RAW Haiti, Recovery And Wellness for Haiti

My name is Woodeman Joseph  and I am the Director of Programs for RAW Haiti. We are a 501c3 non-profit organization based in the US and helping the youth of Haiti. We stand for Recovery And Wellness and work with 150 children in my home town of Cite Soleil, Haiti, one of the most difficult ghettos in the world. Very successfully for a small non-profit we engage the children with what they love, SOCCER! While they work with us they learn about leadership, stress management, yoga, wellness, art, dance, music, and English. We believe that the next generation of leaders can change the country, so we focus on empowering and teaching.  

With the Elevate Prize funding I would increase the sustainability of our organization and expand our reach to further communities by starting a RAW Haiti grassroots soccer club. We would buy a piece of land in Lizon Haiti and build a good soccer field, security wall, 2 locker rooms and 2 outdoor classrooms. Being granted that opportunity to be an Elevate winner would be a huge help and it would make a difference in the lives of the children we serve and able to access more youth.

As I mentioned above, my name is Woodeman and the head of my family. I am a very caring and motivated person inspired by my struggles and the need of other people in Cite Soleil where I was raised. From 2005 to 2010, I was teaching elementary school students literacy and small business management in Cité Soleil, Haiti. After the earthquake in January 2010, I worked with a non-profit organization as an interpreter and a microfinance and small business instructor. 

I feel like I need to do something for the children and anyone that I can reach. I know what it is like to go without food for many hours and days. I have been through very stressful and unsafe situations, due to lack of leadership of the Haitian's leaders and the lack of police presence in Cite Soleil. Therefore, my wife and I decided to start our leadership program. We need new leaders in Haiti to decrease the corruption and injustice.

I personally just built a house in Lizon designed to be our Youth Center with sustainable classes coming soon. I gifted the use of the new compound to the organization and our US team is 100% volunteer. 

The scale of the problem in Cite Soleil and Haiti is huge. 85% of the population is in extreme poverty. They are facing safety issues due to gang violence in Cite Soleil. Much of our program's purpose is to teach youth positive skills and develop positive leaders. We want to keep our youth engaged and out of gangs. They don't have access to resources and recreational materials. Through our free soccer programs in Cite Soleil we can provide materials needed and skill building. We are focused on stress management and we use soccer and music programs as a driving force  to engage the children we work with. We focus on quality programs for these 150 children long term for much of their youth. The strongest youth leaders then become captains and then young coaches within the RAW Haiti programs. The other coaches and I are examples from our community that we can not help everyone, but we can empower change for many. Creating more role models and hoping this ripple effect touches many more. Much of what we do fits into after school leadership based recreational programming that we created to fit our community. 

We are very unique in how we work in Haiti, focusing on modern transparency, integrity, determination, discipline, responsibility and passion. Everyone on our US team donates their time, energy, and resources to ensure our Haiti team can keep the programs going. My wife and Executive Director and Psychologist is always pushing our teams to be better trained in being effective with youth. We never engage in corporal punishment, which is an uncommon stance to have in Haiti. We engage the children with positive activities, reinforcement, and natural consequences. We wish to teach the youth to “fish” rather than “feed them fish.” We have girls soccer teams which are rare in Haiti. We have some amazing female young leaders currently that have grown up in our programs. We are creative and versatile in teaching our youth as much as we can teach them, depending on what we have access to. 

More of our focus is on becoming sustainable. A soccer field and club would allow a small income to pay the coaches. Another example of sustainable programming is how we are building a commercial water filter so we can sell water at our small store and make profit for the youth programs.

 When RAW Haiti started to work in Cite Soleil, every parent in the area wanted to enroll their children in our program for 2 reasons. The first reason is what my family represents in the neighborhood: integrity and strong moral values. Parents respect and trust us for our generosity and our discipline. The other reason is the unique focus in our programs. We offer classes where we teach about life skills and problem solving. In order to achieve our goals of leadership and discipline, we require that all soccer youth participate in classroom based leadership training 1 week of every month. The other weeks these skills are coached and practiced on the field. At every turn are opportunities for natural leadership training. For example, at first many children tried to skip the classroom week of leadership and skill training, this ended quickly as the students had to sit out at soccer for the next 3 weeks. Our youth continue to learn about and practice taking responsibility, remaining respectful, working hard, being a team player, being disciplined and maintaining integrity.  Every month we have a different leadership topic focus. My wife and I fly in from the US to inject new training every few months for the youth and staff.