UVM, Fundacion de Libertad stand together with Haiti

Please join in the efforts of Fundacion de Libertad, the University of Vermont (UVM) and Partners in Health in providing relief to Haiti.  UVM students, staff, and faculty have been involved with humanitarian work in Haiti and with Haitian migrant communities in neighboring Dominican Republic for many years, most recently through medical missions and service-learning courses. Now is the time to build on our established ties and join in solidarity with the community of Batey Libertad and  Haiti to support ongoing relief efforts. We will be supporting the many efforts by sending our raised funds to Partners in Health, a medical group working in Haiti since 1987. Founded by Dr. Paul Farmer — the subject of this past year’s UVM book pick Mountains Beyond Mountains — Partners in Health has been a model for the world for health care delivery to the poor.

There are a variety of ways to make donations in support of the UVM Haiti Relief Fund:

• If you’re in Burlington, visit one of our convenient locations on campus to drop off donations, including the Davis Center Information Desks, Waterman Building Information Desk, UVM Bookstore, Bailey Howe Library Information Desk, and Dana Medical Library.

• Contribute directly to Partners in Health by clicking here or sending a check made out to Partners In Health with “Haiti” in the memo line to: Partners In Health, P.O. Box 845578, Boston, MA 02284-557.

• Donate to the UVM Haiti Relief Fund with a check sent to: UVM Haiti Relief Fund, Grasse Mount, 411 Main Street, Burlington, Vermont 05405.

In addition, the University will collect donations from January 19, 2010 until January 29, 2010 in the spirit of our Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration, through “A Week of Giving” program.  Look for information at the events.  All of the donations collected at UVM will go directly to Partners in Health in Haiti.  Finally, the Office of Student Life Leadership and Civic Engagement web site has additional information http://www.uvm.edu/~lce/ on relief efforts in Haiti.

Thank you everyone for your kindness, prayers and support during this difficult time.

UVM and the Community of Batey Libertad

4:53 pm, January 12, 2010

A time line of the week since 4:53 p.m., January 12th in Haiti ….

Third annual Community Gardening class headed to the DR this January

For the third consecutive January, John Hayden of the University of Vermont’s Plant and Soil Science Department will be leading a service-learning course to the Dominican Republic to learn about (and do!) community gardening.  As an organic farmer, sustainable agriculture professor, and co-founder of Seeds of Self Reliance, John will offer students an opportunity to live and work alongside Dominicans and Haitians in a previously established community farm in Batey Libertad, and extend lessons learned to a new farm site at the community of Saman in the Puerto Plata Province.

Seeking ways to improve nutrition and income-earning opportunities by establishing a community-run farm, the class work together with community members in learning organic vegetable production techniques, composting, and small scale livestock rearing. Students will also visit the Finca Alta Gracia organic shade- grown coffee and tropical fruit farm to participate in  harvesting coffee, set up a worm composting demonstration, and learn other farming techniques. The class will begin with tours of successful community gardens and urban agriculture sites in La Vega. These will serve as a model for the Batey farm. We will take a one day break in the middle of the trip to sample the north shore beaches. The second part of the class will focus on agro-forestry in the tropics, including shade grown coffee and tropical fruit production. We will be given tours by experts from the Dominican agriculture sector.

For more information, see the University of Vermont study abroad page, or contact John directly at: John.Hayden@uvm.edu.

Grassroot Soccer co-founder on CNN

Co-founder of Grassroot Soccer, Ethan Zohn, was interviewed this month by CNN as he wrapped up his recent HIV awareness campaign, a soccer ball dribble from Boston to Washington, DC. Grassroot Soccer continues to expand programs and train new NGO partners in HIV/AIDS prevention education throughout Africa, as well as supporting our Futbol para la Vida program in the Dominican Republic through sharing their curriculum and with joint fundraising opportunities.

For more on this recent interview with Ethan, check out the CNN video clip at:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2008/12/03/starr.grassroots.soccer.cnn

2008-09 UVM travel study courses to the DR

The University of Vermont (UVM) will lead three travel-study courses to the Dominican Republic to work with the communities of Batey Libertad and Saman during the 2008-09 academic year. These international service-learning courses have been run in partnership with these communities and local NGOs working in the DR since 2005.

The first group of UVM students will be led by Drs. Pat and Jon Erickson during the Thanksgiving week. The focus will be community health, with projects including a Futbol para la Vida HIV/AIDS course at two local schools in Esperanza, a community health clinic, bed donations, and numerous projects involving upkeep and expansion of the services of the community center and clinic. Students are organizing a number of fundraisers in Burlington, Vermont, including a benefit dinner, candle and bake sale, a dribble-a-thon with UVM soccer teams, a run-a-thon with UVM running teams, and a 3rd annual Lose the Shoes soccer tournament. The class will also be supporting the annual Batey Libertad Coalition soccer tournament at Batey Libertad on Saturday, November 29th, and returning to Burlington, VT to host a World AIDS Day event on December 1st.

Over the January winter break, John Hayden of UVM’s Plant and Soil Science Department and Seeds of Self Reliance will lead a class to continue the community gardening project with the Batey Libertad community. The class will also be helping to start a new community garden in Saman, a barrio of the city of Montellano in the province of Puerto Plata. More info. on last year’s class is available at: http://dominicancommunitygardens.org.

To round out the academic year, McKew Devitt of UVM’s Romance Language Department will return for his 4th trip to Batey Libertad to continue work on language literacy and service-learning. The March ’08 class built a home for a family at Batey Libertad.

Benefit dinner for ear surgery a big success

On Friday, October 24th, the University of Vermont’s Gund Institute for Ecological Economics hosted a benefit dinner and silent auction to raise money for ear surgery for Negrita, a 6 year-old Haitian-Dominican of Batey Libertad. The event was a big success, raising money for a procedure necessary to save Negrita’s hearing. A huge “abrazos” from the Batey Libertad community to Carol Franco and Ida Kubiszewski for organizing the event and cooking up some delicious Dominican food, and to all the students and faculty for your generous donations.

If you’re still interested in donating, checks can be made out to “Batey Libertad Fund” and sent to: Jon Erickson, 344 Aiken Center, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405. Please write “Negrita” in the memo.

GRS field notes from South Africa …

Here’s the most recent update from Lena Forman (UVM ’08) who’s volunteering for Grassroot Soccer in South Africa — our main partner in developing the Futbol para la Vida HIV/AIDS prevention education program with partner communities in the Dominican Republic. Lena helped to develop the web page of FPV and started our annual University of Vermont barefoot soccer tournament and fundraiser during her studies in Community Development. Go Lena!

Hello everyone!

I hope all is going well since I last wrote! A lot has happened in my world since then for sure! Since my last email I have had the opportunity to explore Cape Town more including visiting some townships in the area, we started learning more about Grassroot Soccer (GRS) including the curriculum, we met trainers from all over South Africa as well as some other African countries, and, lastly, we learned where we are being placed for the rest of our time as a field interns.

Firstly, I got to experience one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been two Saturdays ago when me and most of my fellow interns hiked up Lion’s Head. I did take pictures but my photos don’t do it justice so if you would like to see what and where I’m talking about you should do a Google search for “Lion’s Head Cape Town”. It was a really nice hike and even included climbing up some chains and ladders to get to the very top (you’ll see what I mean when you find a photo). We also visited both the townships of Khayelitsha and Langa. A township is a community that was created by the South African government during apartheid where people who were not white Afrikaans were sent to live. The conditions were bad and still continue to suffer although some areas are getting better. In a township you can see anything from a lot of tiny tin shacks to a nice cement block home with a fancy car in the driveway. We also went to Robben Island where political prisoners like Nelson Mandela spent much of their imprisonment during apartheid. Our tour guide was actually a former Robben Island prisoner himself so it was really interesting to hear talk about his own experiences as well as give the tour.

Last week we had a training in which current GRS coaches/trainers from Cape Town (SA), Port Elizabeth (SA), Bloemfontein (SA), Lusaka (Zambia), and Nairobi (Kenya) came to Cape Town and we had a week-long training where we learned more about Grassroot Soccer, heard about their personal experiences with the program (because they are all top trainers in their respective communities), and learned from each other. These were some of the most amazing people that I have ever met! They are so passionate in what they are doing and are so smart and articulate in their thoughts and ideas. All of us field interns felt so inspired by them and their energy. I can’t begin to explain how much I learned from them during the week and how close our two groups came to each other. We had so much fun together both during our training sessions and after just hanging out. To see one of the amazing women that we met (named Titie) you can watch this 20 minute video that was made about GRS and features her (http://www.globalonenessproject.org/videos/agameforlife). During our week of training together we learned about the history of GRS, the different project initiatives that are happening all over Africa that GRS is involved in either directly or through partnerships, we learned what it takes to run a successful program, we did a diversity training as well as a gender sensitivity training, we learned bits of some of the local languages, and we learned about HIV/AIDS in Africa and the social context as well as had a doctor speak with us about exactly how HIV/AIDS affects the body and how it is spread and was open for all of our questions.

This week (going on our 3rd week here in Cape Town) we are attending a Training of Trainers (TOT) in which new trainers from partnering organizations (not the trainers that we spent the past week with) along with us are being trained in how to deliver the curriculum to kids. The only difference with us, however, is that us field interns will mostly likely not be delivering the curriculum directly to kids. We are here as a support to those local trainers who will run the program with the kids and to help out with much of the organizational work as well as working on other GRS projects. We are going through this TOT though so that we can all fully understand exactly how the program works because the actual curriculum is really the main component of the organization and the program that it runs.

As for what GRS has in store for me in the future, this past weekend we all finally got our placements for the rest of our year here and I found out that I will be headed to ZAMBIA!! Me and my fellow field intern Stuart are going to be the only two from our intern group working outside of South Africa and will be living and working in and around Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Zambia is one of the flagship sites of GRS so there is a GRS office that we will be working out of along with the other current Zambia staff. We were fortunate enough to meet Gesh, one of the main Zambian trainers, during the training last week and got to know him very well. I am really looking forward to working with him and his crew in Lusaka because I can only imagine what it will be like if the rest of the staff are like him. From what I’ve heard so far about the role Stu and I will be playing, it looks like we will be helping to manage some of the local programs that are happening in the area as well as helping to set up a VCT tournament in Lusaka. ‘VCT’ stands for ‘Voluntary Counseling and Testing’ and the way that these tournaments work is that it runs like a regular soccer tournament except that instead of getting points just for winning games, participants also get points for taking an HIV test where qualified people are administering the counseling and procedures that go along with an HIV test. We will find out more details soon and will be staying in Cape Town for a few more weeks while our housing situation gets set up in Zambia.

Some of my other fellow field interns are going to be headed to Port Elizabeth, others will be staying in Cape Town, and the others are going to be living in Kimberley (central South Africa) and traveling to many of the DeBeers mining townships (I think there are about 6) where the GRS curriculum is being delivered.

Oh, and one last thing (sorry I know this email is really long already), this past weekend we had a GRS 6v6 soccer tournament and braii (South African bbq) to close up our training with the African GRS trainers who we had all gotten so close with. My team was the Orlando Pirates and we won the whole tournament!! Not only that but I scored 3 game-winning goals including the game-winning goal in the final match! (I’m not gonna lie, they were all pretty nice goals too.) It’s pretty crazy, especially for those who know me in the soccer world because I’m a defender, not usually a goal scorer haha. Anyway, because of that I got the ‘player of the tournament’ award which was really exciting J

Ok, I think that’s enough of an update for now. Please write me and let me know how things are going for all of ya’ll!

In soccer,

Lena

“Futbol para la Vida” training of trainers in Guatemala

Futbol para la Vida (FPV) and Grassroot Soccer (GRS) are collaborating this month with Mercy Corps to conduct a training of new HIV/AIDS educators in Guatemala. The 5-day training will be conducted by Zak Kaufman, FPV co-founder and Director of Research and Advocacy for GRS, and Yanlico Munesi Dusdal, regional coordinator for FPV in the Valverde and Santiago Provinces of the Dominican Republic.

Mercy Corps has previously partnered with Grassroot Soccer to delivered sports-based HIV/AIDS prevention education programs for youth in Liberia and Sudan. This will be their first Spanish-language GRS-inspired program and will support not only an HIV prevention program in Guatemala, but will also result in a new translation of the GRS/FPV coaches manual.

To learn more about Mercy Corps programs on HIV with youth in Guatemala, check out the following video on YouTube:

3rd annual FPV program at DREAM Camp

This July marks the third summer that peer educators from our Futbol para la Vida (FPV) program are running an HIV/AIDS prevention education component to the annual Guzman Ariza Summer School and Camp of the Dominican Republic Education and Mentoring (DREAM) Project. This year’s peer educators include Milanda and Nico from Batey Libertad, and Fefe from Barrio Saman.

The annual camp is grounded in principles of peace education from the Montessori teaching method, serving 250 youth in the northern coastal town of Cabarete. In this tourist area of the Puerto Plata Province the school drop-out rate is higher than the national average, with an estimated 85% of high school age youth not attending school. Low school participation is one of the main factors contributing to lacking knowledge and inaccurate perceptions about HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (see blog on FPV research).

The Futbol para la Vida program is modeled after the Grassroot Soccer curriculum, using games, role play, and peer mentors to provide youth with accurate information about HIV/AIDS, prevention strategies, and encourage compassion and caring for the victims of AIDS. FPV programs are run throughout the Valverde and Puerto Plata provinces of the Dominican Republic, with training of trainers run with many partnering non-governmental organizations and local communities.

A newsletter created by camp volunteers and students is available here. For more information on volunteer opportunities or other ways to support the DREAM Project, please see their web page at: http://www.dominicandream.org. Other stories on Futbol para la Vida are available on this blog, as well as general information at: http://www.futbolparalavida.org.

Surgery needed to save Negrita’s hearing

Emely (nicknamed Negrita) was 18 months old when Pat and Jon Erickson, faculty members at the University of Vermont, met her. They were leading a UVM course to the Dominican Republic, Emely was busy being almost two. Emely lives in Batey Libertad, a small town located in the lush Cibao valley, populated with Haitian workers, Dominican workers, busy Mom’s, farmers, cows, dogs, cats and the occasional student from the United States. The community lacks basic necessities such as consistent health care and stable employment. Emely, now six, has experienced more than her fair share of problems, suffering with severe ear infections for all of her six short years. Through the generosity of people both in the community and in the United States, and with electronic consultations from physicians, (including Dr. Paul Farmer, Dr. Jim Fisk, Dr. Tommy Clark and Dr. Ara Fernandez) Emely is really one of the fortunate. She has had basic health care. However, she needs specialized care to preserve her hearing. Luckily for Emiey, Dr. William Brundage heard about her case and has offered to help. Dr. Brundage is Assistant Professor of Surgery and Chair of the Division of Otolaryngology, at the University of Vermont. We hope to bring Emely to Vermont later this fall so she can have the surgery she needs at Fletcher Allen Medical Center. Emely will live and recover with the Erickson’s while she is in the United States. Of course, there are many, many children all over the world like Emely. Many people ask us, why this child? We believe it is important to help everyone you can, wherever you can, when you can. Emely, Pat, Jon, and all the many, many wonderful people involved with Batey Libertad simply found each other.

To inquire about Emely, or to offer your help, please e-mail Dr. Pat Erickson at Patricia.Erickson@uvm.edu.