This is the first of two posts that have been stolen from Spring 2011 EMI intern Samantha Rowell (I believe a recent VT grad). I found the post in December 2015 while surfing. Sam had not touched her blog since the trip, but I wanted to hold onto the memories. I’m a cad, a thief, a man with no soul.
Sam’s blogspot site: http://samrowell.blogspot.com/
It was hard to resist the feelings of hopelessness that crept in as we drove around Haiti, but the people and mission of Hatian owned and operated Grace International was inspiring. Their vision is to bring opportunity to the Haitian’s and in doing that empower the people. One of the ways they are trying to do this is by building communities, not just homes. In the 2010 earthquake displacement camp tent village that Grace runs, we saw that they were applying expectations to the people who lived there and enforcing strict consequences. It seems simple, but I think this is a huge value to the Haitian people.
View of a portion of the displacement camp on Grace International’s property
Soccer game in Grace village
Our mission was to provide Grace with a master plan for a new community. We achieved that, but could not give as much detail as will be needed in the future for this site. EMI has worked with Grace for several years. It is very likely that this partnership will continue and we will be involved in helping them realize this long-term vision for the community at Lafiteau.
Our EMI team (Ash Wednesday)
The beautiful planning work of Dan Ford.
Our presentation at the end of the week to Grace Int’l