At Overture International, we often experience a sense of tension between celebrating the amazing progress we’ve seen our friends in southern Haiti make and the sometimes daunting work that remains for them to experience true independence and self-sufficiency. Ultimately, we’ve accepted that while there is no immediate end in sight, the progress we’re making is transforming lives and communities today and for generations to come. We’re in this for the long haul and appreciate the continued investment of our supporters who understand there is no quick fix to the challenges in Haiti, but that with sustained investment and effort, our friends in southern Haiti have hope for a brighter future.
We want to take this opportunity to highlight some of the amazing work that our donors and our team on the ground have made possible in 2021 in southern Haiti:
2021 - A Year to Remember!
We won’t belabor the point that 2021 was one for ages! But in spite of all the challenges, it was also a year of great progress. Here’s a quick review of this crazy, and crazily productive year:
ESPWA Strengthens Families: 100 percent of our reunified families have remained together! These families are the foundation of building Haiti Stronger. We’ve taken the work we did last year that has helped these families stay together to create a replicable model that is sustainable and will continue to strengthen families and communities.
January: we launched our quarterly virtual information sessions to deepen our relationship with supporters and provide an additional channel to learn more about our mission in action.
February: we declared a Month of Love for our friends in southern Haiti. During the month we celebrated the success of our reunified families
March: we released our 2020 annual report highlighting 12 months of transformational impact that your support has made possible.
April: we introduced our public health initiative to improve the physical and mental health of our families.
May: we launched our Haiti Promise spring campaign inviting all of our amazing supporters to become more engaged with our mission by not just giving financially, but also by praying and learning more about our work and the families we serve.
June: we celebrated the one-year mark as ESPWA’s sponsor and released ESPWA’s impact report - “An Orphanage Transformed.” We also held our interactive, virtual information sessions to discuss the changes at ESPWA.
July: your support enabled us to provide resources to our friends in southern Haiti helping them work through the assassination of the Haitian president.
August: a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit southern Haiti causing widespread devastation. Thanks to your support, we were able to respond quickly and effectively with emergency shelter, food assistance, access to medical care and social support.
Shortly thereafter, Tropical Storm Grace caused significant flooding, making the earthquake recovery work even more difficult. But our team worked diligently to overcome the new challenges and continue the recovery efforts.
September-October: your support allowed us to seamlessly move from the emergency response phase of disaster response into phases 2 and 3 - recovery and rebuilding. We also used this time to establish our Overture Social Support Model made up of our five core programs: Nutrition, Healthcare, Housing, Education and Social Empowerment. Your continued investment combined with our Social Support Model and the dedication and work of our teams in southern Haiti are the ingredients for building Haiti Stronger!
November-December: we launched our Haiti Stronger year-end campaign enabling us to expand our Social Support Model to ten of the most vulnerable communities in southern Haiti.
If we weren’t so excited and blessed, it would make us tired just thinking about all that has been accomplished! But as we’ve said, now is not a time for rest. We must continue the work we’ve been called to do with our friends in southern Haiti. We hope you will continue the journey with us!
Haiti Stronger, Big Impact For Our 10 Priority Communities
While we can’t get into the details of all of our progress here, we did want to highlight several important efforts that your investments in our Haiti Stronger year-end campaign have made possible as we officially expanded our Social Support Model to 10 priority communities focused on equipping them with Education, Food, Housing, Social Empowerment, and Healthcare support. This resulted in the following:
Completing 10 comprehensive community assessments that provided the insights and information needed to develop the most strategic plan to meet each community’s critical needs.
5 community leadership trainings with a total of 50 community leaders trained to help guide their communities toward a more independent and sustainable future.
8 Child Protection Workshops in 4 communities have helped equip parents with the tools and resources they need to provide the care and support their children need to succeed.
7 Mobile Healthcare Clinics that served more than 2,600 patients in 7 communities. This is a critical part of equipping our communities for success as it’s impossible to undertake any of the other efforts without one’s health.
Execution of our Community Meals Program in all 10 communities, serving more than 81,000 meals. That means thousands of community members received healthy, nutritious meals as they recovered from the earthquake and worked to rebuild their lives.
Training of 6 new teachers in one of the priority communities. This means we’re able to staff even more classrooms and serve more children with the education they need to help them become the most educated and equipped generation in southern Haiti.
Construction of 40 new homes, 4 each in the 10 priority communities. In addition to the new homes, hundreds of community members are being given the opportunity to earn an income and learn new skills. Miraculously, all the homes have been started and some completed in the face of earthquake devastation, supply shortages and political unrest.
What’s Next?
We’re so excited by and grateful for the amazing work we’ve done and the significant impact made possible thanks to the faithful support of our donors this past year. But it truly is just the beginning. We’re in the infancy stages of establishing our Social Support Model in our 10 priority communities. There is still considerable work to do in order to expand access to and capacity of the various programs that are working to solve the generational issues of hunger, poverty and lack of access to education, employment and healthcare. Addressing these issues is critical to continuing our work to build Haiti Stronger.
Only when these issues are addressed, will families in southern Haiti experience the true freedom that comes from living independent, self-sufficient lives. Thankfully, we’ve seen the Social Support Model already move us closer to making this dream a reality.
And we’re just getting started, 2022 will be fully focused on continuing to rebuild Haiti stronger! So get ready and we can’t wait for you to join us on the journey.
Now It's Time To Hear YOU!
We’re so grateful for you, our supporters! We are dedicated to keeping you informed and engaged in our work. With this in mind, we’d like to ask you a few quick questions to help us better communicate with you. We would greatly appreciate it if you take a few minutes to answer the following three questions and provide any additional feedback you think would be helpful.
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