Blog Archives
Watching Lives Change
Imagine receiving your first hug as a teenager. This comes after spending all of your life belonging to another. Not as a child or a friend to be loved, but as an object, an appliance; like an old vacuum you are loaned to your neighbor. You have no belongings, no time for yourself, no time to play, no one to love you… you live in a house but everyday it is made clear that you are not at home. No one knows or cares if you have feelings, they disregard your desires, they trample on your rights, and they use every ounce of your strength, and give you nothing but food scraps to replenish it. In their minds and in your own you are no more human than the stray dog that begs for scraps at the door. You’ve come to believe that your life does not matter.
Now imagine one year later, sleeping in a bed for the first time. Imagine waking to find that, for the first time in your life, the sun has risen before you and you don’t have a long list of chores awaiting you… so you go out and relax with your “family.” Imagine going to church for the first time in life and the pastor is preaching directly to you saying “Yesterday is gone, and everything is about to change. God is going to do something with your life. Even the misery will turn out for your good.” Watching everyone around you closely, you do what they do. You lift up your hands and you say amen, but not just to copy them, but because you have already seen the first-fruits of the pastor’s words. For once you are surrounded by people who love you, and for the first time you start to feel it. They show it. They hug you, the smile with you, they joke with you, they eat at the same table with you, they share their belongings with you, they provide for you… you have a place at home with two strangers that you now call “Mami” and “Papi,” and they deserve the title because of the love that they show. You share a room with a “sister” that you had never known, and she loans you her mother’s sunglasses so that you can be styling at church. For the first time, you no longer belong to the home… the home belongs to you. You no longer belong to a family, you have a family of your own. In this you see for the first time that you actually do matter.
If that were you, your cheeks would hurt too after smiling and laughing non-stop for days… It’s a wonder to behold. Its a privilege to take part in. I really love my job. I get to sit in the front row and watch lives transform.
Jean-Robert Cadet Restavek Foundation Featured on CNN
Dear Reader,
We are thrilled to announce that we have a new website (www.restavekfreedom.org) and that the foundation will be on national news Monday, July 13th and Tuesday, July 14th.
Please tune into CNN on Monday and Tuesday night to see the Restavek Foundation featured on Anderson Cooper 360°. (If you miss either, the program will re-air on Saturday the 18th and Sunday the 19th, times TBD.) Our founder, Jean-Robert Cadet will be interviewed by CNN chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, as part of Anderson Cooper’s historic series of interviews with President Barack Obama.
Here is an excerpt of CNN’s official press release:
As President Barack Obama makes a historic visit to Africa, CNN’s Anderson Cooper sits down with the President for an extensive interview and joins him exclusively as he visits Cape Coast Castle, Ghana, the site of an overcrowded dungeon where slaves were held before they were shipped west. Interview topics will include domestic and international issues as well as the President’s own close connection with Africa and the significance of his trip for African-Americans today. CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta will join Cooper from Haiti, where he will report on the slave trade that continues to thrive in that country. The interview will air on Monday, July 13th and Tuesday, July 14th. Anderson Cooper 360° airs weeknights at 10pm ET on CNN.
Please share this with your friends and thank you for your support!
The Jean Cadet Restavek Foundation
www.restavekfreedom.org
One Month Later…
It has been one month since the Restavek Conference. The conference itself, as i said before, was an overwhelming success. We pulled off everything, from logistics to content, almost flawlessly. The people showed great signs of motivation and interest in this cause. We even saw a unique miracle as a sign of their self-motivation. What was that miracle? It was the first Haitian event that I ever took part in in which all of the invitees arrived EARLY (yeah, that’s right… early!… in Haiti!). We started on time & ended on time. We started with Tifane’s beautiful song, went into a welcome, heard a couple of talks, and went right into the panel discussions. The panels ran smoothly up through Mrs. Sixto’s lunchtime speech, and we topped off the conference with Jean-Robert’s moving and challenging speech. God’s hand was in every detail.
As for me, it was an honor for me to stand before 500+ leaders of various sectors in the nation, speaking on behalf of 300,000+ children who have no voice. As the emcee of the event, I too had a chance to share my heart about the issue and challenge people to take personal responsibility for the plight of these children. This great opportunity came after weeks of speaking out for them on television and radio; an honor and a privilege that I had not yet imagined for myself. It was truly a divine opportunity.
I did not get to take part in all of the panels because I was moderating the religious panel. I heard great reports from all of the rest, but after spending four sessions with a Pastor, a Priest, and a Hougan (vodou priest) speaking on the same panel about the same issue, I must say that our panel was the most significant… the most miraculous (I may be a bit biased). Never has it been seen or heard of in Haiti for three men from these three domains to sit together peacefully to discuss anything of substance. They not only sat peacefully, but they supported one another’s statements, they laughed together, and they genuinely enjoyed one another’s company. They came representing sectors filled with differences and known for fiery confrontations, but they left as friends united by a common purpose.
That was the miracle of the Restavek conference. Men and women came from all over the country (and even different parts of the world), from different walks of life, different social and economic statuses, and from different domains of work and they became united toward a single cause: the children, the future of our nation. Everyone left encouraged and motivated, and I truly felt that the nation is finally ready to start taking some steps toward change.
So what has happened since? Our office has spent several weeks catching up to our own program, paying more attention to our own children. Still every week I am receiving calls and emails from excited organizations and individuals telling us about their ideas and efforts. Many of them need some help and direction getting started and I always wish we could do more for them at the moment, but our own children are our priority for now. We are still a very small organization, despite the big splash that we made at the conference, and our resources, especially our human resources, are limited. At times I have been a bit discouraged to see so much momentum yet be so limited in our ability to keep it rolling, but from what I see, the issue is still fresh in the minds of all of our attendees . The fire is still burning, and it won’t go out any time soon. I am fully confident that we will be able to contact anyone on our list of attendees, even in a few months, and enlist their full participation. I believe that the conference had that much of an impact.
I have already called upon the members of my church who were in attendance, and we are now planning a campaign to root out this system in our church and in the surrounding community. Their enthusiasm is greater than it was on day one because they have been thinking about the issue ever since, and they came ready with some great ideas for a very smart campaign. This will be the first of many to come. Hopefully it will become a model to be replicated in other churches and neighborhoods around the country. The media campaign is still in the planning phases, but we have some great ideas flowing…
Why does all the good stuff always happen when I am just getting ready to leave the country…? I only have 35 days left. Booo…
The Time is Right for Change
According to Joan, the movement officially began on Sunday, and I don’t think myself to be egoistic to agree. On Sunday, May 17, I did not speak. God really did deliver His message through me. For too long we, as a people, have been self-focused. Most of us do not know how to truly love our neighbors by “giving our lives” for them. We should give our lives, not by dying for one another, but through living to serve one another. We hardly realize that it is the latter that is more difficult.
There is a potential miracle that exists in an ear of corn. One could eat the ear today and be hungry tomorrow. But if one were to plant the 200-400 grains of corn on the cob instead, in a few months he would find 1000-2000 new ears. Our lives are like those seeds. If we invest every bit of ourselves into our own “stomaches” today, our investment will die with us tomorrow and there will be no evidence that we ever existed (read my post on “Signs of Life“). On Sunday, God challenged all of us to plant our lives into one another. To plant ourselves into something greater. To plant our lives into a secure future. To plant our lives into children. The time has come for us to stop eating the seed that represents our own lives and looking for others to devour when we are still hungry. It is time for us to stop looking for a child to help us and look to invest ourselves into them. I believe that God himself has declared an end to exploitation and is calling for a change of hearts.
If I had delivered the message three Sundays ago, as originally planned, it would not have been the right time. Not only was the time right this past sunday and people were ready to receive it, but everything was aligned perfectly with Radio Lumière so that all of Haiti could hear it live, and even Haitians in foreign nations could heard it and responded. Judging by the way that the message was received, I can tell that we are ready for change. But we must keep preaching this gospel to give people the vision for change and confidence to change. We need to preach it all over the country. For that, we need messengers. This Saturday at the “Mwen Se Ayiti Tou” conference (“I Am Haiti Too”), the messengers will be inspired. We have leaders from all corners of Haitian society, from all 10 departments, that are coming to take part. We have chosen leaders that can speak. Leaders that people will listen to. On Saturday their eyes will be open to the truth and on Sunday they will be sent out to preach this gospel. Its time to plant ourselves, invest our lives into Haiti’s neediest children. Our hope as a nation is wrapped up in their very own.
The Beginning of the End of Child Slavery
If you’ve been wondering where I have been, I have been hard at work on the upcoming conference to start a movement against child exloitation in Haiti. Every day the event gets bigger. We are preparing to receive hundreds of guests, mostly from Haiti, but also from Europe, the U.S., and other Caribbean nations. We will also have media present from different corners of the world. I have a feeling that God really wants to deliver these children (well duh…). His hand is all over this thing… All of the pieces simply fit themselves together. The people that we have met in the last week and a half have saved our skin, given us access to corners of Haiti that we thought were lost. There is much left to do but we are very excited and very positive about it all.
Of course this is not really about holding a conference to talk about the issue and move on (like most conferences in Haiti). We really are after a movement, and we think that we are well-positioned to get one rolling. I also think that Haiti is ready to receive this movement. After all this time, what could make me think so? Well, all along, there have been more people in our nation that are against this system than there are people who are for it. All we have to do is convince these people to TALK. Speak out! Say “Enough!”
During child interviews this week, I caught onto something that is very key. Almost every child that I talked to (this week) has a neighbor that feeds them or gives them a little money from time to time because they feel sorry for the child. But never have I heard of a neighbor that confronts the “owners” of these children while they are in the middle of beating them to a pulp. These neighbors are friends of the family… They see each other often. They laugh together and joke around with everyone in the house. Everyone but the restavek. They help her in secret, because no matter how close they are to the family, they feel powerless to speak on the behalf of the child who is, very clearly, not in the family. I bet that some of them wish they could… Our goal is to convince them that they can… and they should. We want these caring neighbors to stop thinking “what a shame” in their hearts to saying “shame on you” to their neighbor (of course respectfully, tastefully, and lovingly). As I look at I’m really starting to believe that we can get people to start talking.
We are preparing for it. We are getting ready to make a lot of noise. It won’t be long until this issue is made a public issue. It won’t be much longer until one neighbor starts talking to another about the sad, shameful stories that they heard on the radio or saw on the TV. When they start talking to each other, the third neighbor, the one with the restavek, will start to think twice before they beat the child. They may even buy a mattress for her to sleep on rather than forcing her onto the cold concrete floor every night. In another year, perhaps the child will be in school… in the morning even, rather than being sent to a sub-par afternoon school which exists in part because there are children in our country that work during the day. Maybe afternoon school won’t even be necessary anymore… who knows.
I know that I tend to speak idealistically, but I feel this as strongly as everything else that I know to be true. On May 23, 2009 we will see the beginning of the end of child slavery in Haiti. God himself has vowed to break the chain. (Trust me, I know this because He’s a good friend of mine… 
