GOALS is always busy, and never more so than when we’re lucky enough to have incredible volunteers visit us in Léogane. Volunteers allow us to take on big projects, reach more children, and maximize our impact to change more lives through soccer. We’re extremely grateful for their contributions here on the ground, and want to highlight some of their recent work:
- Ben Wiselogle and Melissa Watkinson, who spent a week with us in February, helped tackle a warehouse full of donated equipment as well as launch an intense monitoring and evaluation phase. GOALS is testing all our players on their literacy levels and progress in English class. This feedback will be crucial in determining what we have achieved so far and what we can do better in the upcoming year. Following her trip, Melissa wrote:"...after witnessing the impact that GOALS has on young people and the community, I believe in GOALS' collective ability to engage, empower, strengthen, and educate the Haitian community."
- Connor Ashenbrucker spent two weeks in Léogane leading martial arts workshops, administering evaluations, visiting sites, and helping GOALS with capacity-building projects. The kids loved the karate lessons, and even postponed soccer practice to learn more moves – definitely a first! Connor also led special English lessons for senior staff members – who taught him Creole in return – and did outreach work in the mountains outside of Léogane. See pictures from Connor’s karate workshops here!
- Joelle Julien led an incredible “Mother Tongue” Creole book-making project for our kids in Destra over the course of a busy five days. Dream Team leaders each helped their groups of younger children develop stories, illustrate them by hand, and present them to their peers as skits. These stories – now laminated and bound – will be treasured by our participants for years to come.
Our Dream Team students, who receive high school scholarships thanks to the Child Survival Fund, have been key in helping these volunteers and leading additional community projects. For International Women’s Day earlier this month, our Dream Team girls helped manage a special after-school health clinic for approximately 100 adolescent girls from Léogane in collaboration with Klinik Lasante Leyogann. For our players who are interested in medicine, taking an active role in leading health outreach is an invaluable way to gain experience in the field as high school students. To see photos of the clinic, check out the album here.
These are just a few of our favorite moments from the past month. Every day has been full of soccer, community service, classes, special projects, and much more. To keep up with our daily updates from the field, don’t forget to visit us on Facebook and Twitter! There you’ll find albums like “Falling Down, but Having Fun” from our Leogane sites, and special opportunities to attend our upcoming event with the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
As always, thank you for your support, and get in touch anytime by writing us at contact@goalshaiti.org!