By Yaya Yuan | Innovation Developer
It is with profound gratitude that we are sharing the growth of the LitClub program in Haiti. This summer we travelled to Port-au-Prince to conduct LitClub sessions and LitClub training sessions with the young women leaders of our partner organization, Foundation TOYA. These women lead our programs on the ground. We were greeted by 20 young women who were all confident and relaxed. They welcomed us with hugs and "bonjour!"
It is wonderful to see how much the LitWorld culture has passed on to these women as they have spent more and more time together. As we gathered for our community building portion of the day, they led us in song, singing "Hey There Ladies" and the "Hello Song" with beautiful harmonies and energy. The LitClub training was a great success. We ran a model LitClub session, and afterwards they asked insightful questions, from working with kids with low literacy to classroom management skills.
Following our training we ran a LitClub session with approximately 35 students aged six to nine. Besides being unbelievably adorable, they were all incredibly well behaved, engaged, and ready to participate. We left them a copy of Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes because they didn't want to stop looking at the pictures.
We also had a chance to run a LitClub session with a group of older girls. They are a deeply complex group, each one struggling with her own life challenges, past, present, future. They have grown so much since we last saw them in March. It was thrilling and moving to be with them again. The young women leaders did a read aloud of a Haitian Creole book about a grandfather and his relationship with his grandchildren, and we talked about kind things that people have done for us to express their love, or things that we would do for someone to express our love. Everyone gradually opened up, first to a partner, and then to the group, in beautiful, emotional ways. We made heart maps, and everyone thought deeply about what to put in them, and wanted them to look just so.
This work is urgently important. It is so important for women and girls to have LitClubs. It is so important for them to have each other. It is so important for them to have their mentors. It is so important for them to have us, and to have the structures of support we are working to create for them every day. Thank you for investing in the power of story and for making this work possible.
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