From our team in Haiti, in the U.S, the community we serve, our partners, mentees and mentors on the ground_ we wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023.
We often talk about mentorship because we truly believe that access to mentoring is critical for our youth in Haiti today and that's the only way Haiti will rise. And we will do all we can to ensure every youth has access to mentoring.
In August 2022, our Founder Williamson spoke to thousands of powerful young men and women in different places in the South of Hiati; Port-a-Piment, Arniquet, and Cavaillon about the importance of having a mentor and the urgent role of the community leaders in empowering our youth to change their mindset, create their life and impact their community. He called all local leaders to join us to help mentor our youth today, to apply and become a mentor - a mentor that invests for the long term, that recognizes his/her duty to this generation, and that creates value in Haiti and gives back.
"I will never cease to promote, champion and support our youth. Truly, nobody but us can develop Haiti; it is our collective responsibility as citizens, as public and private sector leaders, as opinion shapers and influencers to collaboratively create the Haiti we want for our future generations.
I thank all of our supporters, partners, and mentors and urge everyone to join this collective effort with ARISE Project For Humanity." - Williamson Sintyl
Because of supporters like you, this year, you have helped bring mentorship to 1,500 Mentees this year all across the community we serve through our mentorship program to help transform the future for more generations, and equip more inspiring leaders and mentors. As always, 100% of your generosity goes straight to funding our mentoring program. Our mentoring programs are a prominent strategy in countries like Haiti to help prevent child sex trafficking, negative outcomes, and promote resilience among at-risk youth. Although diverse in their design and implementation, mentoring programs share a common aim of providing young people with structured support from older or more experienced people, such as adult volunteers or students at higher grade levels.
For young people in general, research shows that common formal mentoring program models (community-based mentoring, group mentoring, and cross-age peer mentoring) that develop strong mentoring relationships can yield positive effects for mentees. Meta-analyses report small, modest positive outcomes for youth comparable to other similar, well-developed formal interventions with youth.
We are committed to empowering our youth and will do all we can to ensure our youth have access to mentoring.
Our 2022 Hero! We don’t get to talk about Cadet Pierre-Michel often but I need to. We want the world, our donors, supporters and partners to get to know this wonderful man.
Our founder Williamson met Cadet while he was serving a full-time mission for his church in Haiti back in 2013. Since then, he started building a strong friendship with him and looked up to President Cadet as a leader. At that time, Cadet was presiding over the stake/branch in the South of Haiti, where we are now building the first mentoring center in Haiti. In 2015 when we took our very first humanitarian trip with our organization ariseprojects.org to Haiti, we wanted to bring him on board and we chatted so many times so he could get an idea of what we were trying to do in the country. He then joined the team voluntarily, with his whole heart. Since then, he has never stopped once.
When we started looking for land here in the south in Sept 2018, he was the backbone of all of it. He looked for land non stop and met with dozens of local realtors to make sure we are making the right decision without any illegal problem. Today, he’s our construction manager in Haiti. Over $200,000 US dollars have been spent here in the south from buying the land, funding our mentoring program, relief efforts, supporting locals, to finishing the outer walls of the ARISE Mentoring Center, and Cadet has been a big part of all of that and we have trusted him with our finances here in Haiti.
During our last trip to Haiti in August 2022, due to protests in the streets, we weren't able to be in a car driving around. Cadet has a motorcycle for his family that he decided to use to get us around for all of our meetings, trainings and graduations since our car couldn’t make it through the barricades on the streets. He did all that with love and because he believes in our vision. He believes that mentoring is a MUST and he will do anything to make sure there is a mentoring center here in the south.
Early this year, we have decided to recompense Cadet for his time and sweat to our organization and today he is now a full time employee for our organization. Our hope is to be able to provide more financial support to our team on the ground in Haiti and that way we will be able to support them and their family while dedicating their life to our mission and we can't wait to have more people like Cadet on the ground.
We love this man with our whole heart and prayed to God years ago for someone like him to work with in Haiti. We trust him without a doubt. He knows our routes and our connections on the ground. We will do anything for this man and his family. He is generous, loving, and consistent and he is a force for good!
We thank you everyday for believing our mission and for your unwavering contributions to this cause. May God continue to pour his richest blessings upon you, your work, and your loved ones this season and every season.
Love,
ARISE Project For Humanity
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Do you know someone who embodies the spirit of giving and contribution that would be willing to support our organization ariseprojects.org this coming year (2023-2024) to help us build our first ARISE Mentoring Center? Please email us at support@ariseprojects.org