Haiti means so much to me. Since that first trip my husband Peter and I took there almost thirty years ago to work in a rural area, the place just got to me and called me back year after year.
Unfortunately, the visits and my work there has stopped. A year prior to the pandemic, security concerns prevented me from traveling there. Even though COVID shut everything down, Haiti continued to go downhill with gangs controlling the country, an unstable government and out of control corruption. There is currently some good news coming out of Haiti.
For the past 5 years I’ve been the Board President of GOALS and recently I stepped down to pass the baton to another board member.
But please indulge me while I tell you more about GOALS and why I have been involved all these years.
12 years ago, Kona Shen, a dynamic and fearless newly minted graduate of Brown University, founded GOALS. After a short stint there she quickly discovered how passionate all the kids were about soccer in spite of a lack of basic needs to play the game: playing fields, equipment, soccer balls and any footwear. As an International Development major, Kona decided that a sports development program was what she wanted to start in rural Haiti.
Upon graduation Kona returned to Haiti to launch GOALS Haiti. Using soccer as the hook or carrot to engage kids in community service, literacy, civics, health education and leadership development, over 400 kids in 3 neighborhoods joined the program.
Fifteen years ago, I started studying Haitian Kreyol at Brown University. I had been working short stints in Haiti since 1995, mainly at the Hospital Albert Schweitzer. Although I speak French fluently, on that first work trip I quickly realized that speaking Kreyol was imperative.
Our Kreyol classes at Brown were lively, stimulating and tons of fun. We had an awesome professor named Patrik who taught us about Haitian culture, history, and politics as well as the language that all Haitians speak. The students in my class were quite wonderful as well: super bright, engaged in their learning, and intellectually curious. That class was the setting where I met Kona Shen.
Kona and I stayed in touch that first year of GOALS. I even managed to visit her on one of my trips to Haiti and was excited to see what she was doing. At some point Kona emailed me asking for assistance. She was concerned that some of the teenage girls in the program had gotten pregnant. She was particularly concerned that the kids in the program were in dire need of sexuality education, that many of the kids believed a variety of myths about how one gets pregnant or avoids it. We decided that the best approach was to offer on-site trainings on human sexuality to her staff, her coaches and the older kids enrolled in GOALS.
And so began my love affair with GOALS—in the early days— at those first visits to offer training programs. I was hooked with everything I saw there and vowed to return.
I joined the GOALS Board several years later and spent five years as Board Chair where I was affectionately called Madanm Pwezidan. I’ve recently stepped aside to hand over the reins to Board member Shanna Snider who will do a phenomenal job leading and keeping us in line!
I continue to feel enormous pride in all the GOALS does and accomplishes given the enormous obstacles and daily challenges. It’s truly remarkable.
Plus I am so thankful to put my heart and energy into a truly phenomenal organization. I’m fervently wishing for calm in Haiti and a return to some semblance of stability. On a very personal level, I long to return to the place that has given me so much. I’m continually in awe of the Haitians I know and love; they are full of resilience and hope, I miss them as well as the verdant and stunning countryside. - Toby Simon