It was the artwork that initially drew Duong “Debbie” Pham ’09 and Stanislav Genchev ’09 to the Vassar Haiti Project. “Everyone has the same appreciation for the art, and I felt like I was doing something meaningful,” says Pham, an international student from Vietnam. “Everyone is like a family,” adds Genchev, who’s from Bulgaria. “They’re inspiring us to do more and more for the project.” Pham and Genchev are two of nearly 40 student volunteers who devote their time to the Haiti Project, where students are involved in everything from publicity and merchandising, to reaching out to local schools, producing a DVD on the project, and helping to run the auction. “There are so many opportunities to be creative, and they give students so much freedom,” reflects Genchev, who was in charge of producing a booklet of artist bios for last April’s show and auction. Students also help with inventory and attend “stretching parties” where canvases are unrolled and stretched for upcoming sales.
Last year, Pham received a Goldman Sachs Global Leader Award for her work on the Haiti Project, and for her academic and leadership activities. The program is designed to develop future leaders to “create an international network through which they can share ideas, work collaboratively, and begin to change the world, together.” Each year, students from the nation’s top colleges and universities are nominated; 16 are chosen and awarded at a presentation in New York City. As one of the winners, Pham gave a presentation on the Haiti Project. “I wanted to get other people’s support and bring the project to a higher level,” she says.
The program is continuously expanding, and Dartmouth and UCLA have expressed an interest in collaborating with Vassar to host a similar project. Genchev is part of the committee that is already at work coordinating these events. “I come from an Eastern European country, so I know what it’s like to be poor and to not have equal opportunities,” he says. “The economic situation is awful because people lack education. I figured it would be a really good thing to help since I do have an education. It’s such important work.”
LIFE IMITATES ART: Packed like sardines in the cab of a pick-up truck, and bouncing in and out of the giant ruts and holes of Haiti’s roads, Andrew Meade, Dionne Jackson ’95, and Mark Andrews were unsure of what to expect next. It had been four years since Meade’s last visit to the country, when he’d met with Haitian artists and gallery owners, purchasing art to sell at the Vassar Haiti Project, a fundraiser to support a hot lunch program and to help fund a new school. In January, nearly six years after the program’s inception, and $200,000 later, the trio finally had a chance to see the art come alive as they connected with the people and witnessed first-hand the effects of the program.
When the pick-up truck finally rocked to a halt, the group knew it was time to begin the final walk to the village. Picking their way through a rocky riverbed, they journeyed single-file through the sandy red soil and up the side of the mountain to Chermaître. “There was no one else around, and we just had this visually stunning landscape to ourselves,” says Andrews, an associate professor of French. With the aid of a local priest who had coordinated their visit and help from locals, they climbed for an hour and a half, carrying toothbrushes donated by a Poughkeepsie dentist, construction paper, vitamins, pens, and bubble gum to give to the children. The village already had an abundance of brightly colored Vassar College T-shirts, part of the 30 boxes of clothing and materials sent at the end of the school year.
The group finally rounded the last corner to find 125 students standing quietly outside the small school. “I don’t think anyone from outside Haiti had ever visited them before. They didn’t know how to react,” says Meade, director of international services and special projects at Vassar, who spent part of his childhood in Haiti, when his father was chief of operations for the U.S. Embassy. The students sang to their guests in Creole, “Welcome to the village and to our school,” and “Welcome Vassar College.” Later there was singing, dancing, and drumming. They were also treated to a meal, and despite the lack of running water and electricity, their hosts served their drinks with ice, a rarity in the 90-degree weather.
“When you talk about the plight of the Haitian people and what they go through daily just to survive, that doesn’t communicate a picture of this vibrant society where people are living and working hard,” reflects Andrews. “It’s a country of opposites; you expect the worst kind of despair, but you see the best in people. They’re empty handed, but it’s not reflected in their character or spirit.”
At the beginning, the goal of the Vassar Haiti Project was to provide the children with a hot lunch. The best way to make education a success, Meade reasoned, was to pair it with food, which acts as a major incentive for parents to send their children to school. As the program progressed, additional money went to funding teacher salaries. Then, nearly two years ago, the program had raised enough to fund the construction of a new school, one large enough to accommodate the growing number of children and to provide separate classrooms. The new building is half completed. Progress is slow because all the materials must first be carried through the river and up the mountain.
With tourism nearly extinct and deforestation severely limiting what the people can produce, Haiti’s artwork is the only export they have left. “It’s their way of finding joy,” says Jackson, an assistant director in the college development office. “While we were there, it was almost as if the paintings had come to life because every scene was representative of what’s seen in the art.”
Their very presence was enough to instill a sense of hope in the community. “When we landed in Turks and Caicos, Andrew told our Haitian taxi driver where we were going and about the project. Once we arrived at our hotel, he wouldn’t accept any money,” says Jackson. “He broke down crying and said, ‘You aren’t even from Haiti and look what you’re doing for my country. Thank you!’ After just a week we saw for ourselves that the project will definitely be completed. As our Haitian host proudly proclaimed, ‘Chermaître is working!’”
Pressed for Time, Raymond Lafaille