Haiti Emergency Relief Org.(H.E.R.O) You are a Hero - Help Save a child - Help Save a Country! Vous etes un hero ou une heroine - Aidez Sauver un enfant - Aider Sauver un pays !
Features:
- special marathon/kombit for fundraising of a school building in Lagonave, Haiti. To make a donation for that school go to: napsoc.org
- College Adventiste des Gonaïves needs urgent financial assistance for a rebuilding/ and a technology center. The school was basically devasted by the last September hurricane "Jeanne".
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(Haitians, and dominicans join voices to help) Wyclef Jean and Mendoza |
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Fri Jul 22 07:50:01 2005 |
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THIS ARTICLE IS ABOUT WYCLEF AND MENDOZA.
HAITIANS AND DOMINICANS JOIN VOICES TO HELP
July 3, 2005
Apopular Haitian-American entertainer and a Dominican-American have joined forces to create goodwill between Haitians and Dominicans on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.
Hip-hop musician Wyclef Jean, founder of Yele Haiti, a nonpolitical, nonprofit foundation that provides education and other opportunities for children in his impoverished nation, is working with Herman Mendoza, co-founder and director of operations for Stepping Stones Ministries, a College Point nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian aid to countries hit by disasters and funds programs for troubled youth.
Jean said the movement he and Mendoza started, called One Voice, "will encourage Dominicans in the U.S. to help Haitians in Haiti, and Haitians in the U.S. to help Dominicans back home. This never happens," he said. "Believe me."
Relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic have been fractious for generations. Haiti - a prosperous French colony known as St.-Domingue in the 17th century and later, the first black republic - annexed the Dominican Republic (when it was known as Santo Domingo) in the 19th century. Haiti ruled all of Hispaniola from 1822 to 1844, when forces led by Juan Pablo Duarte established the Dominican Republic as an independent state.
Other conflicts between the two countries have fueled mutual distrust. In 1937, under orders from President Rafael Trujillo, thousands of Haitian sugar cane workers in the Dominican Republic were massacred.
Jean pointed to striking disparities between Haitians and Dominicans. He said in his country - which has been wracked by coups and invasions and is now the poorest nation in the hemisphere - most Haitians live on less than $1 a day; unemployment is close to 80 percent; more than 50 percent of the people are illiterate. In contrast, he said, there is 15 percent unemployment in the Dominican Republic and 15 percent of the population is illiterate.
Mendoza said he did not notice tension during a recent visit to his homeland, but he said numerous Haitians are there looking for work and are subject to checks by immigration officials. "As far as Dominicans embracing Haiti, I don't see a problem," Mendoza said. "We want to work out our differences socially, politically and economically. People will see there's no bias."
One Voice is reaching out for medical and educational supplies for needy areas of both countries, sections of which were devastated by floods last year. Jean and Mendoza are asking the public to share some of what's in their medicine cabinets. They are collecting items for babies and adults, such as disinfectant and toothpaste, plus pens, crayons and notebooks, among other things.
"Numerous humanitarian service organizations as well as entertainment and music celebrities have pledged their support of this drive," Jean said. "If each family puts together one kit, it can mean so much to our countries."
A service that Stepping Stones Ministries sponsored on April 15 in Washington Heights - home to many Dominicans in New York - raised $1,000 to support the cause. A similar service is scheduled for July 30 at the True Worship Church in the East New York section of Brooklyn.
One Voice hopes to help children in both countries fulfill their dreams.
"Despite what history tells them about the conflicts between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, we want them to know they are one," said Jean. "Our project is set up to show them that at least Dominicans and Haitians in the U.S. can live that reality.
"The first step," Jean added, "is for us to send aid to the most impoverished communities, not as Haitians or Dominicans, but as One Voice."
Anyone wishing to contribute to Yele Haiti or Stepping Stone Ministries, can contact Herman Mendoza at his realty office, 718-463-3030.
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Helping the Lord provide Sunday, September 11, 2005 By PATRICIA C. McCARTER Times Staff Writer patriciacm@htimes.com Oakwood team brings coast hope, plus a little song BILOXI, Miss. - It's because God is trying to tell us something. Theresa Braddock believed that as she saw the waters of the Gulf of Mexico swirling in her kitchen and the water of Biloxi's Back Bay rising in her living room. God was talking. She said Hurricane Katrina did what it did because God was trying to tell us that He isn't pleased with us and He wants us to get right with Him. Tuesday morning, she said God told her something else when 25 students with Oakwood College's chapter of the National Association for the Prevention of Starvation showed up to give her a hot meal, bottled water and a song. God was saying He hadn't forsaken her. "Look at all of these beautiful smiles, coming to pour God's blessings upon me," said Braddock, a 46-year-old bridge tender. "The Lord provides. Just look at how the Lord provides." No one asked NAPS to come to Braddock's neighborhood. Dr. Anthony "Doc" Paul, the director of Oakwood's NAPS chapter and the chair of the college's Biology Department, went scouting for a place to help. With dozens of mission trips behind him, Doc, 54, knows how to find people in need, no map necessary. On Tuesday, he passed the sign of a flood-damaged apartment complex and knew it was the place to go: Oakwood Village. The students exited the vans and did what NAPS missionaries from the Seventh-day Adventist college have done in Sri Lanka, Haiti and Zambia.They gave themselves to people in pain, knocking on doors to see how they could help. Braddock needed something for a rash she got from washing in dirty water from her faucet. A middle-age woman asked for adult diapers for her mother. Within an hour, Doc's charcoal stove was boiling a huge pot of beans, pasta, spaghetti sauce and onions - he calls it "gumbo" - and students grabbed their drums and horns so they could march and let everyone know lunch would be ready at noon. As it simmered, the NAPS men cleared away flood debris in shopping carts, and the NAPS women acted out Bible skits for children. At noon, dozens of residents left their water-logged apartments and lined up for bowls of Doc's gumbo. Some came back for seconds. Some had thirds. Once the group had delivered all of the diapers and peanut butter the neighborhood could handle, they went to the next spot, giving a Vietnam veteran a ride to get his prescriptions refilled. Driving through Biloxi, Doc spotted a church being used as a drop-off point for food and water. Supplies were stacked people-high all around the outside of the building. "Yes, sir, I could use some help," said Bishop DeBruce Nelson of the flood-ravaged Lighthouse Church. All this stuff, nowhere to put it, and most of the people who needed it had no way to get there. "We'll take care of it," Doc told him, even though he'd been ready to hit the road for Huntsville. NAPS organized the water, hygiene buckets and clothes. They packed their trailers and promised Bishop Nelson that they'd deliver the goods the next morning to isolated rural residents. Then they pitched their tents in darkness on a small slice of beach between the sagging Beau Rivage casino and the Interstate 110 overpass. A security guard came by to tell them to be careful, that there had been reports of a tusked wild boar roaming the beach. Alligators, too. They thanked him for his warning, and as they set up camp by flashlight, they sang "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand." Tradition of helping . Doc can trace his calling to benevolence back to his grandfather, who built a room on the side of his humble home in Trinidad to house tired strangers passing through. Also, his mother fed the homeless on that Caribbean island every Saturday of his childhood, which really annoyed Doc. "It meant we couldn't play, that we had to cook," said the man who has since cooked thousands of meals for the hungry. He was a 19-year-old mail clerk in New York City when he heard an Oakwood College choir performing. He saw in those students a peace he wanted for himself, so he and his wife, Sonia, came to Oakwood. In the mid-1980s when famine in Ethiopia killed 1 million people, Doc's humanitarian roots stirred him to form NAPS. The idea was to teach people how to raise their own food. The program has grown at the college where the motto is "Enter to learn, depart to serve." There are 11 American and seven foreign NAPS chapters, started by Doc and students who went there to bring food and hope. On these mission trips, the students live like the people they've come to serve, with no complaints. In Biloxi, there was no grumbling about the heat ... just praise for the occasional breeze. No asking why God allowed such destruction; just gratitude for what was spared. And when a young girl told Doc she had a toothache, he didn't question the insult added upon the hurricane survivor's injury. He just went to the van, searched through his gear and thanked the Lord for the Anbesol he'd kept from a trip to Africa. A few years ago the Oakwood group added a marching band, which plays songs like "When the Saints Come Marching In" through neighborhoods to let disaster victims know help has arrived. Two days after the attacks on the World Trade Center, Doc and several NAPS students drove to New York City, not to feed bellies but to feed spirits. Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, wrote that after all of the prayers and candlelight vigils "the clamorous and happy band was exactly what New York needed ... even if no one had realized it until this noisy apparition appeared among us." 'Sounded like angels' Kirk Thompson recognized the NAPS members when he stopped at the Lighthouse Church to donate ice. The Biloxi man was at his sister's the day after the hurricane, where her house still had four feet of water "and we were all hugging and crying like babies." Then came a strange sight: two dozen college students, in orange safety vests and hard hats, marching down the street, some with musical instruments, others with shovels and rakes. They asked the storm victims if they minded if they sang for them. "Everybody stopped what they were doing and listened," Thompson said. "They sounded like angels. They didn't have tractors or backhoes, but the love they showed us went a long way to make us feel better. "I was bawling my eyes out, and this kid came up to me, put his arm around me and said, 'It's going to be OK, brother.' "Something in the way he said it made me believe him." ___________________________________________________ |
