Paper Airplanes with SAKALA

SAKALA serves as Cite Soleil's only youth community center. Located in the heart of what is known as Haiti's largest slum, SAKALA works to develop and change children's futures through athletics, agronomy, and education. The program provides opportunities for children to join positive groups and programs, a peaceful alternative to the gangs and violence ever present in the community. With the largest urban garden in Port au Prince, a huge soccer field, and classrooms with a computer lab, SAKALA provides after school tutoring, basketball and soccer teams, art courses, and agronomy education and work in the garden.

Ever year we make an effort to visit SAKALA and get updated on the projects and progress they are making. This year I had the funding and supplies to do a small art project with the kids: watercolored paper airplanes! It was such a great experience to not only come and observe the awesome classes offered at SAKALA but to get to contribute in a real, albeit small, way. The kids loved the chance to do another art project and it was definitely a much more powerful experience to get to work alongside them.

We also had the opportunity to meet their women's empowerment group- filled with women our age! All of the girls work at SAKALA as supervisors and work with the teens at SAKALA to educate them on sexual health. As a few of the girls became mothers at very young age, they talk to the teen girls from experience to explain to that them while it may feel mature and exciting to have a boyfriend at such a young age, getting pregnant will change their entire future and opportunities. It was a very powerful experience to talk to them about their conversations with their students and just how different sexual education operates in Haiti.

There remains a huge stigma within Haiti to talk about sex and with no such thing as sex ed courses in school, the responsibility falls upon the families and parents. However many parents have not received proper education themselves and it is often taboo to discuss such topics, so young adults often go uneducated. We asked them about the sex ed classes they have at SAKALA we found they were always conducted by outside NGO's, and even worse by foreigners. With such a difficult and stigmatized topic it remains of the utmost importance to have teachers and guidance from individuals you relate to and feel comfortable talking to. That is one of the reasons I found the efforts these women were making themselves to educate their younger generations so incredible. I am continuing to work with the girls at SAKALA as well as some of our scholarship students from SOPUDEP to fund and create an effective sexual health program taught by Haitians at SAKALA, SOPUDEP, and CESAH.

You can read more about SAKALA and all of the amazing programs and progress it has made here.