Kledèv

I just hastily posted an old link to an old blog entry about the amazing Chedeve Soccer/Leadership program and realized it is not current and not nearly as inspiring as it could be, so I'm dropping everything and writing this update!

     

Click here to download:

Inspiring_Update_on_The_CHEDEV.zip (202 KB)

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Article doesn't say this, but begins to point to it... How the world talks about Haiti is how Haiti is. We can start saying something new and guess what - Haiti has a chance of being that instead... Article starts a conversation to stop stigmatizing Haiti - conversation is continued in the comments...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-antebi/why-we-shouldnt-stigmatiz_b_266529.html

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Emergent Creole classes every weekend in a row, starting this fall 09         

We offer you in a short time the very basics of that beautiful language spoken by the Haitians...We cut off your fustration by arming you with the basic words and phrases...

Many groups of missionaries from different churches in the US make multiple trips to Haiti, more specificly to a sister parish in the countryside every year. Most of the times, they are inolved in various projects with the church and spend days or weeks at the parish.

We know some visitors are eager to be able to communicate even briefly with a local  directly. Even with an interpreter, the satisfaction is not complete for the interaction is not direct. We are located 10 mns northeast of the airport and we can arrange to pick you up at no extra cost

Stop here before you continue on the road...

We have a program very practical and intense that teaches you more than just the language in just a weekend. You will be amazed and proud of yourself before you take the road to the sister parish in the country with a better sense of the language and the people and a neat understanding of the basic words. You will be able to say them and understand them! We recommend that you stay at our center in our lovely shade and natural  breeze from the mango trees and almonds and experience the language right there in your rooms, the kitchen, the showers, the beautiful outside gazebos for everything will be labeled for you in Creole and you will hear what you learn and YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SAY IT! 

We offer you a simple and affordable package

For a full weekend starting Friday until Sunday, we charge US $ 150 /person and it includes lodging, meals, class fees, handouts, books and cassettes and all the labels you will find in your way

We are able to host 8 people at a time, which means we can have a class of of eight  and we offer a special price for a group coming together. We charge US $ 1100 for a whole group of 8 coming together and US $ 560 for a group of 4.

We ask that you make your reservations for the creole classes at least one month in advance. Please look for our updates on the schedulles we have for the fall 2009 and the spring.

We have drivers available if you want to go out for some socials at your own costs, but we will have socials over the house for you every night also a way for you to practice your creole and understand the haitian life...

Please notice alcohol bervrages are not included in the cost and anything purchased at the bars in the yard will be paid directly

Register now: send emails to :  juniorkledev@gmail.com with the subject : Creole classes.  Also choose your week end.

  First week end starts September 25-27, 2009

Register now and get a 10% discount

SCHEDULE

Friday Night.....................Creole dinners, socials, introduction

Saturday Morning.........Creole breakfast, class, practice

Saturday Afternoon..........Visit tours, Creole dinner, socials and creole practice

Sunday Morning ....mass ( optional), creole breakfast,  class and practice

Sunday afternoon.............closure, certificate

You are of course welcome to stay for  as long as you want and we can arrange for tours and visits of historical sites in Port au-Prince and in the country.

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The Split Stick is a double-sided USB drive. That’s right. Everyone always tells you to keep your work and your personal life separate? Well, now you can maintain that divide with your files too. With the Split Stick, you can enforce the digital divide between office and personal, home and away, yours and hers (or his), G rated and X rated, or whatever else you choose to separate.

The quirky Split Stick is two, two-gigabyte retractable USB drives that are built into one slim (four gigabyte) stick. It's chasis is formed of an anodized aluminum body and encased in a protective rubber membrane. We’re releasing the device in a range of colors: orange, blue, pink, red, black, violet, grey and green. A slider button allows you to easily access access the two different sides of the drive.

What makes this device totally cool and quirky is more than just the color choice. Once we hit threshold, and begin shipping units, we will allow customers to have each side of their split stick custom laser etched during the ordering process. With laser etching, you can personalize your digital divide. Choose how you want to separate your stick and we’ll etch the appropriate text, or choose from one from our icon gallery. We'll etch for a limited time at no additional charge.

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Can't wait to get mine!

Heart, Clay

       

Click here to download:

Elegant_new_Split_Stick_USB_4G.zip (990 KB)

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Click here to download:

House Pix 5-6-2009.pdf (169 KB)

Dear Friends of Haiti,
             
Something great is happening with Kledèv in Haiti that is going to transform countless lives! We’ve "partially secured" the perfect building in Port au Prince (with a beautiful garden with many mango trees!) to call the home of our organization and a place where educational and community service programs can take place.

The building is a large and secure residence located in Tabarre, in a quiet neighborhood not far from the airport. Some of the services we will offer are free language classes and literacy training for area residents – especially kids, computer and Internet classes and services, and clean water distribution, to name a few.

This building can also serve as a full-service “guest house” for visitors who come to Haiti to work with different communities, including medical missions and groups from other charitable organizations. We already have groups interested in coming to stay, and the house can sleep ten to twelve people. So, with a full house, we’d be taking in an estimated $250 – $350 a night!

Maybe YOU will come someday to stay with us!

Being able to collect a reasonable fee from our guests in Haiti will move our organization from 100% supported by donations to partially self-sustaining! Plus, we’ll be meeting great people from other organizations working on countless projects and getting to know them well because they’ll be staying with us! This supports the expansion of our network, and that’s important to fulfill on all of our objectives.

Last year, we received many generous donations of items originally intended to be used in the house. These items, with the exception of the few that have already been shipped, are still being held in a shipping container in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Shipping costs are incredibly high and raising the money (over $10,000) to ship the items has stood in the way of the project moving forward.

We’ve recently determined that a better way to accelerate the opening of the Guest House is to sell as many of the donated items as we can and use the proceeds to support the purchase of, where possible, Haitian-made items in Haiti. This converts no movement and a liability (warehousing fees) into ACTION that actually fulfills on our mission to support economic development in Haiti!

We have the rent paid for the first year, but to really secure the building as our center of operation, we need to come up with $6000 by the beginning of July. Together, we can do this! After that, the next step will be to attract major funding for the actual purchase of the building, sometime in the next 12-18 months! What’s really needed now to fully secure the building are small cash donations from many individuals, and capital investments from foundation partnerships yet to be created.

Junior St-Vil, one of our leaders in Haiti who you may already know, is currently here in the U.S. on a month-long fund raising tour. He’d be thrilled to learn that you’re working with us!

If you are inspired to invest in this future for people in Haiti, please make out a check for any amount today to Kledev and send it to the address below. If now doesn’t work for you, would you be willing to share this posting with people in your circle (and pass around that hat!)?

If you use Paypal, posting a donation to donations@kledev.org is the fastest way to donate, but if you would prefer to send a check, our mailing address is:
Kledev, PO BOX 40567, San Francisco, CA 94140

Thank you for your generosity in reading this and for supporting empowering people in Haiti!

Clay Kilgore, Kledèv

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I hardly ever write and FINISH a note about what's happening with Kledèv, especially if it is also a fund raising letter, which I completely avoid, but tonight was hot in San Francisco and I couldn't sleep anyway, so here are just a few words about where we are with empowering programs happening in Haiti...

The CHEDEVE Soccer/Leadership Program is still training 70 young men and boys in Port au Prince to build the future together as leaders, but is not going strong as we'd like and is falling short in the all-important LUNCH part of the program. Thanks to generous gifts in the past, this important aspect of the program was added in and successful for most of 2008, but it seems the global economic conversation is affecting the boys just like it is everyone else. They're being tough, but they can’t help being disappointed. I don't like giving this kind of a report, but this is what's happening. So, if you still have pockets (!) dig a little deeper so we can keep our future leaders strong! Special thanks to Roosevelt Hyppolite for keeping the magic alive...

In case you didn't know, we also have in the making a full service Community Center and Guest House in Tabarre, in a quiet area close by the airport in Port au Prince. There are many details to sort on this, and much of the donated furnishings and computer equipment are still being held in a shipping container in Michigan, awaiting the bucket of funding that will put it on the boat! But we have taken possession of the perfect building and have big things in store that will empower our mission and impact the entire community, just like the soccer program has. Special thank you to Junior St-Vil and his family for getting creative and causing all the contributions in the US of furniture and computers!

Some of the services the Center/Guest house will provide are: Language classes for area residents and travelers; computer and internet classes and services; clean water distribution; and a comfortable safe and affordable home for foreign guests who come to Haiti to contribute to making things work for people (let's plan a trip!).

There are plenty of other big dreams and they’re ALL possible, but this is where we’re at with our tapped-out, shoestring budget! So, if you still have a hat (!) and are in a position to drop something in it, now would be a good time to do that! If you just did, Thank you! If now doesn’t work to do that, thank you for caring! How about inviting some of your amazing, caring friends to join this cause to find out about what we’re creating in Haiti?

Join cause on Facebook

Big thanks to: Michael Bois, Junior St Vil, Liehventz Jean-Gilles, Henry Rock, Sandy Sampson, Hugo DuCharme,  Evelyne Ramasami, Jim Macahilas and Al Jourdain Sauray for bringing many of their friends to join us!

And thanks to recent contributors Barrie Bamburg, Jim Macahilas and Paula Lamkins for their generosity!

Posting a donation to donations@kledev.org is the fastest way to donate, but if you would prefer to send a check, our mailing address is:

Kledev
PO BOX 40567
San Francisco, CA 94140

Heart, Clay Kilgore - Kledèv

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Doesn't get much more real than this... Be sure and look at the color photos large screen. You'll get in touch with our humanity.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/after-the-storms/story/1008735.html

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I was reminded about this film today when I started following one of its contributors on Twitter, Mr. Brian McElroy. This is a film that tells a story about Haiti that I can easily promote without seeing the whole thing, just from reading the reviews on amazon and at http://fondwa.org/rtf/ and from getting the commitment of the filmmakers... I'm embarrassed to say I knew about it, but missed the opportunity to be at San Francisco screening of this film Sept 2008 and haven't seen the DVD yet myself, but that won't stop me from posting words about it here!

Long Synopsis: (from the filmmakers' site)

The Road to Fondwa tells the powerful story of a rural Haitian community poised to change the future of Haiti one University student at a time.

When Haiti is not forgotten or ignored, it is seen through a tinted lens. The small, impoverished nation shares an island with the Dominican Republic just 500 miles from the shores of Miami. It is Haiti’s proximity that brings it into our national conscience in short, periodic bursts. When a dictator is overthrown, a group of ‘boat people’ is lost at sea, or a coup is staged, it gets our attention. Reporters rush to the scene, horrific tales are told, and we feel sympathy… or is it pity? And then, as quickly as the news cycle churns, the moment disappears.

From the very beginning of the film, it is clear that The Road to Fondwa does not follow this pattern. The first interview introduces Sandelwi, a farmer and a mystic, who is riding on top of a bus that is speeding around the treacherous curves of the mountainous road to Port-au-Prince, mindless of the precipitous drop to the valley below. ‘When you’re in Haiti, I consider you Haitian,’ he says. ‘It’s up to us, we have to put our heads together to do development.’

From that point on, there is no turning back. It becomes evident that The Road to Fondwa is not a one-way street, but rather a conduit between two very different, yet intricately connected nations.

Watch the trailer, check out the site and purchase the movie HERE (not on amazon!) which contributes to project in the movie! If you're local to San Francisco, I'd love to watch it with you!



http://fondwa.org/rtf/
The blog is a good read, too.

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Here's a video of two guys who were on the panel at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco April 8th. It was completely inspiring. Not featured in this video, but also very inspiring indeed, was the co-founder of The Patchamama Alliance, Lynne Twist (see second video on the opportunity of the economic crisis).

If any of you have a venture that requires a brilliant young leader, entrepreneur, natural public speaker, writer and editor in the SF Bay Area, David Hopkins (featured in the first video), is currently available... you couldn't want for a more energetic, capable or socially conscious partner no matter what your project is... if I had a budget for him, I'd scoop him up! Get him now before someone else does!  Check him out at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/10/64/1ab

The Tactics of Hope:

http://www.tacticsofhope.org/

Lynne Twist:

http://www.soulofmoney.org/

http://www.pachamama.org/

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