Providing Opportunity, Finding Purpose: A Haitian Student's Journey to University
This piece is written by Phanuel, a Haitian student whom ACCESS has sponsored to attend university. We all grow up with a tradition. We do things that we do not chose, and often do not try to understand why. I first started to recognize this when found myself going to school. I never asked myself why I was going to school or what was the purpose of going to school? I guess most kids on my age go to school, then I will just follow the tradition. Until when I was in Junior High school, my mentor was giving a sermon on a ritual Sunday service and asked the church, "what is your goal and what is your purpose in life?"
This is where everything stopped and the world completely changed for me. I started to realize that I was living without a goal and a purpose. I started to seek for a dream and find a purpose for my life. A dream should be specific, measurable, realistic, and so on. However, in a country that is one of the poorest in the world, those theories are hard to apply — because we young Haitians do not have enough access or resources to achieve our goals. (Note: Haiti is the most impoverished nation in the Western Hemisphere. Only 27% complete primary education).
This is how ACCESS changed my life and opened a great door for me. ACCESS helped me to go to college after high school, starting in August 2009 at Universite Notre Dame d'Haiti. Even after the Earthquake blew through my country in 2010, ACCESS is still helping me to go to college in San Antonio, Texas USA.
Being in college in USA is to carry a challenge, and grow in life. One thing that we do not like is to change. That is my biggest challenge in College. First, my school is a cross-cultural university that has students from more than 17 different nations. Second, I need to change my existing lifestyle and mindset. I have to open my door to new cultures and different foods, for instance (which has made me in love with tacos and burritos).
My university experience has given me the opportunity to take new steps in my life. It is not simply an academic study; it is provides a lot of opportunities, which make me start working on my career and learn how I could become a good leader. For instance, this semester I am the President of a student organization, the Mission Society, so I can help others, along with one of my classes giving me the opportunity to do an internship at Hospice Vitas Care.
I think this is what makes ACCESS a unique and amazing organization. Personally, ACCESS is not like other traditional organizations that came to just give you food, money, and so on. Rather, ACCESS supports your dream, and helps you to build that dream. With a blessing, I found this great organization that has opened new doors and a new world to me. Now I am no longer dreaming, but living my dream and looking forward for bigger and better things. Thank you ACCESS!
A Message from ACCESS
Since 2009, ACCESS has been honoured to help provide Phanuel with access to an education. Upon completing his education, Phanuel plans to return to Haiti to begin making a difference to the people in his community, and to continue the work of rebuilding his country. ACCESS is thankful for the generous support of donors over the past several years to make this dream possible.
For more background, please visit the Phanuel Project page, or explore our other International Projects.
ACCESS: Allowing Children a Chance at Education is a youth-run, non-profit organization that facilitates education and empathetic leadership development through initiatives that engage, inspire, and motivate youth to drive positive change, locally and globally. ACCESS envisions the empowerment of generations of leaders through education in order to inspire meaningful development in their own communities.
Educator Resources to bring social justice, global perspective into the classroom
For ACCESS, all aspects of education are important, which is why the organization is expanding and re-launching its offerings of Educator Resources. These resources are available online free to all, including educators who value the positive impact of teaching, and the responsibility to create change and nurture leaders with a global perspective.
ACCESS has worked with elementary and secondary school teachers in developing this series of resources that not only fit curriculum standards, but also help students grow as globally conscious, social-justice aware individuals.
Annalisa Sodhi, an educator who was involved in the development of these resources, expresses that teaching is a vocation and a calling.
We are called to not only educate, but to empower and engage today’s youth. As teachers, we have a great responsibility to teach the curriculum and prepare our students to be well informed and well equipped with the tools and knowledge for a bright future. However, more than ever before, we have a moral responsibility to our students.
As educators, we must look beyond what textbooks can provide, beyond what a classroom can create, beyond how a curriculum can drive our instruction. Rather we must be driven to empower and engage our students to see their lives, their world in a bigger context. We must entrust upon our students that they have the power to make a difference – they have an impact on our world.
ACCESS Educator Resources offer a number of activities, lesson plans and tools that will help educators facilitate discussions and encourage a new moral tone in local classrooms.
Currently the Educator Resource section includes:
- Lesson plans and retreat ideas
- Promotional poster contest details
- Letter-writing to children in developing countries
- How to host a School Supply Drive and other collections
- Random Acts of Kindness project
- Loonie for Learning campaign for the UN World Day for Social Justice
- Suggested Reading list of picture books for elementary and resources for teachers
ACCESS also facilitates in-school Educational Presentations and Workshops on a variety of related topics. Booking information is available here.
To celebrate the re-launch and expansion of the program and new resources, Toronto-based illustrator Lydia Radewych has created illustrations for the Educator Resources website.
To download these resources and more, visit accesscharity.ca/educators.
IMUMA: ACCESS and SRI launch partnership to bring Faith, Hope and Love to Tanzania project
Background on IMUMA: Imani, Upendo na Matumaini
Orphan and Vulnerable Children Centre in Tanzania
Supporting IMUMA
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The centre was named Mtoto Mchoraji, which is Swahili for Drawing Children, to highlight drawing as the foundation of visual art and also signify that when taught the skills, children can be empowered to draw out their own lives.
