HEF

Throwbackkkk-- HEFalump & Woozle, Spring Break '07 :)

One of my best and most precious friends, Miss Hannah Elizabeth Ferrell, is headed back to Jacmel with me this coming Wednesday! A Haiti first-timer, she has taken leave from her job and will be spending the next three months helping me jump start our new women and girls initiatives. I am beside myself with excitement about this! Hannah and I have been friends since high school, and she has walked me through a lot of ups and downs in life. Her presence has a calming effect on me.. it is going to be goooooood to have her around everyday. She has a very natural and infectious interest in and understanding for people from every walk of life, is a great soccer player (something that is bound to earn her brownie points in Haiti!), has amazing artistic talent, and is absolutely hilarious in a uniquely immature and somehow still brilliantly understated way. She has a lot to offer, and I am really looking forward to having her as my partner!

Beginning this past January, I have been serving as Deputy Director for a start-up nonprofit in Jacmel called The Haiti Initiative (THI). Founded in response to January's earthquake and operational since March 2010, The Haiti Initiative, formalized under the name 'Social Tap,' is a voluntary relief project undertaking an asset-based approach to evaluate community needs and provide lifeline resources to disaster victims. THI secures resources and distributes aid in collaboration with established Haitian NGOs, identified local community leaders, and skilled professional volunteers, in an effort to empower the local community and promote sustainable development. (THI's website, http://www.socialtap.org/, is currently under contruction and anticipated to launch this in the coming week. If interested in learning more, please check back soon.)

My involvement with THI over the course of the past four months has taught me a great deal about the challenges and rewards, the costs and benefits, and the barriers and opportunities that make up the messy, often difficult and unrelenting, day-in and day-out of relief and development work. There are certain things that a person, no matter how much they prepare, cannot know and understand until experiencing them for themselves-- and for me, this Haiti experience has been one of them. I am, with each day that passes and in ways that I could never have forseen, growing in my depth of love, passion and knowledge of the needs of Haiti and her people, as well as for the field of development work. I am also growing in knowledge of myself: learning my limits- whether internally or externally imposed- while at the same time growing in confidence and wisdom when it comes to the approaches and methods by which I am able to best utilize the skills, gifts and interests that God has given me to most effectively impact the environment in which I currently live and work.

Many of you will know that my heart and passion have long been to serve as an advocate for and minister to the needs of women and children-- particularly girls-- to whom the world and society have largely turned a blind eye, or, in more cruel instances, a purposefully opressive hand. In Haiti, women and girls have long been living in a state of emergency: In a nation where 80% of the population is unemployed and 76% live on less than $2 per day, 1 in 90 women die in childbirth, and 7 of 10 women report being victims of domestic and sexual violence. In the wake of the 2010 earthquake such previously existing problems have been compounded, resulting in already vulnerable populations being put at even greater risk. Single mothers, homeless or displaced women and girls, domestic and sexual violence survivors, former sex workers and prostituted women, and female ex-offenders are populations in particular need of support.

Knowing this, my next year of work in Haiti (I am committed to staying at this time until atleast May 2012) will focus primarily on assisting, largely as an independent agent, in the development of THI's "Core Areas" of Human Rights and Domestic Violence. In collaboration with this organization and with the support of other like-minded agencies and individuals, I will be be working to develop and expand the following projects: Girl's Empowerment through Sports and Art in camps for displaced persons; local outreach through Hospitality and Community Building; Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention and Survior Support; creating Opportunities for Economic Empowerment through trade education, business planning training, and the creation of Cash for Work and microenterprise options; and finally, a Women's Prison nutrition, sanitation and medical outreach.

Currently, I am in the States, seeking partners who are willing to join me either in prayer or financial partnership as I move forward into this next phase of work in Haiti. While I have been recieving a small stipend for time spent assiting with volunteer hosting at THI, currently, the organization as a whole is operated on a voluntary basis so as to be able to commit as much funding as possible to ground initiatives rather than to operational costs. For this reason, it is necessary for me to secure my own personal funding for housing, travel, and monthly expenses for the coming year.

During the course of the last nine months, I have been blessed to be surrounded with a community of supporters, friends and partners from countries all around the world whom I have had the opportunity to witness again and again make the choice to believe in and invest thier own money, prayers, and other resources into the work that is happening in Haiti. God has used the generosity and displays of compassionate love demonstrated by my friends, family, and even complete strangers-- some of whom have now become cherished friends-- in incrediby powerful ways to keep me encouraged and teach me perserverence by keeping ever before me the knowledge of His perfect timing and provision when things have gotten difficult. If you are able and feel led to do so, I invite you to join in partnership with me. To be added to my list of prayer partners, to find out how you can become a monthly financial partner, or to get more detailed information and updates on the projects that I am working on and other ways that you can become involved, please email me at mary.hooke@gmail.com or call US (919) 360-3899. For one time gifts, click on the paypal button immediately below.

If you are interested in setting up a meeting or a speaking engagement with your church, classroom community or other small group, I would love to have the opportunity to come speak with you as well. Just shoot me an email or give me a call!

Thank you for your consideration and for your interest in partnering with me to support the people and nation of Haiti!

Loving Mothers Around the World

Mothers and motherhood have been on my mind a lot lately, for a lot of reasons. Being in Korea definitely has a great deal to do with it. I have come to learn a lot in my time here about the unique challenges and pressures that Confucian ideals place upon the shoulders of women in Korea, especially with regards to family, marriage, and motherhood. On a personal level, the things that I have learned through my time and experiences here have really grown me in love and understanding for my own mother. I've been writing a lot about the life experiences of my mother and grandmother lately, and have spent quite a great deal of time reflecting on the amazing women that have always surrounded me in my family and my life. I feel incredibly grateful and blessed to have had them.

I've also recently been reading a lot about maternal health, maternal mortality, and orphaned children. These issues have really been driving me to my knees. Everything in my being wants to see mothers across the world LIVE, and succeed, and have the opportunity to nurture and care for their children. I deeply admire and wish to honor every woman who loves and sacrifices for her children, wherever and however and to whomever those children first entered the world. My heart rejoices to see mothers (and fathers) rise up and bring orphaned children into their families. I really hope I am blessed to be counted among their ranks one day.

There are other factors, too, at work in promoting my recent preoccupation with motherhood. Like my intention to travel to Haiti in August to work with women and children. And, of course, the fact that Mother's Day in the US is only two weeks away.

This year, I will be celebrating my mother from a distance, and so have been giving special consideration as to how best to show her how much I appreciate her, not only for giving me life, but also for investing in me and loving me unconditionally over the years. I've never been great at giving gifts-- I'd say the worst was probably when I accidentally broke my sister's arm and gave my mom an oh-so-glorious day in the emergency room for Mother's day-- but I'm sure that this year I'll be able to manage something at least a little better than that.

One way that I intend to expand my celebration of Mother's day this year-- and that I invite any who read this to consider-- is by investing in the life of a mother in the developing world who needs some help to provide for and support her family.

One way to do this is through microfinance and the organization that I mentioned in an earlier post, Kiva. In case you aren't familiar, Kiva connects lenders, like you and me, who have modest amounts of expendable income-- even $25-- to business owners in the developing world who need small loans to start-up, grow or expand their small businesses. The majority of small business owners represented on Kiva, I believe, are women; they constitute the group least likely to default on their loans and most likely to allocate resources responsibly. It has been suggested that this gender difference is largely attributable to the value women tend to place on the management, care, education and well-being of their families, and especially their children. In other words, making microloans to mothers is a solid investment, because it's returns are most likely to positively impact children, families and, by extension, whole communities.

For those more moved by maternal health concerns, there is also Compassion International's Child Survival Program. One issue that I have only recently learned about, but that has been weighing heavily on my heart, is that of fistula. An all too common condition plaguing women in the developing world, fistula is a hole in a woman's bladder or rectum that results from sexual assault or, often, obstructed labor. This is a condition that is majorly debilitating and that causes women to be ostracized from their communities. Tragically, MANY of these cases could easily be avoided or repaired simply by the presence of proper medical care during childbirth. The Child Survival Program strives to give women in the developing world access to this kind of care by providing pregnant mothers with skilled birth attendants, who can help ensure safe and healthy deliveries.

These are just a couple ideas to consider-- there are, of course, many other options out there. But I definitely think that programs like the ones mentioned above are powerful ways by which we can celebrate motherhood across the world, as well as demonstrate just how much we value the blood, sweat and tears that so many of our own mother's have so graciously invested in us.

Kiva!

I've FINALLYYYY gotten started and made my first loan through Kiva. YAY! Have no idea what took me so long (only takes $25!), but now that I've done it, I want to invite you to join me in supporting this lovely entrepreneur: Salwa from Lebanon.




She still needs $300 to fund her loan, which she will use to purchase merchandise for her store selling baby and children's clothing. I chose to support her because she is a single woman with four children from the Middle East and it is her first time receiving a loan through Kiva, but there are literally thousands of others that I could have chosen who would have been equally as deserving.

I'm excited that I have finally started doing this after being theoretically supportive of microfinance for years, and I definitely wish I had become personally invested MUCH sooner! Thankfully, a friend here in Korea recently lent me a book that gave me just the kick in the butt I needed...

(Consider this book a "must read" for all!)

Hope you'll consider joining me in this if it's not something you do already... microlending is one great way that we can all embrace and love our world, no matter where in it we happen to be.