Sister Catherine Sarther visits Lagonav, Haiti

Sister Catherine Sarther, a member of the Beyond Borders Board of Directors, and the Province Haiti committee, visited Haiti from January 29 to February 1, 2018. She joined other visitors, including board members, a group from the United Congregational Church, Haitian-Americans and the executive director and staff from Beyond Borders.  Together they met the local coordinator of the Model Community Initiative Program and the director of the United to End Child Slavery Partnership with Free the Slaves.

One of the purposes of their visit was to explore the following projects:

  • Equipping communities to end the flow of children into restavèk (child slavery) using a six-month Child Rights Training that culminates in the creation of community-based Child Protection Brigades;
  • Preventing violence against women and girls in communities using an approach that balances power between women and men, and girls and boys;
  • Improving the quality of rural education at 25 schools using a methodology rooted in nonviolent, participatory, native-language instruction;
  • Employing an 18-month asset building approach to empower the very poorest families in a community to lift themselves out of extreme poverty. 

As David Diggs, executive director of Beyond Borders cautions:  To most first-time visitors from North America, Haiti feels extremely foreign, and the material poverty is disturbing and disorienting. The visitors depend on their hosts to make sense of this new world for them.”  

Please pray that our hearts will be open to all this experience holds and calls us to. 9 January

Contact information: Sister Catherine Sarther, kitsssnd@yahoo.com, 708-402-0235