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Starting 2022 with Major News and Big Smiles!

jonathansteers

Dear friends of Better Together International,


Thank you so much for your words of kindness, advice and/or financial donations for Better Together International in our first few months. Our goal is to send out an update every quarter with information on the children’s activities, education, the orphanage relocation project and any other exciting news. Our hope is that you feel informed, excited, and part of the incredible things that are happening to vastly improve the lives of these incredible children!


We have made significant progress since the beginning of the year. When we began brainstorming how we could create a better life for these children away from their current 3-bedroom house in the middle of gang infested Port-au-Prince, it seemed like a monumental task. Finding quality land with a trustworthy owner is massively difficult in Haiti for a multitude of reasons. We were seeking land located not too far from Port-au-Prince for access to the stores and hospitals, but far enough away that it would not be plagued with massive gang activity. After a few months of searching we located two plots of land that we thought were ideal locations.


The next step was figuring out how we could possibly build a new dormitory, school, and necessary infrastructure in a safe and efficient way. Most people we spoke to have horror stories about building in Haiti due to unfortunate theft of money, supplies, and building unsafe structures. It took weeks of anxiety and frustration, and close to a hundred emails to stumble upon an experienced organization that we hope will partner with us. I was introduced to a woman who shared a similar love for the people of Haiti, and after some dialogue she introduced me to the Director of Food for the Poor, a large nonprofit that has done amazing work in Haiti for years. Food for the Poor has an arm of the organization that specifically helps churches build schools. Via a few cold emails and calls they agreed to talk to me, although we aren’t their typical partner (not a church), they said they were open to discussions about our project. Fast forward a few months and Food for the Poor graciously sent their team out to our two prospective sites in March and recommended we move forward with the one in Leogane, about 90 minutes outside of Port-au-Prince. This approval from Food for the Poor’s site and survey team was all that we needed to have the confidence to negotiate the price on the land and move forward with purchasing. We are in the process of getting all the documents properly notarized and approved (typically can take up to a month) and once they are finalized we will send them over to Food for the Poor for their review.


There are no guarantees, but based on my immense bombardment of emails, I am hopeful that Food for the Poor will approve us as a partner and take on our construction project. Their involvement seems to vary project to project but based on my absolute ignorance, while trying to manage the project remotely, I am requesting/pleading them to handle as much as possible. I have been in contact with their main headquarters in Florida and am willing to fly there and beg if necessary. I asked for a favor with one of the Food for the Poor project managers and he provided me a basic estimation of the costs for the construction. Although I am sure prices will rise significantly before we start our project, hopefully this summer.


The 31 children of Lifed Christian Orphanage are thriving and have a busier schedule than normal. We started English classes a couple months ago and the children are really enjoying them. We also have been offering sewing classes for a few months and our hope is that most of the children will be able to make their own uniforms for next school year. Not to mention this potentially will be a skill they can use when they graduate to support themselves. A lot of the children’s free time from school is spent in the small play area with soccer, coloring, dancing, and singing. Music is a huge part of their culture and almost constant outside of school hours.


We still open our school up to the local neighborhood and provide free education for 150 additional children that wouldn’t be able to pay for education otherwise. There is almost no free public education in Haiti, almost every school is private so most low-income families cannot afford to send their children to school. We also provide the children with two healthy meals for the day to ensure they are getting the necessary protein and vitamins. Malnourishment is a significant problem that most children in Haiti face, as most parents struggle to provide more than one basic meal per day, usually with little to no fruits, vegetables, or protein.


I want to apologize for my lack of experience in operating a non-profit and I hope that your experience with Better Together thus far has been enjoyable and that you have felt the significance your support has generated in the children’s lives. The children are healthier, getting better schooling and are happier than ever. For the first time they have real hope and excitement that they will soon live in a safe neighborhood, with room to run and play and learn. Some of the older children got to visit our new land site and were ecstatic to see it and tell the other children how beautiful it was. It saddens me constantly thinking about how limited they are in their current compound, but this is all they have ever known.


I do recommend everyone follow our social media accounts, as I try to post updates on there, along with sharing pics of the children. I hope to do a better job of communicating with you moving forward, unfortunately most of my time thus far has been begging people to help us. It is hard to appropriately convey the state of affairs in Haiti currently. It was a very tough experience watching the circumstances of the Haitian people in my prior visits. But everyone I speak to in the last year says this is the saddest, most dangerous and challenging that they have ever seen Haiti. Crime is worse than ever, prices of everything are up 2x or 3x, and the overall environment is very unhealthy. For these reasons I am pushing hard to move these amazing children to the countryside ASAP.





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