Haiti, the poorest country in Latin America, has a rich history and rich land, though neither has been allowed to flourish.
Friends of SODA, a Ketchum-based nonprofit organization, was founded in 2007 by Reed Lindsay to raise awareness and financial support for the people of Haiti. SODA stands for Sosyete Djòl Ansanm pou Demokrasi Patisipatif, a colloquial term in Haitian Creole that roughly translates as "Like-Minded People Working Toward Participatory Democracy." All of SODA's members are volunteers.
Its mission is to become a broad-based popular movement that will empower poor Haitians to confront and solve their problems through collective action. Unlike those of most aid organizations, SODA's projects are identified and implemented by participating communities.
SODA runs several neighborhood schools in Port-au-Prince and one in the countryside, with more than 500 children.
As well, there is a program for about 40 street kids and a literacy program for about 20 adults. There are also more than 100 SODA volunteer teachers and other volunteers in eight poor neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince. SODA provides food daily to nearly 300 kids.
A correspondent for a new 24-hour Spanish-language television news network, Telesur, Lindsay reports on Haiti, where he lives. The son of Barbi Reed, owner of Anne Reed Gallery in Ketchum, Lindsay, 33, graduated from The Community School in 1994 and from Williams College in 1998.
Lindsay's charitable involvement began in his own neighborhood. In April 2005, Lindsay, some neighbors and a young Haitian named Reagan Lolo who worked with him as an interpreter, started Asanble Vwazen Jakè, Creole for Neighborhood Assembly of Jacquet. The AVJ as its known, is now under the umbrella of SODA, as are the several other assemblies that have been initiated by communities since then. To be a part of SODA, a neighborhood school must prove itself for at least six months. After that, SODA will begin helping with the funding.
"What's really coming together now is a recognition and understanding that SODA is a movement of people changing their own lives from the bottom-up," board member Barbi Reed said. "They count every penny and there are no administrative costs. Its all-volunteer teachers are Haitians of high school and college age."
Earlier this year, SODA received a $750 grant from Global Fund for Children. It also received $250 from a Rotary fund, which helped send SODA volunteers on public transportation to a farming area outside Port-au-Prince damaged by the recent hurricanes. The volunteers cleaned out a mud-filled, non-working canal that the government had repeatedly promised, but failed, to clean.
"The locals were in disbelief that so many traveled to help them," Reed said. "For most of the volunteers this was the first time they traveled outside Port-au-Prince."
SODA has initiated other projects that help and involve the whole community.
With seed money from a Rotary Club in North Carolina, an urban chicken farm was created in an abandoned lot near Lindsay's neighborhood. It's being cared for by the children and volunteers from the AVJ school. About 250 chickens produce more than 200 eggs per day. Designed by Muffet Jones, director of Anne Reed Gallery, the egg carton label has SODA's logo and states the eggs are a "Product of Haiti,"—a point of pride in a country that produces so little. The cartons of eggs will be sold in supermarkets that want to sell Haitian eggs rather than imported eggs.
SODA hopes the program will serve as an example to other poor neighborhoods, and that it will promote community self-sufficiency.
"We hope that people in the community will learn they, too, can have chickens at their house," Reed said. "Other neighborhoods are saying, 'Hey, why can't we?' It's a movement. Instead of being poor and despondent they're taking their lives in their own hands."
This is an important step in the bottom-up idea. There is widespread agreement that Haiti's dependence on imported food is at the root of the country's poverty and hunger. Even beans and rice arrive, subsidized, from overseas. A new school lunch program in Solino is a pioneering effort to feed children with locally grown food.
Another new development is that SODA rented a house close to Lindsay's residence. Meetings are now held there instead of in Lindsay's apartment. Volunteers and visiting teachers can now stay there, as did Joel Vilinsky and Nancy Parsons-Brown from The Community School. The duo traveled to Haiti to conduct a teacher seminar, where they were to have 20 students but instead had 70.
"The Community School has done so much," Reed said. "One child gave all her Bat Mitzvah money to SODA."
Indeed, the Wood River Valley's support for SODA is one of the reasons it's able to thrive. The valley has helped by donating in several ways. For instance, for just $75, a child can attend one of SODA's schools for a year. That's about $6 a month or 20 cents a day. For only $150, a child can got to one of SODA's schools for a year and for about $300, an orphan may be rescued from life on the street and given food, clothes, shelter and an education. There is also a need to help the teachers and older students receive scholarships to further their education. SODA also hopes to have literature printed in Haiti's native Creole rather than only in French.
"All these young people, who're so gifted, can now contribute and celebrate and be proud of their culture," Reed said.
For more information on the organization visit friendsofsoda.org.
Students peer out of a "window" at the Neighborhood Assembly of Jacquet school, in Haiti. Photo by Barbi Reed
