Tag: haiti

Photography Program – May Rewind

June 20, 2013June 20, 2013 Melissa Schilling Uncategorized

A few photos from our Port-au-Prince Photography Program:

Launched in April, 2013: Project HOPE Art offers a studio environment where students can work on digital, analog, electronic and alternative media art projects. Students in our new after-school program will create experimental multimedia works. A variety of conceptual, formal, and performance-based approaches to the medium will be explored over the course of each year long program. Topics include Storytelling, Printmaking: digital, lithography and woodcut, Synesthesias, PhotoJournalism, Visual Music, Color Theory, Film Soundtracks, Creating: Mobile, Illuminated, and Responsive Works of Art and The Relationship between Biology and Art.

Our Photography Program will begin with ten students (ages 12-18) from our esteemed list of Project Partners. The theme of the 16 week program is “Daily Life” as viewed and lived by children in various neighborhoods throughout Haiti.

The first class will kick off with a Program Orientation with Photographer Melissa Schilling. The Program will have one teacher (Jean Pierre Romel – a Haitian documentary filmmaker) and will run for 16 weeks. The Program will take place on Sundays from 10-3pm; May – August; at the Project HOPE Art Center in the Clercine District of PaP.

In September 2013 the students portfolio of work will travel to the US to be displayed at the Project HOPE Art Donor Dinner. It will turn around and head back to Haiti in time for the October 11, 2013 celebration of The Day of the Girl at the United Nations. The body of work will live permanently at Haiti Communitere.

Visiting Photographers will teach Sunday workshops with the students and work with Romel throughout their stay in Haiti focused on editing and curating students bodies of work. Join us in our premiere journey.
Sign up to teach and volunteer, here.

Meet our Students! Click Here

You may donate items from our wishlist:
We are on the hunt for money, but also gently used equipment:
• 10 Point and Shoot digital cameras
• 1 DSLR
• 2 Photo Printers (8X10 sized paper and up)
• Camera Card Readers
• Reams of Photo Paper
• 2 laptops
• 2 iPads

About Project HOPE Art
Our Mission:
“To inspire, heal and improve the quality of life for children in need through the creative process of art.”

Our Values:
Art is the universal language which transcends differences in cultural and customary barriers.
Art is a tool for education that encourages creative thinking, problem solving and growth.
Art gives a voice to the voiceless.
Art is good for the soul.

Our Actions:
Project HOPE Art uses art as a vehicle to inspire, to educate and to create intentional whimsy. We work with children in hospitals, orphanages, schools and communities in disaster stricken areas, utilizing art to help establish self esteem, self expression, self respect and stress relief for our students. We create art for art’s sake, while educating through our art, science, nutrition and literacy programs. We twirl in tutus and face paint because it’s good for the soul. Since our inception in January 2010 we have made multiple trips to Haiti and have recently launched a Visiting Artist Program, creating a sustainable way for artists in any medium to share their creativity with our kids and project partners as we strive towards our mission to inspire, heal and improve the quality of life for children in need.

The House That Trash Built: an Open Source Building Technology

May 28, 2013May 28, 2013 Melissa Schilling short story series

April2012_Print-15

We all heard and read lots of details about the horrible Haitian earthquake in 2010. Subsequent reports of extensive international funding, rampant corruption, misappropriation of resources and the near standstill of progress followed the earthquake. In a small corner of a big city, tucked behind tall compound walls, a team of determined individuals from very different walks of life came together to build up and over the stagnation that permeated the other corners of the big city.

This is their story as I saw it unfold over several months and listened to developments in many conversations. -MS

“Holy shit, earthquakes of this scale are very violent. And for this house to survive — well, it was just time to start building them in Port au Prince. Having worked with alternative building around the world, in developing countries it’s difficult to introduce new, innovations. Noble construction using standard materials is the norm. The trick is to bring innovation and have it be embraced in traditional communities.” – Sam Bloch

Peals of happy laughter echoed like rainbows around the room, lighting up the drab, gray 4-walled structure sitting on a table in the center of a Texas room. The joyous reaction to the news that the house built from trash had survived a simulated earthquake measuring 8.2 on the richter scale.

Polystyrene foam (Styrofoam) trash is toxic to the environment and is known to cause cancer. The EPA lists it as carcinogenic to humans. Styrofoam can be recycled, but it is nearly cost-prohibitive to do so. For those in the business of reducing, reusing and recycling the goal is to divert restaurant waste like Styrofoam from entering the landfills and trash bins — and to eventually eradicate it altogether.

“I have a passion for this. Changing lives using refuse. I have a real passion for this. The trick is to just get through all the people who have their own agendas. People from various organizations call me and want to use Ubuntu Blocks to build and I tell them, SURE! I can help you. But it has to be for everyone in the community.” – Harvey Lacey

The Ubuntu Technique comes from Texas, invented by a man named Harvey Lacey. Lacey is a forthright, honest sort who self-describes himself as a bull in a china shop. Lacey rolled up his sleeves in March of 2012, at Haiti Communitere, a resource building center for non-profits in Port au Prince, Haiti, and started working with a team to train them in the art of Ubuntu.

Using a simple baling press, several pounds of foraged styrotrash and a few trained helping hands it is relatively simple to begin creating Ubuntu Blocks. Once built, the Ubuntu Blocks (each weighing a pound and a half) that will eventually comprise a house, library or community center can withstand 500 years of time.

Cite Soleil was selected as the home neighborhood for the Ubuntu Pilot Program for the sheer amount of styro-trash permeating its canals. Most of Port au Prince’s trash flows down from the affluent neighborhoods in the mountains towards the ocean, by way of Cite Soleil.

“These women can make a block like you’ve never seen. They have it down. Better than any of us at HC.” – Tim Overton

Rounding out the Ubuntu team were Rox Duigou and Tim Overton, two pragmatic Canadian volunteers who would excel at project management. They served as the constants on the team through the pilot program. The two were also brought on board amidst a general excitement within the international community who offered the promise of funding from a variety of NGO’s and NPO’s that simply never materialized. Lost in an international shuffle of bureaucratic structure and paperwork.

Despite the lack of funding, Tim and Rox managed to democratically source a balanced team of twenty women from a variety of underserved neighborhoods to train them to build Ubuntu Houses. Female community leaders in Cite Soleil were invited to fill out an application and join the pool of potential. Twenty women were selected to serve as volunteer staff. They would receive progressive construction training, breakfast and lunch and the opportunity to apply for jobs down the road.

The 20 women in the program will be able to serve as trained trainors: bringing innovation directly into their communities. Harvey, Tim and Rox all hoped the women would share Ubuntu’s benefits, lessons and foundational notions with their friends, families and neighbors.

Building houses out of trash serves a dual purpose of cleaning up roads, canals and waterways.

“Overall we need about $100,000K to perfect the infrastructure for this livelihood program, recycling program and create a viable architectural program unique to Haiti. It’s starting a business in Haiti that eventually will be handed over to Haitians to run.” – Rox Duigou

The Ubuntu Pilot Program began in March of 2012. The first Ubuntu home was finished in June and the 20 women were invited to Haiti Communitere for a slumber party. Now the sky is the limit — already Ubuntu composting toilets have been built. Harvey is working on a community learning center for orphan children. And back home at HC, partnerships with Ramase Lajan, Team Tassy and Thread International are plowing ahead with master plasterer Jean Louis and several of the pilot program women at the helm to begin building with used styrofoam.

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Harvey Lacey — Busy as always working on new ideas. Find him in his Facebook group, Ubuntu Blox: https://www.facebook.com/groups/UbuntuBlox

Sam Bloch — Can’t wait to finish the Ubuntu Factory and is always posting updates on the HC website, http://www.haiti.communitere.org

Tim Overton and Rox Duigou — Are on the lookout for funding to continue the success of the Ubuntu Pilot Program. Contact them by email: project1@haiti.communitere.org

Haiti Communitere — Haiti Communitere (HC) is a Haitian based organization that strives for Haitian and International groups to operate as a community, thus increasing capacity and streamlining logistical operations. HC partners operate in a shared overhead environment, thus allowing their focus of operations to remain project based. HC continues to respond to the observed needs not being addressed on the ground while coordinating a Sustainability Resource Center that fosters creativity and connectivity while inspiring the Haitian and International development effort.

Team Tassy — Our mission is to unleash the inherent power in every person to eliminate global poverty. We work with poor families in Haiti, getting them “out of the hole” and into jobs. Follow us @TeamTassy.

Ramase Lajan — Executives Without Borders and CSS International Holdings, Inc. are excited to launch Ramase Lajan. The phrase Ramase Lajan literally means, “Picking Up Money.” No name for this groundbreaking new program could be more accurate. Collection of the bottles clogging the canals, jugs overflowing the dumpsters, and the 1,500+ tons of NEW plastics imported into Haiti every month are a basis for sustainable job and business growth throughout the country!

Thread International — Thread takes waste in desperately poor countries like Haiti, and turns it into the most innovative products possible, sets an example for environmentally conscious innovation, provides economic opportunity and improves the general welfare of the people we serve, and uses our business to inspire common sense, actionable, sustainable solutions throughout the developing world.

Coeurs Magiques

May 4, 2013May 4, 2013 Melissa Schilling Art Projects, Fundraiser

We LOVE the girls of OJFA so much, we wanted each girl to have a piece of our heart. Lead Artist Jenni Ward created these magic wands so the girls could invoke magic and hold tight to the idea that even from afar, we love them so much.

You can support Art in Haiti AND have your very own coeurs magiques by clicking here.

Handmade Art Hearts!
Give a bouquet to the one you love! These hearts are made by artist Jenni Ward and come in a variety of styles and colors. We’ll choose a selection for your bouquet of hearts that you’ll be sure to love. Special requests for a style are always welcome and we will try our best to accommodate your request. All proceeds support Project HOPE Art’s mission to provide art programming to kids in disaster stricken communities.

BUY NOW or shop locally at:

The Santa Cruz Art League in Santa Cruz & earth art studio in Aptos

Thank you for your support!!

Bwat Aliminyom

April 4, 2013April 4, 2013 Melissa Schilling Art Projects, Partners

Bwat Aliminyom means Aluminum Cans, in Kreyòl.

We are always looking for ways to create fun, whimsy and art from unwanted discarded materials. So when Delphine Bedu spied these cans on a pier in Key West, Florida all of us sat up and took notice.

As we speak, our home team artists at the Project HOPE Art Center at HC, Racine Polycarpe, Claudel Casseus and Romel Jean Pierre are devising a class around upcycling cans into planes, boats and cars. On the last Sunday in April 2013, 10 children from local orphanages will be on site at our art center creating their dream vehicle in a class led by Racine and Claudel.

They will compete in a Can Race and we will be awarding tools and art supplies to the winner of the race.

The race will be captured as the first assignment by the students in our new photography class. Stay tuned for the results. We will be sure to post instructions and best practices in early summer so you may host your own Can Race.

If you’d like to get involved, we are ALWAYS accepting donations to stay afloat. In fact we need to raise $1,000 to make this Can Race happen.
Click here: http://projecthopeart.org/fundraising-and-philanthropy/

Claire Heureuse and the start of Freedom Soup

January 17, 2013December 31, 2016 Melissa Schilling Haitian Culture/Language, short story series, Visual Storytelling

The girls began pummeling garlic and parsley in three separate batches, in wooden mortar and pestles on New Year’s Eve.
Twenty girls strong were all participating in a task associated with the famous Haitian Winter Squash Soup known as Soup Joumou or Freedom Soup.
To make enough soup for 40 people the girls would cut, chop, pound, puree and stir into the wee hours of the night. Then a shift of girls would go to sleep and a new round of girls from the OJFA girls empowerment center would arise and take up the baton, in this case a long wooden spoon.

Sometime around noon on New Year’s Day everyone sat down to a giant bowl of soup.
As we ate, I wondered where this delicious soup came from and why everyone was eating it. Up and down alleys, streets and boulevards you could see Haitians hunched over eating soup. Delicious soup.

“The soup was considered superior,” Marie Romelus says. “The slave – they were considered as lower class. So when we get our independence, we were free to have a soup.” – NPR Article, Belly Full of Soup

After more digging, someone at Atis Rezistans mentioned Claire Heureuse.
After careful digging, I read her inspirational story.

New Year’s Day marks each anniversary of Haiti’s independence from the French and the birth of the world’s first black independent nation. To celebrate independence, Marie-Claire Heureuse Felicite, the wife of revolutionary leader Jean-Jacque Dessalines, proclaimed that on this day no Haitian should go without a bowl of pumpkin soup (Soup Joumou). A colorful and delicious item on every Haitian New Year menu.

…
Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité (1758 – 8 August 1858) was the Empress of Haiti as the spouse of Jean-Jacques Dessalines. During the siege of Jacmel in 1800, she made herself a name for her work for the wounded and starving. She managed to convince Dessalines, who was one of the parties besieging the city, to allow some roads to the city to be opened, so that the wounded in the city could receive help. She led a procession of women and children with food, clothes and medicine back to the city, and then arranged for the food to be cooked on the streets.

On 21 October 1801, she married Jean-Jacques Dessalines. She was described as kind, merciful and natural, with an elegant and cordial manner. She legitimized the children produced by Dessalines’ adulterous affairs. She was a contrast to her husband in her tolerance and support and by showing indiscriminate kindness to people of all colors. She was a great opponent of Dessalines’ policy toward the white French people of Haiti; she saw to the needs of the prisoners, and she did not hesitate, despite her husband’s anger, to save many of them from the 1804 Haiti Massacre arranged by her husband. She is reported to have fallen to her knees before him to beg him to spare their lives and is said to have hidden one of them, Descourtilz, under her own bed to save him. She was made Empress of Haiti in 1804 upon the creation of the monarchy of Haiti, and crowned with her husband at the Church of Champ-de-Mars on 8 October 1804. She kept the status for two years.

After the deposition and death of her Dessalines in 1806, she denied the offer from Henry Christophe to move in with his family. As a widow, she was styled Princess Dowager on 17 October 1806. As the property of her late husband was confiscated, she lived in poverty in Saint-Marc until August 1843, when she was granted a pension 1,200 gourdes.
…

So it was Claire Heureuse who took to leading women into the streets to cook food out in the open, to be shared with all.

Soup Joumou is a mildly spicy soup native to Haitian cuisine, although variations of it can be found throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
This savory pumpkin soup is served in Haiti on January 1, the anniversary of Haiti’s liberation from France. It is said that the soup was once a delicacy reserved for white masters but forbidden to the slaves who cooked it. After Independence, Haitians took to eating it to celebrate the world’s first and only successful slave revolution resulting in an independent nation.

The soup is based on winter squash. The squash slices are simmered in a saucepan along with pieces of beef, potato, plaintains and vegetables such as parsley, carrots,green cabbage,celery and onions. The squash is puréed, usually in a food processor, with water and the purée is returned to the saucepan, where salt and seasoning along with garlic and other herbs and spices are added. Thin pasta such as vermicelli and macaroni and a small amount of butter or oil is sometimes also put in. The soup is always served hot and is usually accompanied with a sliced bread with which to dip in the soup.

Soup Joumou Recipe
Beef marinate made by crushing 4 garlic cloves, 1 teaspoon thyme 1/4 teaspoon pepper, shallot and 2 sliced scallions and 2 teaspoons of salt
1-pound piece of beef stew meat
10 cups water (add more later if necessary to make soup less thick)
1 whole scotch bonnet pepper with stem
2 pounds pumpkin (or winter squash / butternut), peeled and chopped
2 carrots peeled and sliced
2 stalks celery sliced lengthwise and cut into pieces
5 parsley sprigs
1 large onion cubed
2 medium turnips peeled and cubed
2 medium potatoes peeled and cubed
1 pound cabbage sliced fine and chopped
1/4 pound vermicelli or other thin pasta, broken into shorter lengths
2 limes juiced
1/4 can tomato paste (for browning meat)
1/2 cup or 1 can tomato sauce
1 low sodium beef bouillon cube (if you’d like more flavor)

Directions
1.In a medium pot, cook pumpkin over medium heat in 6 cups water for 30 minutes. Purée pumpkin in the water.
While the pumpkin is cooking, clean meat with lime, rinse with hot water and drain. Marinate meat with meat rub. Rub the meat with the spice paste-scallions, onion, thyme, garlic, shallot, , green pepper, salt and black pepper ground together. (For an enhanced flavor, you can marinate the meat from 1 hour up to one day in advance.)
2. In stockpot, add the meat with the oil and tomato paste and brown by adding small amounts of water to caremelize the meat. Cook covered over medium heat for 20 minutes. Add 3 cups water and puréed pumpkin and bring to a boil.
3. Add the cabbage, carrots, celery, onion, turnips, tomato sauce, potato and parsley to the soup, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour with a whole scotch bonnet on top. (The whole scotch bonnet is for flavoring not to make the soup “hot”. Remember to find and remove the pepper as you stir the soup and remove it before it bursts)
6. Add the spaghetti broken in to short pieces and cook until soft and tender.
7. Taste and add a minimal ammount of salt, black pepper or hot pepper to taste.
8. Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let sit until ready to serve.

Makes 10 one-cup servings.

Number of Servings: 10