It would be hard to imagine a more grassroots or organically grown organization than Sionfonds for Haiti. So much so, in fact that we have grown, mostly, without being aware of it. what I mean to say is we knew we were growing and working and doing important things for the families we serve, we did not however, create a plan in advance to explain how or why we do what we do. Children do not explain or plan out why or how they must grow they just do it, and so it has been for Sionfonds. We have grown because of the inherent need of our mission, to help Haitian families.
Creating this website has necessitated that we step back and attach words and concepts to what we do and have done, in order to be able to represent our organization in a way that will give us validity on the web, with our donors, funders partners and the world wide web in general. I think most organizations start from the other end of things. They have an idea or see a need, write proposals and grants, get funding and then start working. We were working before we had funding. It is the work, the vision that drives us, I think we are this way because Sionfonds is inherently Haitian which means we cannot wait for money to live. We must live in faith that living will triumph.
Creating the website and learning how to portray Sionfonds and our work in Haiti has been a challenging and friutful experience. Getting clear on who we are, what we do and why we do it, has been very rewarding and I hope it will allow us to communicate clearly with you and anyone else who takes the time to visit our website.
Two words are at the heart of what we do, Capacity Building. We are laying the foundation for Haitian families, to rise out of poverty. Capacity building is not an overnight fix, but the history of Haiti has proven that there are no quick fixes. It takes time and dedication to create change and empowerment through understanding and education. Hopefully this website will also lay the right foundation for our donors to understand how important their contributions are. How important it is that we support Haitians teaching and empowering each other.
On our old website home page we had the saying.
“Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for life time .”
Sionfonds for Haiti work is still as simple and complicated as that.