There is a childhood bible story that still resonates with me to this day. There were 5,000 hungry people standing around after Jesus had performed several miracles. In the crowd was one brave selfless little boy who was willing to give up his lunch of 5 loaves and 2 fishes. This gift was blessed, distributed to one person at a time and turned another impossibility into possibility. Many times we see a situation, we see a need, we are moved, but we are immediately overwhelmed. This was me in early 2010, heading out to Haiti to do my first medical missions trip after the devastating earth-quake. I wanted to do so much more, but felt incapacitated. Then a small inner voice said, just focus on one life at a time. And this is exactly what I did.
As I served on short-term medical trips, I was increasingly intrigued by the number of intelligent youths that I met who could not afford to pursue theiracademic dreams. This reality constantly challenged my heart.
This reality constantly challenged my heart. So I started to financially support the education of three little boys who were constantly helping our teams when we did mobile clinic to the tent cities of Port-au-Prince. One life at a time, ProjetAgeno à Delmas was born. Today we have a total of 70 students in the program from primary school through university level.
The after-school program is de-signed to create the future agents of change in Haiti. We challenge the youths in the program to believe that they are not too young to start changing the way they think or behave and in so doing, they can positively influence their families, their community and ultimately their country. The program requires accountability from every student and fosters a sense of respon-sibility.
The high school seniors (the Philosophes) and University stu-dents are required to do scheduled small group tutorial sessions for the younger students. The tutorial groups are small and intimate and give each student the individual attention required to encourage a love for learning and to foster good study habits.
The ProjetAgeno à Delmas tries to be comprehensive and address all the economic needs that could possibly be a hindrance to their academic success. We provide the books, uniforms, shoes, school bags and supplies. In addition, each week, students also receive a small stipend to address their trans-portation needs and meals during the school year.
We also created a “big brother big sister” system where each university level student is assigned two primary or secondary school students to mentor them on a personal level. They are charged with developing healthy collegial relationships and to maintain contact with their assigned students at least once per week.
The students also formed a Professional Development Com-mittee which recently held our first career day symposium. The students were exposed to a number of university students explaining their career path and the academic requirements to succeed.
The Project also aims to increase the cultural and historical awareness of the students, so they have an increased appreciation of the history, the culture and the landscape. The primary school students took a trip to the National Museum (Musée du Panthéon National Haitien) We have also done trips to Fort Jacques and to PlagePublique.
ProjetAgeno à Delmas is under the leadership of Reginald Estellis as the Director and Junior Tingué as the Administrator. These two young men have worked tireless to make this Project a success. At the beginning of the program less than 50% of the students were per-forming at the required academic level.
Today over 90% are succeeding. For academic year 2015, a total of 14 students (4 Philos) were enrolled in the Haiti national Exams. We had a 100% pass rate. The students are also encouraged to give back to their community. So recently on the public holiday, a group of 10 students volunteered to paint a local primary care clinic also under the administration of the Ageno Foundation.
Despite the challenges over the past 5 years we have had many successes and achieved several milestones. We are encouraged by the transformation taking place in the lives of our students. Ageno is committed to their success and continued aspirations for a brighter future for themselves, their families, their communities and Haiti.
We cannot achieve this without the generosity of our partners and sup-porters. So please join us in our efforts to empower the youths of Delmas, Haiti.