Jackson sits on the mattress he sleeps on at a Hollywood homeless shelter.
Living like a pauper himself, a young man from Broward is trying to save Haiti's children
A
few years ago when the Homeless Voice decided to get involved in International relief efforts and human rights many people criticized us by saying, “why help others outside of the USA when there are so many people who need help here in the states?” We certainly understood their concerns but still came to the conclusion that we needed to do our part to help others. I guess I became upset because some of the comments I heard or received by email were not the nicest. Then the Tsunami hit and our vendors and our staff wanted to buy medicine for the victims. The result of this was that we took on even more public criticism because people could not understand why we would do this when we say we struggle to keep our own doors open and expand services within our community. But we didn’t falter and did what we had to do according to Christian principles; we gave to those who were most in need. This is our belief and we use this same philosophy when we help others like disaster victims because if you add up all the money we spend on disasters and other projects to help others and we didn’t do these things, then we would be in a much better position financially. Even some of our own staff thought we needed to focus more on getting out of our own debt before taking on more projects. But in the end they realized the fulfillment of helping others outweighs the expenses we incur and that we need to do our part and help others in an unselfish way. This may sound foolish to some but we have lived by this philosophy for some time now, and it seems as though people who donate money to charities such as ours think the same way. We are not martyrs, rather the end result of our thinking comes down to the compassion you have for others and how sacrificing just a little bit of the abundance you have for yourself… helps others. Helping in this way is a special feeling that sort of plays out like this... you plan a summer vacation and know you can afford to stay away for seven days. But your sister has an unexpected car repair and she really can’t afford the expense, so you cut your trip down to only six days because you know you can do without that extra day to help her in her time of need. That is the real definition in the sense of the Christian term for charity (love); doing without to help some person during a time of need. Here at the shelter we have many people who live off of limited incomes from vending or inadequate Social Security checks. But they still want to give to others wholeheartedly. I saw these acts of kindness a few months ago when we were collecting donations to help Aaron buy medication to de-worm the children of Haiti. Vendors who have so little for themselves proudly reached into their pocket to take out a few dollars to give to this great cause. But the one person who really knocked my socks off was a client who lives here off of limited funds from a Social Security check. He came into my office and took .50 cents out of his pocket and told me to put it in the Haiti fund so a few kids in Haiti could have the medication they need to get rid of the worms they have in their bellies. At first I was going (Continued on page 10)
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omewhere down a maze of rutted dirt roads in a rundown Port-auPrince neighborhood, past the red gate that keeps out the armed thugs, and through a courtyard of packed gravel, a 23-year-old guy from Broward County steps through the doorway of the sanctuary he created. Aaron Jackson looks out of place at first. A white kid with a black ski cap, baggy jeans, and oversized white undershirt, he seems a better fit for the Aventura Mall than this concrete home in Haiti. But then he's overtaken by a swarm of kids. As they tug on his hands, crawl onto his back, and jump into his arms, it suddenly seems as if there's no place he belongs more. "They love to be picked up," says Jackson, his eyes as blue as Easter eggs and his brown hair a messy mop that matches an untrimmed beard. "They love any attention you can give them." He sits down in a folding chair, taking two, then three of the kids onto his lap. They steal his hat, and the boys wrestle for it, the oldest, 7-year-old Ritchy, soon wearing it proudly. The kids pat his hair like they're petting a dog. "It's soft," 5-year-old Rico whispers in Creole. Jackson flips him over to tickle his stomach, and as Rico screams with laughter, Jackson points out the boy's belly, which looks as bloated as an overfilled balloon. "See?" Jackson says, touching Rico's belly button, which sticks out like a hitch-hiker's thumb. "He's still got this big tummy. The worms do it. Even
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though they're gone, it takes months for his stomach to go down." Eventually, the worms might have killed Rico. Back in January, Rico and his 7-year-old sister, Minouche, were living at a Port-au-Prince orphanage. It had run out of food and had no medicine to treat parasites that Haitian children regularly catch from drinking and playing in puddles. When Jackson took the siblings from the orphanage, he gave them a remedy that costs about 5 cents in the United States, a pill that wiped out the worms in one day. Now, Rico has added weight to bones that once showed through his skin, and he's rarely without a smile across cheeks that have become almost plump for the first time in his life. Rico and Minouche Morena joined five other children who share the three-bedroom home Jackson rents in Port-au-Prince. After traveling to Haiti a half dozen times over the past two years to hand out medicine and food to the poor, Jackson opened the makeshift orphanage in December. He pays for it by scraping together donations from family and friends, and by using almost every dime of money he made as a golf caddy. Jackson's commitment to the orphanage has cost him nearly everything. He wears secondhand clothes, has a car that no longer runs, and owns almost no personal possessions. Last year, when money was tight and he either had to give up the orphanage or his own place, he moved out of his apartment. He now sleeps on the floor of a homeless shelter. Meanwhile, he's building a school in southern Haiti and has plans to open a health clinic on the northern coast. And even more ambitious, Jackson has handed out 20,000 deworming pills since he began his efforts in Haiti two years ago. "I know it sounds crazy," Jackson says, "but I want to deworm every person in Haiti." Few places need the help more. Just a two-hour flight from South Florida, Haiti is the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, where most get by on $1 a day and only one in five has a job. The seemingly endless political unrest has led to the murder of more than (Continued on page 4)
The Voice of the Homeless
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HOMELESS VOICE
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Volume VI, Issue 9
HOMELESS VOICE Riddle? Why do some of our vendors carry cell phones? Before I give you the answer , I want to share something with you. We get calls all the time telling us that maybe if the homeless voice vendors gave up their cell phones , maybe they would not be homeless. The answer is , so they can call the office if they have an emergency or so our security department that makes sure our vendors are not stealing the money you donate can communicate with the team captain. We also have safety monitors who watch the vendors to make sure they are following the rules, if the monitor sees and unsafe vendor the captain can be called and the vendor LETTERS TO THE EDITOR can be corSEND TO: rected. -Mark P.O. BOX 292-577 Targett
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The Voice of the Homeless
Page 4
WORLD NEWS
(Continued from page 1)
Jackson and Dieubon play with Clarence and Ritchy.
Ritchy waits for Jackson to finish his deworming efforts.
Ruth Accede teaches the kids French to get them ready for their first time in school this fall.
The pills Jackson gave orphans in Port-au-Prince forced the worms from their stomachs.
There are some people in the world so hungry, that GOD can not appear to them except in the form of bread.
700 people in the past eight months, and a kidnapping epidemic has escalated to the point where armed thugs snatch up to a dozen people a day. On a recent trip, Jackson traveled the war-torn city of Port-au-Prince to hand out medicine and food in the corners of the city where few foreigners venture, where people live in squatter villages built from scraps, and where the strain between residents and thugs seems ready to explode. Those who accept his donations have no idea that, back in America, Jackson is hardly better off himself: homeless and often penniless. Visitors to Port-au-Prince often say the most harrowing part of the trip is the airport. Porters and taxi drivers fight over the dollar tips from Americans coming off planes until they jump into transports headed, most likely, for a guarded compound outside the city. Jackson, meanwhile, gets off his plane from Fort Lauderdale on June 14 and bounds into the back of a tap-tap, the lowest form of transportation in Haiti. His rented tap-tap is an ancient red Toyota pickup with two bench seats and a homemade metal cover over the bed. He sits in the back next to his best friend and partner in Haiti, John Louis Dieubon. "Did you teach the kids the songs?" Jackson asks. "Oh, yes. They know the songs." "Did you teach them the play?" Jackson continues. "Oh, yes. They know the play." Dieubon chuckles at every question, as if
he has been down this route many times before, and he flashes a broad smile. Jackson puts an arm around his partner as the tap-tap turns off the paved roads with their crowds of homeless and bounds down a dirt road that seems impossibly rutted. They continue down a road past metal shacks where squatters sell fried plantains and sugarcane stalks. The homes, all behind cinderblock walls and gates, become increasingly rundown as the tap-tap continues toward the orphanage. "We don't really teach them songs and plays," Jackson clarifies. At other orphanages, he explains, children recite plays and songs perfectly while having no food or clean water. "So every time I come," he adds, "I give him trouble about not teaching them." After the tap-tap crunches across the gravel courtyard and Jackson is swamped by the kids, he puts his backpack down next to a pair of mattresses laid out on the floor of one of the three bedrooms. Dieubon will share the room with Jackson while he's here. Jackson takes a quick tour of the orphanage, which is made entirely of concrete -- the ceiling, walls, and even the floors are all as hard and cold as a prison. Put the house in Boca Raton and the neighbors would call code enforcement. But here, the place is a palace, complete with sheets hanging in the windows, a bucket out back to wash clothes, and an electric stove that works when the power comes on. With electricity spotty in Haiti, the only power comes from extension cords run to the neighbor's house. Some days, electricity comes to the
“Jackson traveled the war-torn city of Port-au-Prince to hand out medicine and food in the corners of the city where few foreigners venture…” orphanage, so the neighbor reverses the extension cord. With storm clouds rolling in, the home is shadowy. But even with the concrete floors, which continue in to the concrete shower shared by the kids, the place is spotless. After his quick inspection, Jackson points to his friend. "He built this, you know. He put all this together." Jackson ran into Dieubon during his first trip to Haiti in June 2003. Jackson, a native of a small Florida Panhandle town, had dropped out of Valencia Community College that year. He was looking for some greater meaning to life that he thought he might find in doing work for the poor. He moved to Hollywood to work for Sean Cononie, who runs a homeless shelter in Hollywood that doubles as the offices for the Homeless Voice newspaper. Jackson's $300-a-week job was to run Cononie's new international campaign. He organized protests and tried to raise awareness for debt relief for Third World countries and human rights violations in China and elsewhere. Meanwhile, Jackson shared an apartment in Hollywood he paid for by making about $2,000 a month as a caddy at the Presidential Country Club in North Miami Beach. (Continued on page 5)
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Volume VI, Issue 9
WORLD NEWS street children in Haiti are typically not allowed. Presti's translator while in Cité Soleil was 33-year-old Dieubon, a waif of a man with an infectious smile (Continued from page 4) and a head of scraggly, endlessly curly hair. When Dieubon was a toddler, his One of his first efforts for parents gave him up to a priest when they Cononie was to organize the relief trip to could no longer afford to keep him. MisHaiti in 2003. Jackson recruited the help of sionaries from the United States took him his then-girlfriend, Corrine Coffey, and in, and he grew up in a home owned by long-time family friend Dr. Chuck Presti, the Assemblies of God. an allergist from PensaHundreds of families cola. The three handed “While Jackson's who rotated in and out of out food and medicine in upbringing was Haiti every few months Port-au-Prince's infamously grim slum, Cité starkly different, both took on the job of raising He'd form an atSoleil. Supporters of of them share a similar him. tachment with a family, ousted Haitian President view of their past.” and then they'd leave, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, sometimes never coming who once dominated the back. But comparatively, Dieubon saw his neighborhood, have now been relegated to upbringing as a fortunate one in a city a few thousand shacks packed together on where an estimated 7,000 kids live on the a muddy flood plain near the port. In Engstreets. He had a home and people who lish, the place translates to Sun City, but cared for him and sent him to school, for those who live there, there's nowhere something highly valued in a country in darker. which nearly half the population can't read. Much of Haiti's violence comes "I was loved by many people," from thugs who freely operate kidnapping he says. "I wanted to give that to other and carjacking rings. Haitian police and people." United Nations peacekeepers rarely enter. Now, Dieubon runs a missionary Presti treated everything from stomach home that's rarely occupied. His job is to bugs to gunshot wounds from a makeshift keep it up until missionaries arrive, so most clinic built from scraps of metal and cinof his time he spends handing out food and derblocks. While touring the slum, Presti medicine and occasionally working as a says Jackson came across a starving baby translator for American missionaries. But lying alone in the doorway to a dirt-floor his passion is doing exactly what that priest shack. The baby's limbs were the size of did for him, rescuing orphans and children twigs. Jackson immediately wanted to whose parents can't care for them and findbring the child back to the States. "I had to ing them a place to live. tell him that this baby could die on the While Jackson's upbringing was plane," Presti says, "and that trying to starkly different, both of them share a simiadopt it could be a nightmare." Instead, lar view of their past. Jackson grew up in they admitted the baby to a hospital, where
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954-410-6275 Access Anywhere what he describes as a family of privilege in Destin, Florida, where they lived in a sprawling home on a golf course. His stepfather was a golf pro, and Jackson says his biggest concern as a kid was improving his putting skill. In fact, Jackson became good enough to shoot par, and many who have played with him say he could go pro if he spent time at it. Instead, Jackson says that since leaving Destin, he's left the idea of pro golf behind. "I had no idea of how hard the world was outside Destin," he says. In the same way that Dieubon would look at Haitian street kids and realize his place of privilege, Jackson says he now sees the poor and knows he had it lucky. "He has this calling in his heart to help people," Presti says. "But he has no concern for himself." During that first meeting with Dieubon, Jackson realized how far his modest salary could go in Haiti. In America, he was just a golf caddy, but here, he could save at least a handful of kids from the streets. They dreamed up plans to open a small orphanage in Port-au-Prince within the next year. He says he bypassed the typical route of working with one of the foreign aid organizations that work in Haiti, like the Red Cross or Catholic Charities, to avoid the red tape that's usually involved. Besides, he had seen during his first trip there how the owners of orphanages in Port -au-Prince lived well while the children went hungry. So Jackson formed his own charity, named the Chick Grant Foundation, after his late grandfather. And the orphanage bears the name of Coffey's recently deceased mother: the Debra Jo SafeHaven for the Children of Haiti. Coffey says Jackson's idea for an orphanage moved faster than anybody (Continued on page 6)
Jackson keeps Ritchy on his lap as partner Dieubon holds Clarence.
Jackson with Steve and Ritchy
Orphanage owner Milhomme Luckner with his depleted food supplies
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Page 6
WORLD NEWS
(Continued from page 5)
expected. "Most people are so concerned with logistics and the basics," she says. "Aaron just wants to get something done. He has this ability to make things happen." Still, Coffey and everybody else involved in the idea wondered where the money would come from. Jackson plowed ahead, figuring he'd find the money once he had the orphanage open. "He doesn't think of himself," says Coffey, who's no longer dating Jackson but still travels with him to Haiti every month or so. "He doesn't say, 'What am I going to do once I have this going?'" Last fall, Dieubon found a home, and Jackson put up the $2,500 for its yearly rent. Jackson and Coffey assembled about $1,000 in supplies and shipped clothes, food, and the bunk beds. Then they hired the orphanage's mom, Clonette Fleurisma, who cooks and cleans; and a yardman, Admeus Decucius, who lives in a shed out back and cares for the property. They both get three meals, a place to sleep, and $100 a month, a princely sum among Haiti's poor. Soon, the orphanage was costing about $1,100 a month to maintain. It quickly became more than Jackson could afford without cutting back on his own expenses. In November, Jackson gave up his apartment. He moved into the Homeless Voice offices and now sleeps on a comforter he rolls out in the back corner of Cononie's office. He keeps a stack of tattered and stained clothes on a filing cabinet nearby. Living in a homeless shelter is something Jackson's mom, Wendy Prentice, says isn't that odd for him. Speaking by phone from Jackson's sleepy Florida Panhandle hometown, she says it fits with the way he always was. On a trip to New York City when Jackson was 10, he gave a wad of money, every cent he had brought with him, to a homeless man. "A lot of the things he did when he was younger led to this," she says, admitting that she has mixed feelings about his choice to live in poverty. "He would just give his things away all the time. He'd
says, "he'd talk about some injustice and give his clothes to somebody who the plight of children. Most of us were wanted them." just talking about golf, and all he could His friends, who have come to think about were those children." jokingly nickname him "Jesus," weren't Two years into his work now, surprised when he gave up his own Jackson says he may be on the verge of place. Many of them, like 25-year-old something bigger than he dreamed. He's Justin Chrisman, who was Jackson's now part way through building a school roommate before Jackson moved into the in southern Haiti that will serve poor shelter, have been recruited to serve on residents near the city of Saint Louis du an advisory board Jackson set up for his Sud. In May, a donor charity. "I really don't know what "People would pull up in gave him a building in made him decide to $100,000 cars," Jackson the northern city of Cap take this route that's says, "and I would think, Haitien that he hopes to convert into a free so different than how many kids could they health clinic. He's parteverybody else," have helped in Haiti nered with a doctor Chrisman says. "I can't imagine instead of buying that car?" there to provide work for free. He hopes to choosing to live in hire nurses later this year and begin shipa homeless shelter." ping in medical supplies. Just what drives him to live in Coming up with the money for squalor isn't clear. He's often asked if it's his projects is never his concern. Jackson rich-kid guilt, some kind of shame over isn't religious, but when asked about it, growing up wealthy. "It's not that," he he always has the same answer. "Divine says simply. He explains it in terms usintervention," he says with a smile cuting phrases that sound as if they came ting through his tangled beard. "That's from posters on the wall of a high school how I get everything done." So far, he guidance counselor, but he says them has no funding for the hospital, and with a deep sincerity. "I believe that while construction has begun on the everyone's mission," he says, "ought to school, he has no source of money to run be to make the world a better place." it once it opens. In April, Jackson lost his job at Jackson began his charity with the country club over a petty disagreethe vague idea of helping people, he ment with his boss. It was clear by then, says, but now he wants to move permaanyway, that he couldn't continue worknently to the orphanage to be closer to ing there. "People would pull up in the kids he's taken in. There are seven of $100,000 cars," Jackson says, "and I them, each one with horrific stories of would think, how many kids could they how they've come to be there. have helped in Haiti instead of buying On the front porch of the orthat car?" phanage, on Jackson's second morning But word of his charity had during his visit in June, the kids crowd spread, and he was getting a steady flow onto a wooden bench for one of their of donations. Cononie alone had agreed first French lessons. They sit below a to give $1,200 a month. A fellow caddy, mural of crayon-green trees and a cloudScott King, has also been helping Jackless blue sky. The mural was a project son raise money. King got his father, a Coffey and Jackson finished on a weekfinancial planner, to ask his clients to long trip in May. Jackson sits crossdonate money, and his father agreed to legged in the corner as the kids get match every dollar donated up to French lessons from Dieubon's girl$25,000. King says he was convinced friend, Ruth Accede, a 22-year-old in a Jackson's efforts were genuine after flowing sundress and clanking baubles hearing him constantly speak about the around her wrist. kids of Haiti. "Day in and day out," King
"What is your name?" she asks in French to Ritchy, the group's oldest. "Je m'appelle Ritchy," he answers carefully. Learning French will be crucial if they hope to leave poverty behind in adulthood. In Haiti, speaking French is a sign of education in a country where only 60 percent of kids go to school. Jackson says his kids will start school for the first time this fall, even though he has no idea where he'll find the $200 yearly tuition per student. "What is your name?" Accede asks Ritchy's brother. "Je m'appelle Clarence," he answers quickly. "What is your mother's name?" Clarence shifts uncomfortably on the wooden bench before answering. He looks down at his feet dangling off the floor. "My mother is dead," he answers in Creole. Accede doesn't correct him for speaking in Creole. But she asks again in French, "What was her name?" Clarence fidgets and then whispers the name of his mother, whom he watched drown just eight months earlier. "Doune." At the orphanage, it's hard to picture the lives these children had before. Here, they are profoundly happy. They seem to smile constantly, giggling nonstop, and the reason seems as simple as the fact that they have a roof over their heads and three meals a day. When they arrived, Dieubon gave each one matching pairs of black plastic sandals. For many, it was their first pair of shoes. Then they got new shorts and T-shirts for play and dresses and khakis for school, the first time for many that they had more than just the ratty set of clothes on their backs. It was also the first time that they ate hot food regularly and bathed in anything but rainwater. While sitting in a folding chair with Rico and Clarence fidgeting in his lap, Dieubon tells of how he found the seven kids. The only furniture in the orphanage's living room are folding chairs and some old schoolhouse desks, (Continued on page 8)
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Volume VI, Issue 9
VOICE UPDATE
“Haiti’s account balance was $-48 million in 2003, and is currently the second poorest country in the world after Chad, Africa, but still relies on countries like the U.S. for food.”
N
early 3 billion people around the world live on less than $2 a day. The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations is less than the wealth of the world’s 3 richest people combined. 1 billion children live in poverty, and 10.6 million died in 2003 before the age of 5. These are facts than cannot be denied, and can no longer be ignored. The causes of poverty vary. In developing countries the wealthy are rich because they have the ability to impose lopsided trade agreements that favor their own interests, and not the economy’s in a way that could aid the poor. The IMF (International Monetary Fund), and the World Bank, an international organization that fights poverty in over a hundred countries with loans and advice, have policies on lending poor nations money that require that they reduce “social expenditure”, such as health and education. Starvation is not a result of lack of food. Food production is not the problem, and an increase would not remedy hunger around the world. Those who go hungry do not have the means to even buy food. Poor nations depend on developed ones to provide the majority of their food source. If a developing nation was able to produce the majority of its food, the money could be spent elsewhere, like edu-
cation or affordable housing. Providing poor nations with the tools needed for their own food production, is a possible resolution to starvation since import taxes are no longer a factor. A primary example of dependency is Haiti, where I grew up. 80% of the population lay below the poverty line in a 2003 estimate. Haiti’s account balance was $-48 million in 2003, and is currently the second poorest country in the world after Chad, Africa, but still relies on countries like the U.S. for food. Economic growth seems like an excellent way to defeat poverty, yet there is a growing distinction between the rich and the poor in even the most developed countries. For those who believe work is the solution to poverty, many who do work can't escape poverty. Homelessness is coupled with poverty. Someone who is homeless has basic needs such as affordable housing, a livable income, and health care. To obtain these fundamental elements for survival, a job is required. These jobs must at least be minimum-wage for those in a homeless situation to get back on their feet. The economy continues to experience growth, yet low unemployment remains. For many low-wage workers housing (1 or 2 bedroom apartments), is not an option. A minimumwage worker “would have to work 89 hours a week to afford a 2 bedroom apartment at 30% of their income." (The federal definition of affordable housing is 30%). The link between homelessness and destitute workers is undeniable. In a 27 city survey of the U.S., over one in four people in homeless situations are employed. In 2005, 46% of jobs with the most growth pay less than $16,000, but ironically $14,000 draws the poverty line in the U.S. Society as a whole is affected by poverty. Populations around the world are unaware as to how they're influenced. An increase in poverty is linked to greater environmental degradation. The poor can’t afford health insurance, and as it should be, hospitals are required to provide health care whether the patient is or
Are You Selling Your House? Call to place your listing in the Homeless Voice 954-410-6275 isn’t insured. When those billed for the health care provided to them can’t possibly pay, hospitals are forced to excuse their bill. In order to compensate for this loss, hospitals increase prices elsewhere, and those who are not insured but are capable of paying for health care, wind up paying the balance. As a society, we need to realize that poverty is a tragedy that can be avoided. We are all affected, as unlikely as it seems. Awareness is key; with it we can better select who we vote into office. They are the ones with the power to make a significant difference. Economic “booms” are excluding those who need to be a part of it the most. The homeless and the poor are out there, and coming together to demand change should be our way of helping them get on their feet. As human beings, simply ignoring their existence does a disservice to our community, and undermines their suffering. It isn’t fair that the homeless and poor should have to live as they do. Coralie Morno chocolatebar15@yahoo.com
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FAMILY Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family we left behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives. Come to think of it, we pour ourselves more into work than into our own family, an unwise investment indeed, don't you think? What is behind the story? Do you know what the word FAMILY means? FAMILY = (F)ATHER (A)ND (M)OTHER (I) (L)OVE (Y)OU
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The Voice of the Homeless
Page 8
WORLD NEWS
(Continued from page 6)
so Dieubon's voice echoes eerily. He tells the story in English, so the children, who are running around fighting over Jackson's hat, don't know that he is telling of the horrors they lived through before coming here. Virtually every morning of their lives before they landed at the orphanage, 6-year-old Kerlinda Chrisostome and 3-year-old Stephanie Dad woke up to somebody kicking them off a front porch. Their homeless mother, looking for any dry spot for them to bed down, usually waited to sneak onto the porches until the homeowners went to sleep only to be awakened when their unwitting hosts shooed them off. Like two-thirds of Haiti's population, they had no access to clean water, drinking mostly from puddles. They ate only rare handouts. Stephanie was malnourished even before she was born. She had never learned to walk, even at 3 years old, her legs too weak to support her weight. A friend told Dieubon about them, and in December, he convinced their mother to let him take them. "I said, 'I am going to help you with those girls because I know you have no place to live. '" In May, she stopped by the orphanage for the first time to check on them. "She was amazed," Dieubon says. "She didn't know her daughter could walk." Dieubon found 5-year-old Steve Michel living in a mud hut with his family, hidden in the rural area east of Port-au-Prince. Like hundreds of thousands of families in Haiti, his parents moved from the countryside to the city in the hope of finding work. Cheap imported rice from the United States has put many Haitian farmers out of work,
and they now live in makeshift shantytowns built into Port-au-Prince's hillsides. Steve's family had no food and relied on rainwater to drink. Dieubon heard about the family's inability to feed Steve, and when he asked, they didn't hesitate to turn him over. Rico and Minouche came from an orphanage managed by a priest who had run out of food and money. "In Haiti," Dieubon says, "many people try to make money by running an orphanage. They will take the money and give no food to the children." When Minouche arrived, she had an infection that had festered on her chin. It looked like a macabre goatee of puss and scabs. Dieubon treated it easily with an antibiotic; there's nothing left of it now but a slight shadow on the spot where it once grew. Ritchy and Clarence Exama came after the floods washed away everything they had. In September of last year, the brothers were living with their parents in a tin hut in a town north of Port-au-Prince, in the country's largely out-of-work agricultural valley. In Haiti, 99 percent of its forests have been cut down, mostly to make charcoal, the only source of cooking fuel for the poor. When Hurricane Jeanne parked itself over Haiti in September, the deforestation caused landslides and floods that washed into the valley. At least 1,500 died, and 300,000 lost their homes. When asked about it, Ritchy speaks as if he's talking about something far removed from him. "The water came inside our house," Ritchy recalls in Creole. "It came in, and people were killed. Houses floated away." Ritchy says his house was spared. His father, a watch repairman,
torists from their kept the family safe cars and torture until American solthem until their diers arrived to save Minouche, Steve, and Ritchy all families can come them. "They are still saw their share of tragedy beup with tens of thoualive," he says of his fore Jackson and Dieubon took them in. sands of dollars in parents. He tells the ransom. Abandoned story with a bright, airplanes rot in a field off to the left. toothy smile. It's a grin that gives away Stripped cars lay forgotten on dirt paths nothing of his refusal to believe what that serve as sidewalks. Few people are really happened to his family. walking, which is rare in a city with little Speaking in English, Dieubon public transportation, a clear sign of the says their father was the first to drown in dangers that lurk down this road. Even the flood. Then their mother washed though 8,500 peacekeepers from the away. A grandfather took in the boys but United Nations patrol Haiti, they are couldn't afford to feed them. Dieubon rarely seen in the dangerous parts. heard their story and took them to the Jackson is perhaps one of the orphanage in December. "They watched only foreigners for miles. He's a clear their whole family die," he says. target riding in the front seat. "Yes," Clarence and Ritchy are rarely Dieubon admits, "it is not so OK here." out of arm's length of each other since But Dieubon says they have they watched their parents wash away. little choice. They must travel this road They share a bunk bed and crowd toor feel personally responsible for the gether on the wooden bench when they suffering of the children at the end of it, report for morning lessons. So when who could starve or die of malnutrition Clarence heard that Ritchy was leaving without his regular visits. They're headed in the morning, he burst into tears that to one of Port-au-Prince's poorest orstreamed down his cheeks. Accede phanages, the Centre El-Bethel House of picked him up and cradled the 6-year-old Children. It's common to find the orin her arms like a toddler, but nothing phanage with no food. The road dumps could make him stop. Ritchy, meanonto a truss bridge covered in mud that while, changed into a striped polo shirt spans the swollen Riviére Grise, or Gray and a pair of dress pants that were two River. Then the road thins as it enters inches too short. He piled into a Toyota another of Port-au-Prince's ramshackle van Dieubon had borrowed, and for the and unnamed neighborhoods. Vendors rest of the day, Ritchy would see what lined everywhere on the road hawk lotlife would be like if Jackson hadn't taken tery tickets and buckets of charcoal made him in. from the trees stripped off the hillsides. Out the rutted road from the Along the way, Jackson tells of orphanage, Dieubon headed southwest his first foray trying to help people. It into the places foreigners aren't supposed started when he got a calling when he to go. He angled the van through a was 17. It wasn't something as profound roundabout and onto a potholed, twoas a sign from God, just an overpowering lane boulevard nicknamed Airport Road. This strip is where thugs often pull mo(Continued on page 9)
The Cooperative Feeding Program is in desperate need of food for the community food pantry. •
•
• •
The shelves are empty and we need to feed our community members that need just a little help. Please get with your church, optimist clubs, schools, or social clubs and do a food drive so our little ones, seniors and individuals get some food in their bellies. Please call 954-792-2EAT www.FeedingBroward.org
Learn how to start your own food pantry so your own group can do what we do to help our poorest members of our community. Go to www.Training.cscBroward.org. Project name: The Cupboard Is Bare.
As a lot of you know Sean has gained a lot of weight from the steroids he takes for the Bacterial Meningitis. Today we are almost at the end of August 2005. Be part of the Sean’s Makeover and pray for his health. He has to lose about 70 lbs, stop smoking so the infection in his head does not repeat itself. The doctors told him if the brain stops swelling, at times his memory will function better and maybe he will get back to his regular full time volunteer position. His biggest dream is to solve the world hunger problem. You know, Sean will meet with any person who wants to solve the world hunger problems. We will compare the pictures every issue.
Advantage Communications, Inc. is a proud supporter of The Cosac Foundation "Excellence in Radio"
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Volume VI, Issue 9
WORLD NEWS
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notion to go to the bus station in Destin. "I just went," he recalls. "And I just bought a ticket to anywhere." Anywhere ended up being San Antonio, Texas. There, he found a homeless man who had been shot in the leg. He invited the man to stay the night with him. "After we got there, I thought, 'Who is this guy I just invited back to my hotel room?'" He could've killed me in the middle of the night." The next morning, Jackson bought him medicine, clothes, and food and gave him whatever money he had in his pocket. Afterward, Jackson says, he realized how foolish his idea was. He wanted to continue helping people, but he needed to figure out a better and safer way to do it. "I didn't know what it was going to be," he says, "but I knew after that that I wanted to help people." Dieubon turns down a dirt road, and a mile into a neighborhood built from tin and cinderblock scraps, he blares his horn at a gate propped up with a tree branch. The gate swings open, and Dieubon takes the van into a courtyard criss-crossed with full clotheslines, despite the downpour all morning. Under a lean-to built from discarded metal and rotting wood, a group of girls washes clothes in a bucket. The younger kids play on the dirt floor nearby. Unlike the children at Jackson's orphanage, these look troubled. Their faces look full of an adult-like worry, perhaps the concern that comes with wondering how they'll find their next meal. Ritchy looks out of place next to the other orphans. Few of them have shoes, and their hair is uncombed and spiraling in knots. Looking a bit afraid to be left behind, Ritchy clings to Jackson's pants leg. Soon, the orphanage's superintendent, Milhomme Luckner, arrives in a pair of pressed dress pants and a polo shirt. Unlike the gaunt, underweight kids, he has a small potbelly that pokes the front of his white shirt. He looks young for 37, but his bloodshot eyes droop wearily. He orders wooden chairs brought in for the visitors. "How's your food supply?" Jackson asks. "I have not much food," Luckner says. "You can visit my food store." "How about soap? Do you have soap?" "No, no soap," the superintendent admits. Luckner takes the visitors over to the storeroom, a bleak, unpainted closet in the concrete building that holds the orphanage. There are five 20-pound bags of rice and four bags of lentils. Catholic Charities gives him the bags every three months. With 35 orphans here, it rarely lasts that long. And the constant diet of nothing but beans and rice leaves them malnourished. Many now have hair that looks partly bleached, turning red and blond -- clear signs that their diet is lacking in nutrients. "They do not give me different things," says Luckner, who has run the orphanage for 15 years under the same conditions. "I have a burden. I have children to feed with only this."
The group walks back under the makeshift shelter where the children stay out of the rain. Ritchy holds Jackson's hand to make sure he's close. "We would like to pass out deworming medicine to your children," Jackson tells the superintendent. "Is that OK?" Luckner pauses for a second, obviously confused by what's meant by "deworming." But he agrees. Jackson pulls the medicine from his backpack, which is stuffed with hundreds of aspirin-sized bottles. Buying them in bulk from Presti, the doctor from Pensacola, the 400-milligram chewable Mebendazole pills cost pennies, a fraction of the $40 Haitians pay a hospital for deworming medicine. Jackson brought 10,000 pills with him on that trip in June, doubling his previous contributions. He gives them to orphanages, priests, doctors, and anybody who will distribute them to others. He has passed out enough antidotes to treat 20,000 people, costing him about $1,000. His efforts are much needed in Haiti, where the United Nations estimates that half of the country's 8 million residents live with intestinal parasites. About 40 percent of Haitian children suffer from malnutrition in part because of the worms. At Luckner's orphanage, the children line up on a wooden bench with their hands cupped in front of them. Jackson hands out the deworming pills like a priest giving Communion. Before leaving, Dieubon explains to the children in Creole that the worms eat the food before it can be digested. He warns them that they will have a rough night. "Tonight as you sleep, the worms will crawl out your nose or from your behind. Do not be scared. If you see one in your nose, pull it out." The kids look terrified, and Luckner looks confused. Nobody told him about worms coming out of their noses before he agreed to this. "Before you eat your food," Dieubon continues, "make sure there are not any worms on it. Wash your hands before you eat. Pray to God that you will not get any diseases. And pray to God for the problems in our society and pray for a better life for Haiti." Jackson leaves Luckner with two boxes of antibiotics. He explains that they're for infections, but Luckner keeps asking if he can use them to prevent fevers. The group loads into the van and heads back toward central Port-auPrince. Sitting in the back of the van, Ritchy looks relieved to have not been left behind. Jackson's next mission is clearly the most dangerous of his efforts in Haiti. Guards lean on shotguns at the supermarket where Dieubon and Jackson make their purchases. They fill a shopping cart full of juice boxes and cookies they will use to entice the street kids
We Need RV's and boats. They will be used to provide social services during an emergency for COSAC's disaster relief services. 965-920-1277 before handing them deworming medicine. Ritchy walks along with the grocery cart, clutching the handle. "How are you, Ritchy, OK?" Jackson asks. "I am OK," he says, one of a few English phrases Jackson has taught him. He smiles but looks nervous. They leave the store with a cardboard box full of juice boxes and cookies. They cross a street called Delmas 31, a main thoroughfare made for two lanes of traffic but packed with four. The sidewalks are a crowded mess of vendors set up on tables of driftwood and tree branches, selling everything from plungers to shampoo, from bottles of soda to coconuts. Everywhere, the people selling something, walking with bowls of something on their heads, or begging for something turn to look at Jackson, perhaps one of the only white men for miles. There's an indescribable feeling of tension on the streets, as in those adrenaline-filled moments before a fistfight. It's entirely possible that a car full of AK-47-toting thugs will pull up and whisk Jackson away for days of torture and death. The lead story in the day's paper described the kidnapping of a principal from his school's front gate. The kidnappers shot him in both legs before demanding $200,000 in ransom from his wife. Maybe the kidnappers leave Jackson alone because he's there to help, or perhaps it's because Ritchy is riding him piggyback. Or maybe it's simply because most of the people he passes look befuddled to see a foreigner walking the streets without a customary armed escort from U.N. peacekeepers. "We will hand out things here," Dieubon says on a rare empty spot of sidewalk with no street vendors. There are no street children around at first. But as they begin to offer the handouts, kids appear from everywhere. Dieubon hands out the juice and food as Jackson passes out the pills from his backpack. The free food quickly creates a mob. Teenagers push aside toddlers who walk barefoot on the trash-strewn sidewalks. An old man with a beard full of dirt and wearing nothing but rags takes cookies from a boy who himself looks starved. "Let's keep walking," Jackson says. A small crowd follows them down the street. Some of the kids recognize Dieubon and Jackson. A 16-yearold named Sonson follows along, sipping on a juice box. Asked what chances he has of getting off the streets, he answers blankly in Creole: "There is no hope for me. I cannot get a house. I do not have
“Jackson's next mission is clearly the most dangerous of his efforts in Haiti.�
anyone who will help." Then he smiles as he eats the cookies. It seems his future is so clearly bleak that it's no longer a concern. Jackson spots a kid in the crowd. "Hey! You see this kid right here?" Jackson says, patting the back of a teenager in a baby-blue polo shirt. "He saved my life one time." Jackson tells of a trip a year ago, when he brought a video camera to record the life of street children. As he was filming, a mob of people began a protest. When they saw Jackson, the crowd tore at him. He turned to run, but they were nearly on him. "This kid pulled me into a house," Jackson says. "If he hadn't, they would have torn me apart." They turn the corner onto a side street used mostly as the neighborhood's trash can. They step over an open manhole stuffed with trash and maneuver around a pile of cardboard somebody used recently as a mattress. Dieubon opens up the box again, and a new crowd forms in seconds from nowhere. Soon, they're pulling at the sides of the box to push their hands inside. The contents are gone in seconds, but Jackson manages to hand out some of the medicine. On the way back to the car, walking hand in hand with Ritchy, Jackson has a confession to make. "I had no money for this trip, not a dime. The day before I left, I got a $1,000 check in the mail. A donation. I don't even know who it was from, but it saved me." Back at the orphanage, Ritchy is mobbed by the other kids. His brother can't stop smiling now that Ritchy is back. For a boy who has watched his parents float away, losing his brother now might have been too much to bear. He asks Ritchy what he did. "We went everywhere," Ritchy says shyly. In a couple of days, a shipment of food Jackson sent from the States will arrive. He'll bring a portion of it to the Centre El-Bethel House, where, Jackson says, the superintendent will tell of the worms that crawled from the noses of every kid. But for now, Jackson slumps in one of the school chairs and lets the kids climb all over him. They pat his hair and tug on his oversized shirt. Then he spins Rico over and tickles his stomach. It's still bloated from the worms that nearly killed him. But slowly, he's healing. Staff Writer Eric Alan Barton's trip to Haiti was made possible through a World Affairs Journalism Fellowship from the International Center for Journalists in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit icfj.org. Jackson can be reached at the following: chickgrantfoundation.org, Or contact Sean at Scononie@HomelessVoice.org 954-924-3571 By Eric Alan Barton New Times
The Voice of the Homeless
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WORLD NEWS
clothed and sheltered in Haiti. Talk about the word charity! The proudest to give him the money back because I thing I feel about our agency is the felt badly about taking money from love our vendors have in their hearts someone who struggled to get by with for others and how it is helping to so little of his own. But then I realchange their own stereotypes. The ized... who was I to break this person’s other thing I consider to be very proud spirit or tell him he can’t help another of is Saint Aaron because he has deperson? voted his life to helping the kids from My motive for writing this other nations. We are very proud to article is to get you ready for the major share our bedroom with Aaron. The story that follows about Saint Aaron. It same bedroom if you will… considerwas written by Eric Alan Barton and ing he sleeps on the floor between the appeared in the New Times a few filing cabinets in the room we share as weeks ago. But first I want to tell you a bedroom. how this all started I also want to thank with the homeless After reading the Saint you personally for helping the kids of Haiti and others Aaron story please thank the last nine years of your dedication because these venyourself for helping us to us. To think we dors do so much started out using more than just throughout the years. one efficiency on stand on street Lincoln Street and have grown into 5 corners and sell the Homeless Voice buildings and 14 social service agennewspaper. For every paper sold a cies. It’s truly amazing! When we portion of what’s collected goes to began, we never imagined that we help others and provides for numerous would be doing the things we do toservices. Vendors help themselves and day; helping to find missing homeless others like new homeless people that people who are mentally ill, putting a come into our shelter who are not roof over the heads of kids in Haiti, physically or mentally capable of helphelping the homeless in our very own ing themselves; by providing them community, as well as advocating for with a place to stay. They help to pay others world wide about poverty isoff our mortgage and cover the cost of sues. All of this just confirms our beour monthly bills. They have helped to lief that this agency really belongs to buy medical equipment like the AED’s God first because without Him all of we have here at the shelter that have our desires would not have been made helped saved others from having a possible. But the shelter also belongs heart attack. They have helped disaster to you the supporters who continue to victims with supplies, have helped a help keep us up and running. That is little girl afford the braces her family why I continuously ask the public to couldn’t afford and they continue to come by and see where your contribuprovide money to buy food so the ortions go. I want all of us to be able to phanage in Haiti is well stocked and share the fruits of our labor. You have our children don’t go hungry. In fact, to really see it to appreciate what the another orphanage in Haiti ran out of work of your kind deeds have done. I money and Aaron came to me and say the word work because when you asked us for help so the vendors once work at your job and buy our paper, it again became what I call “Super means you are physically working to Homeless” and got them the food they help us survive through your own emneeded. ployment. So, I ask again for you to You see these venders who come by and share in the experience of bring the paper to you also bring help what we have done together. to others through you. Contrary to You know it has been a very popular belief, they are not lazy bums long struggle for me here, especially who should go out and a get a real job after my fight with meningitis. So as as so many tell them day after day. usual I need to ask you for assistance. Rather what they do is something quite But before I ask you for the money unique. When they come back to the that we need so much, I thought I shelter at night after a long day of would ask for a few other things. We vending, and receive their pay, they and especially I need your prayers are asked if they want to help the kids because this place is always a lot to in Haiti (which the shelter matches handle. And there are many times dollar for dollar) or another one of the when we all feel like throwing the projects we are working on and they towel in. My health has not been the give unconditionally. Can you imagbest since the meningitis; the weight I ine that? Homeless people who are gained from the steroids they gave me thought about worldwide as worthless to keep my brain from swelling hinare actually keeping little kids fed, (Continued from page 1)
ders me and the 4 packs of cigarettes I smoke daily, holds me back from being as healthy as I should be. I would like you all to pray that I lose at least 70 lbs. and get back to the 220 lb. mark I was at before the meningitis. I need to quit smoking and not do it tomorrow but rather today! Every day I wake up saying this is my last cigarette. I begin the day off quitting and then in a matter of minutes the stress starts and I light up again. The doctor told me my weight has put me at the point of cardiac risk. So people I need your prayers. I told Mark I wanted to Top: Sean and Lois surveying the land. stop smoking cigaBottom: Sean and Lois taking the sick baby for rettes for his yearly medical treatment. anniversary “clean time” from drugs and address so they can download their alcohol because I wanted to give him a very own version of the paper. gift: the gift of my own sobriety from We are grateful that we sell cigarettes. But I failed. I would love to about 100,000 papers a month. But call him and tell him it has been three getting others to know about us would days since my last cigarette but I have increase our funding. Quite honestly, not been able to do it. all we are looking for is those 100,000 I once heard that God does people to contribute $10.00 each so by not give you anything that you can’t the time Christmas comes my story of handle and I truly believe this is so. three years ago will come true, when I However, I wish not to have a heart told you all that “All I want for Christattack while I am trying to handle it. I mas is our mortgage paid off.” This wrote this story on August 6th and I would put us in a better position and pray that today will be the last day I allow us to expand a little because we smoke a cigarette and the first day I are out of room. It would be such a learn to curb my appetite (my weight burden off me (who had the only real is up to 301 lbs.). But for now I’ll just time off when I was in the hospital) have to promise to keep you informed and everyone else here at the shelter about the Sean Cononie makeover (see makeover ad on page 8). who works about 100 hours a week After reading the Saint Aaron with no days off. If our readers send story I know you will want to help us in their check titled “Burn that Mortto keep this project going in Haiti. gage” I will do just that, and right after Aaron is a really nice kid (oops he’s that get on my hands and knees and 23 now my age is showing) and when thank the Good Lord. you read this story you will fall in love Come one come all, visit our with him and the kindness he has in shelter and find out what we do for the his heart. Also remember that most of homeless and the community. Teachthis is possible because of the contriers can bring their students, commubutions you make to our international nity groups can bring members, and division and building fund. We are churches can bring parishioners. Help getting closer to paying off our mortus to become more financially secure. gage and hope to one day soon, be able Wow, I just thought about this one. to write the ultimate article of the decDuring the course of one month if only ade; the one about the building finally 300 churches had their parishioners get being paid off. Then we can go along together and make a joint contribution with our plans to vend the Homeless of $366.00 we would be able to cover Voice to you, free of charge. our monthly expenses and be able to While I am asking you for pay off our mortgage much more money again, I also want to ask you to quickly. Actually, I really wish the make a personal commitment over the churches would do more to help us next 12 months; share our paper with reach our goals because so many of others and come by to visit us so you them send their homeless to us. To can tell others, who still think there is help us to become more financially no shelter, that the vendors really do secure, you can take up a collection live here. You can’t imagine all the with neighbors on your block once a stories we hear. Some people think month and send it in. Have a penny that all the homeless come out of the drive. Become a monthly partner. You bushes in the morning and then we have our permission to do anything meet them on the corner, give them you want to do to raise funds for this our Homeless Voice newspapers and place. After all this place belongs to go back at the end of the day to pick you just as much as it belongs to the up our money. They have no idea that homeless. this place really exists, so I am making After reading the Saint Aaron a plea that you educate your friends. story please thank yourself for helping Make it your personal goal to tell othus throughout the years. Know that the ers about us and give each person who money you have given to us has has never contributed to us a copy of helped put this project together and the Homeless Voice or at least our web (Continued on page 11)
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Volume VI, Issue 9
HOMELESS VOICE Support the Homeless Voice Purchase Home Depot and/or Lowe’s Gift and Shopping Cards through us! We accept Credit Cards. The gift cards can be picked up at a location near you. Call 954-325-7326
Shop and Help the Homeless: 4 easy steps
1– Go to www.HomelessVoiceMall.com 2– Bottom left frame find "choose an organization to shop for"; fill in Homeless Voice and click "find organization" 3– Top of middle frame will show "homeless voice shelter" link; click on link 4– Just go shopping, you can use the search, or store directory. All stores show what percentage of the purchase goes to Homeless Voice. You'll notice the percentages are higher because you now get 75% of the profit instead of 50%.
All proceeds go directly to the shelter .
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that you are directly responsible for putting a roof over these kids’ heads and that you bring them food and provide medication to de-worm and keep them free of getting serious illnesses. If you choose to help the international division SO WE CAN CONTINUE TO HELP PROJECTS LIKE THE ONE IN HAITI, please make your check payable to the Cosac Foundation and in the memo section of that check write the words RELIEF EFFORTS. (If you just prefer to pay off the mortgage write “burn that mortgage” on the memo part of the check.) But before you do anything, come and visit us and see what we do and after visiting us I know some of you may want to do what Lois did in the year 1999. She came to volunteer at the shelter a few times a week, in less than two years; she was the one in the office who took the spot between the black filing cabinet and the cases of cranberry juice to get her four hours rest at night. Let me remind you all in case
HELP PAY OFF OUR MORTGAGE We need just 35,428 people to send in a check for $20.00, Or 14,171 people to send in a check for $50.00, Or 7,086 people to send in a check for $100.00, Or 709 people to send in a check for $1,000, Or Just one wonderful person or business to send a check for the entire $708,550.00 Remember the donation is tax deductible!! Please send your checks to:
The COSAC Building Fund P.O. Box 292-577 Davie, Florida 33329 We do thank you
you don’t know , she owns her own house in Hollywood less than five miles from the shelter and has only been at her house three times in the last eleven months. By the way you can look that one up in the Broward County property appraisals office, her house is just a few minutes away and she thought it was more important to save the time driving back and forth to work so she did what the rest of us did, make our office our home, now it is time for you to come and make our home your home by visiting us. -Sean Cononie and Lois Cross
The Homeless Voice sells approx 80,000 papers per month. This month we ask you, our supporters to send in $10. If everyone participates that normally purchases a paper; we will be able to pay the mortgage off this month. Please if you can find it in your heart to help us in our endeavor. Please send a check or money order to: COSAC Foundation BURN That Mortgage Campaign P.O. Box 292-577 Davie, Fl 33329
Help Relay The Message... Read, Pass It On ∀ Σηαρε τηε Ηομελεσσςοιχε ωιτηαφριενδ.∀ Are You Disabled? Have You Been Turned Down For Disability? Call For A Free Consultation. 954-920-1277 Download the Homeless Voice. Make Your Donation Online www.HomelessVoice.org