Empowerment – Hope & Opportunity

Jun 9, 2020

My heart is heavy. All of the things I care about most seemed to be both crippled and yet also highlighted by this sinister convergence in our world right now. The virus, the economic landslide, and the outrage over George Floyd’s murder have my head spinning and my heart aching. Trying to juggle the safety concerns of our artisans (and Haiti as a country) on top of keeping artisans working so that their families literally don’t go hungry is daunting at best.
My personal sorrow over the obvious systemic racism that keeps black people (but also black countries) marginalized has me weeping tears at a rate I haven’t in a long time. I weep for my daughter and my son who, unless things change, will have to live in a world where they will fight so much harder than I did to get to the same places. And I weep for a country like Haiti, that has had more setbacks and unfair disadvantages than we could fathom, and yet the lack of understanding of it allows people to unfairly judge Her and question why She can’t seem to get out of the neediness that She has come to be known by.
I weep for the fact that people who have only known hardship, have a harder time finding their way out of it than people who have understood and experienced prosperity and blessing. After all, how can you dream of what you have never known or experienced? How can you dare to hope for what is foreign to you?

The news reports show protests and my social media is flooded with pledges to stand behind black people: To stand against exploitation and racism. But do we not know what that will cost us? Do we not realize how much we benefit from those who are less fortunate than us? Our world is infused with injustice. We swim in it. And most of us don’t even realize it. The next time you celebrate what a great deal you got on a recent purchase, ask yourself at what cost it might have come to someone else. It’s not an exercise that leads to enjoyment of said purchase.
And if we are the kind of person with experience enough to realize how much we benefit, we honestly don’t know what to do about it. We know we can’t change the world. We live in a system of injustice and the only thing we can do is make small choices to begin to turn the tide.

So here we stand. We are a tiny part- but a flicker of hope for a few in Haiti, trying not to be snuffed out by the economic setbacks put in motion by the virus. We work to provide jobs, assistance, education, upward mobility, and hope for those in our sphere of influence in Haiti. We battle against the scars of abuse, colonialism, slavery, poverty, and racism that has ravaged a country.  I don’t want to just be a poster board at a rally or remain a Facebook soapbox sermon with a viral following about injustice.  I want to get to the real work of putting my convictions into action and creating sustainable, permanent change in the world.

ARE YOU WITH ME?

We have artisans that need help.
And we need your help to help them.

Will you join us in being a part of our mission? 
Please check out papillonempowerment.org for more info on how you can join us to be a blessing in Haiti.
Will you donate, buy, sell, advocate, spread the word, host a fundraiser, send supplies, send encouragement, do a Tic-Tok dance in support? We covet your help during these precarious times. Black lives have faces and names that we know and believe in. They deserve the same hope and opportunity that we were privileged enough to be born into.