Soma Austin

As our partnership with Help End Local Poverty in Haiti continues to grow, we have lots of opportunities to partner together for renewal in Haiti. We have two trip options in 2012 (we will select one of them) and multiple special projects that will really help move our efforts forward.

Check out some of the opportunities below and scroll down for a Google Form to let us know what your interested in. If you have any questions, please email .

Short Term Trips (May 7-15, 2012 OR June 4-11, 2012)

Both trips are $2100. They include airfare to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, lodging, food, in-country transportation, insurance, and costs to hire Haitians to build homes.

Activities include: 

• Participating with Help One Now (child sponsorship) activities, gathering profile information, taking pictures, playing games in the yard, etc.

• 2-3 days working alongside Haitians building a home for a local family. Part of your trip costs contribute to the cost of the house and creates job for Haitians who will do most of the work.

• In the May trip, there may be some general medical work, needing doctors, PA's, nurses, dentists, optometrists, etc.

• In the June trip, we may be holding a Pastors Conference on Adoption and Orphan Care for Haitian pastors and leaders.

• While in Haiti we will meet with at least three different pastors and their communities:

  In Kenscoff, building the homes, visiting a boys home and learning from Pastor Jean-Alix about Haiti, the opportunities and challenges. This is a mountainous region with some spectacular views.

  In Petionville-Port au Prince at the Yaveh Shamma Kids Home where we helped build the kids sleeping dorms, and do the child sponsorships.

  In Petionville-Port au Prince at the largest tent city in Haiti, the J/P HRO camp which is host to about 30,000+ people (was once 50,000). There we will meet with Pastor Jean St-Cyr who has a large tent church there.

• The ultimate goal is to learn more about the orphan crisis in Haiti and how we can be used to help bring hope and renewal.

If you are interested in serving through either of these trips, please scroll down and fill out the form below.

Special Projects
(in all of these you will NOT be alone, where appropriate we will teach you! Willingness is your greatest asset.)

• Stove & Lights Project: This project will partner with the 100 Home Project to provide fuel-efficient stoves and solar lights for every home that we help build. The fuel-efficient stoves help save Haitian families around $230 in fuel costs each year, burn cleaner, so are more healthy, are safer because they don't have an open flame, and save 6 trees per year in a deforested region. The solar lights also save money because they don't have to rely on buying kerosene (if they can afford it). Kerosene lamps can be very dangerous because they produce harmful smoke that can lead to lung problems and have an open flame which can easily start fires. The solar lights will offer a consistent, no cost light source where they can be more productive and safe in the evenings.

  Roles: Project Manager, Social Media, possible web-site, copy writers to tell the story, film and photography, someone to build a display for the foyer. Other roles as they are identified.
  Timeline: 2-3 months development, then ongoing storytelling and updates.

• HELP Haiti Church Kits: There are several tools that HELP uses to raise funds,Garage Sales 4 Orphans (GS4O), Help One Now Child SponsorshipsDonate Your Birthday, T-Shirts and House Shows. You can click each of the links to learn more about each. Essentially this project is creating a HELP Church Kit that churches could use in sharing each of these opportunities with their congregations. This project would involve researching best practices, costs and would implement the first prototype at Soma Austin. We would then tweak the model and share it with HELP, for them to review and share with other churches. We need to balance costs with the overall purpose of the project.

  Roles: Project Manager, photographers, graphics/print design, researchers, people who have great ideas!
  Timeline: 2-5 months development, then limited hours stocking and maintaining the Soma Austin display/kiosk.

• Online Storytellers: We need to rethink our online storytelling strategy. We need to restructure the global renewal section of our website to share more fully what we have done in Haiti and what we are working on, plus all the ways people can get involved. This involves sitting with Jacob, capturing all the data and getting it out on the website. It also includes someone to develop how we better use Facebook and Twitter to tell the story.

  Roles: Project Manager, copy writers, social media volunteers, Facebook/Twitter savvy people, film/photographers, video editors.
  Timeline: 1-2 months development, then limited hours updating the website and Facebook/Twitter tools.

Ongoing Awareness

• HELP Haiti Advocates: We need each of you to serve by sharing all of the above stories and opportunities once they go live!! We will also need some folks who would like to communicate monthly with our HELP Haiti Advocates to inform them of our work and ways they can help out.

  Roles: Project Manager, copy writer, social media.
  Timeline: Ongoing

Time Commitments for Special Projects & Ongoing Awareness

Project Manager positions will likely be 5+/- hours per week during the project timeline (2 hours tops for the Advocates). Less once the main thrust of the project is complete.

Thank you for reading this and prayerfully considering partnering for renewal in Haiti. If you are interested in any of the above, please fill out the form below:

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