup).

Yet, I have never met so many heros. Please look for our journals from Haiti next week, for a personal look at conditions today.

You can save lives. $20 buys five bottles of anti-biotic eye med, pays a teacher’s salary for a week, or can buy powdered milk for 30 kids in an orphanage. Any amount helps, really.

We have purchased one new laptop (thanks to Dr. Ben) and found a bundle of children's vitamins at our door (I suspect - thanks go to Randy!) We are still finding the best prices on the medicine we want to purchase, but tomorrow Marshall Hospital in Placerville opens its surplus closet to us (thanks to Cathie!)...our bags are half full so far. Thank you, all!

On a sad note, this year, we will miss our dear friend and hero, Father Gerard Jean-Juste of Sainte Claire's Church in Port au Prince, near the infamous slum, Cite Soleil, and his feeding program struggles to continue.

Thank you for anything you can do...more updates later...peace, leisa

Leisa Faulkner
Founder, Children's Hope
Childrenshope@live.com
916-801-4184
3025 A Cambridge Road, Cameron Park, CA 95682


August 2008 Trip to Haiti

Here is journal entry #2 from this summer's trip:
Haiti Journal #2 - Cap Hatien
image: Leisa at St. Claire's Church with Father Jean Juste
July 28, 2008

At six o'clock this morning, the sun, street noise and smoke streaming in through the big pink wooden doors nudged me back to consciousness. One more blare of a truck horn, and I'm really awake. Even at this hour, I could feel the sun tanning my already brown arm, and sliding over toward the remaining shade, I realized I feel at peace for the first time in weeks.

It must be Cap Hatien. I am drawn to Shada, and can't think of leaving Haiti without walking with her children again, and capturing them with my camera. But it is more than that. I was trying to explain my compulsion to a Rotary member from the states I met in Haiti, named Claude. He has been coming to Haiti since about 1988, often for several months each year. 

Claude had asked what I was doing in Haiti. Most of the time, when I stay at St. Joseph's, I answer that question with the short version: "bringing in medical and school supplies." This time I decided to share a bit more since Tom Griffin, another boarder at St. Joseph's had told me about Claude. I trusted Tom, his courage when trying not to slip on oosing bodily fluids while photographing piles of corpses in a forbidden morgue earned him that, and more. Tom told me that Claude was a long-timer, and a "crazy, interesting guy". Sounded like a fit for me, so I was as honest as I could come up with words for.

Sure...I bring in medical supplies, and have, in fact, managed with lots of help, to ship 27 boxes of hospital extras from Marshall Hospital in Placerville, California to Father Gerard Jean-Juste at Sainte Claire's Church in Port au Prince, near the infamous slum, Cite Soleil. This trip, I will leave most of the distribution to his discretion. I usually hand carry and distribute all donations myself, leaving little time to photograph or do sociological research. Having the honor of being the one that gets to hold the babies that may be saved with a little Tylenol or amoxicilin, has also granted me acceptance and access to Shada, a place most white people would not find safe to body or wallet, due to the raw extreme poverty of he inhabitants. "The hungry have no ears", as Euvonie Auguste, an elegant, well-spoken Haitian Voodoo Priestess or Monbow, told me yesterday. She explained that when people are desparately hungry, they let loose their normal convictions.

But I didn't start out coming to Haiti bringing these supplies. While I was a political prisoner for my protest of the School of the Americas I got word through Paul that I was invited to join a delegation of human rights workers going to Haiti. Even though a donated two-week old copy of the New York Times had just arrived that afternoon to Dublin Federal Prison showing drowned bodies draped in trees, and women selling dirt biscuits on the street, I was thrilled and honored to get to look into the eyes of some of the people I had gone to prison for.

Turns out, I was released too late to join the delegation. It seems, though, that Pierre Labossiere had invited me to do a bit more than take down testimony of abuses. When I asked what I could do for Hatii now, he said simply, "buy your ticket", so I did...on blind faith really. My family and friends told me I was crazy, and tried to talk me out of going alone into a country so recently racked with a hurricane and a coup d'tat, but for some reason I felt very sure from the first burst of humid wind that greeted me stepping off my little plane for the first time, that Haiti is where I need to be right now.

I tried to explain all that to Claude.

Shada, where we go today, is the heart and soul of my search, I just feel it. Each time I go there I have to push back my emotion. My very good friend, old professor, and renowned photographer, Roger Vail, invited us to visit him last month in the Santa Cruz mountains, to bask in his hospitality and soak up some clean sea breeze. I had been voicing my insecurities about capturing this thing I am drawn to in Shada. As a grad student in sociology at CSU Sacramento, and a political economy student concurrently at UC Berkeley, I feel the weight of W.E.B. Dubois and the other great sociologists... and frankly feel incompetent. Roger reminded me, simply, "You don't need words". I felt a huge burden lift. Maybe, just maybe, I could pull this off with some photography/sociology combo.

At any rate, accepting my opportunity and my own limitations, here I am. 

Partly because Shada is perhaps the most impoverished neighborhood in Haiti, I sense it holds the essence of what I find so complelling. When looking over images I've taken in Shada, I am not as drawn to the dramatic evidence of their existence, though that is so stark and strange to our sensitivities, that some first timers feel an urge to vomit from the smell alone. I am drawn to the eyes of her people, especially the children. I told Claude that there is a courage and hopefulness, enduring strength and determination that I think westerners and the world could learn from. In this place, where little girls and boys walk with pigs over mounds of untold layers of muddy trash and feces, they show strength I can only aspire to. It is something I passionately want to capture a bit of, though I feel at a loss for words. Claude said, "Stupidity, is what I would call it. Why don't they just move?". I hope he was kidding, though I am not so sure.

In Shada, barefoot boys make kites salvaged from discarded yellow plastic grocery bogs; a bright eyed little girl smiled up into my camera wearing a powder pink rag the exact color as the algae bloomed pink pond behind her. Mother's cradle babies not destined to live past infancy due to hunger and malnutrition, and ask me to take their picture. This was not their doing, this is not their fault. I do feel though, that it is the world's responsibility and mine, to in any small way possible, make it right.

Thank you for caring about Haiti, and for helping to provide food, medicine, and school supplies for the chldren. Your support is making a world of difference. Later, I will try to write about our visit to Father Jean-Juste's church and seeing the feeding program, though we very seldom have both electricity and internet connection.

In solidarity, and gratitude, always,
leisa


Children's Hope
Work in  Haiti 2007

The little guy at the top of this page lives in Shada, one of the poorest places in Haiti. It is also one of the
places we personally visit twice a year, to deliver
medical and school supplies.

In Shada, there are no roads, no running water, no toilets, very little food (they sell biscuits made of dirt
in the alley-ways). Hope is hard to find in Shada.

So far In 2007, we have gone into Haiti twice, once in January and again in August. Both times, your donations were generous enough to allow us to
purchase several copies of the book, Where Women Have No Doctor, in Creole, antibiotics, pain relievers, and medical bags that were taken to clinics in
Cite Soleil, Labadie, Port au Prince, and Milot areas. We also distributed over a dozen stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs, along with some very badly needed
surgical supplies.

Before the August trip, we gained a new medical sponsor, Marshall Hospital, of Placerville, CA. Over $8,000 worth of supplies were donated to Children's Hope, raising the new and welcome question of
how we can begin to arrange for shipping ahead our medical supplies that can be dispersed on our arrival.
So far, PostNet of El Dorado Hills has offered to discount shipping by 20% to Florida, and another
shipper has offered free shipping from Florida to Haiti. We still cannot afford to ship donated supplies ahead, but we are making headway toward that goal.

Also during the January trip, we helped arrange treatment for malnourished children in Shada, and discovered that "Food and Meds For Kids" have been
very diligent about coming in each Wednesday to Shada for the feeding program. We are also hoping to build
the first dry toilet there soon. Since the first toilet we helped fund in 2006, over 30 ecological toilets have been
built and are working today.

We support a dozen schools throughout Haiti, but always look forward to visiting the first school we ever sponsored, the Sopudep School in Port au Prince. We are currently trying to find a generous source for 30 solar graphing calculators. Donations are badly needed!

We recently returned from our most successful trip ever in August. Because of your generosity we were able to deliver more than $10,000 in medical supplies, school  supplies, and monetary donations. It was our eighth trip in the last four years. Your kind support has made a difference in the lives of  thousands of Haitian children.

We are always in need of medical supplies,
Nokia cell phones, gently used lap-top computers, calculators and monetary donations.

Please call Leisa for details at 916-801-4184.

Please consider what you can do to help.

Haiti is the poorest place in our half of the
world, but we can make a difference. So little goes so far -- just $20 pays a teacher's salary for an entire month, and yet the feeling of knowing you have helped raise a child up  from misery is always worth so much more.

Children's Hope

3025A Cambridge Road
Cameron Park, CA  95682
website: 2childrenshope.org
Haiti Phone: 509.788.8861
USA Phone: 916.801.4184
email: childrenshope@live.com





Board of Directors

Leisa Faulkner: Founder and Executive Director
Vice President: Prof. Paul Burke, Sac. State University
Secretary: Caleb Barnes
Kristen Carver, Director of Operations
Daphinie Esrey, Intern: Executive Assistant
Luke Barnes, disability advocate, photographer
Legal Representative: Wade Redmon, esq.
Brian Concannon, esq.
Sasha Kramer, PhD, Soil
Pierre Labossiere, Haiti Action
Bill Quigley, esq., Loyolla University

Children's Hope works with differently-abled children
















Children's Hope has long been an advocate of the rights of all children, especially those who are differently-abled, and have presented at the Supported Life Conference in Sacramento, CA.

In connection with that, we are happy to announce that human rights advocate, Luke Barnes, age 17,  has officially joined our board of directors. He has participated in the protest of the School of the America's in Georgia, and appears in one of the SOAW videos. He is an advocate of full-inclusion, and lives that principle to its fullest. He is completing his eagle scout work this fall, as he balances Chidlren's Hope work with playing on his high school football, wrestling teams and Special Olympics basketball team. He is looking forward to joining a delegation to Haiti and is an amazingly intuitive photographer.
Fall 2007 Support
Southern California Fire support:
Children's Hope sent two cases of surgical masks to San Diego to help with smoke inhalation relief.

Please save graphing calculators for Haiti. Send to address below.

Thanks to Larry of Davis:
A secret patron of Children's Hope met me at the Amtrak station in Davis last week and tossed on board two large bags of medical supplies for Children's Hope. No questions asked. No credit required. A true act of selfless service. Thanks to all you kind hearts who give so much.

Thanks to Cathie of Marshall Hospital:
Another special thanks to Cathie of Marshall Hospital who saves lifesaving supplies for us that would have been tossed out by the hospital...you are a lifesaver.

Newest Hurricane and Medical Supplies:
Over thirty are dead following another hurricane hit to Haiti last week, and hundreds more are displaced which adds even more strain on Children's Hope to raise funds to ship medical supplies to Haiti.  Now the newest challenge is to pay for shipping of these supplies timed with my next delivery to Haiti in January - to assure supply's safe delivery I feel I need to be on-hand to personally pick up shipments and deliver to medical providers. Post-Net of El Dorado Hills has offered a 20% discount for Children's Hope on all supplies sent to Haiti...if you want to help pay for shipping to Haiti, you can contact Suzanne Ogg, manager, directly at Post Net: postnet205@sbcglobal.net phone: 916.941.7496. They are located at 4354 Town Center Blvd., #114, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762

Kidnappings: One safe return:Thanks for everything that was done in solidarity with Dr. Maryse Narcisse, the good news just came that she was released safely to her family.

My friend, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine's abductors have still not released him.
Please continue to contact one or all of the offices below -- of the Haitian government, the US embassy and the UN occupying powers. Express your concern that all efforts are being made to facilitate the safe return of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, missing in Haiti since August 12, 2007.

Thanks again for your solidarity with Dr. Narcisse and Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine

Haiti Action Committee


CONTACT:
Haitian Ministry of Justice
Tel: 011-509-245-0474

UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)
Tel: 011-509-244-0650/0660
FAX: 011-509-244-9366/67
Or, Fax Office of UN Secretary General in New York: 212-963-4879

United States Embassy in Haiti
Tel: 011-509-223-4711, or 222-0200 or 0354
FAX: 011-509-223-1641

Embassy of Brazil in Haiti
FAX: 011-509-256-0900
Email::<> HAIBREM@accesshaiti.com
Tel: 011-509-256-9662 or 6208 or 7556 or 7578


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