Jamie's having a bit of a hard semester. We found out early Feb that EWB-USA isn't approving any travel to Haiti. We decided that they were being reasonable, and since Meds and Food for Kids is swamped right now, we postponed the trip until the summer. We'll be nailing down the dates within the month.
We continued to process the paperwork to travel. However, when we talked to our project manager last Thursday, he asked us how we felt our project fits into the structure of EWB-USA. In EWB's model you find a specific community that wants help, travel to the community, and work with the community to implement projects that address their greatest needs. We are working with an NGO that helps a specific demographic across most of Haiti. In short, EWB works with a specific community; we do not.
Today we were notified that our EWB program in Haiti has been cancelled--you will no longer find our name on their website. This does not mean, however, our project is dying. We just won't be working with EWB anymore.
Anywho, it's a technicality that should have been identified earlier. I attribute it to lack of manning in the national organization, and that EWB national has been and still is inundated with requests for new projects and paperwork for existing projects.
Trying to help is hard. I empathize with EWB national. But I'm disappointed that all the time spent filling out paperwork and stressing about reconciling our "rogue" un-EWB trip last spring with EWB national. I'm annoyed about all the work we'll have to do to make this thing work outside of EWB, since we're a branch of our student EWB chapter.
Still, I'm optimistic. We've got some great people working on our project, MFK is a great organization, and there's a lot of potential for us to help. Maybe we will be able to get more done now that we're no longer under EWB-USA's care.
2 comments:
Aw, that's a bummer.
I <3 EWB. I hope you guys are able to continue to use your gifts for social justice in whatever trip it may look like.
According to our supreme court, corporations are people too! Perhaps you need to define the community you are working with as the community of MFK people and the farmers and families they support.
Then again, with a bureaucracy like that perhaps you are better off without them.
Becky C
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