{"id":3029,"date":"2014-08-19T19:09:52","date_gmt":"2014-08-19T23:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2016\/02\/10\/making-an-impact-despite-the-odds\/"},"modified":"2022-11-07T17:55:20","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T22:55:20","slug":"making-an-impact-despite-the-odds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/making-an-impact-despite-the-odds\/","title":{"rendered":"Making an impact despite the odds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Summers1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

University chaplain Vaughn CroweTipton couldn\u2019t send just anybody to Haiti. In fact, he couldn\u2019t send anybody period, which presented a particularly vexing challenge in Furman\u2019s quest to fulfill former president Rod Smolla\u2019s pledge to help the impoverished Caribbean island nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried a number of avenues, all of which were blockaded for a number of reasons, the most significant of which was Haiti on the travel-watch list,\u201d CroweTipton said. \u201cSo we couldn\u2019t pack up students and do mission trips, and the truth is that really wouldn\u2019t have been the most feasible thing for us to do anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. government has long discouraged travel to Haiti, resulting in insurance regulations that prohibit Furman from paying for any active student or faculty member\u2019s travel there. That left only former students as an option, and even if some way could be found for Furman to provide financial assistance, who in the world would want to anyway?<\/p>\n

Well, Jenn Summers \u201913 for one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I really wanted to try and do something for a country I feel the U.S. has gravely mistreated in the past,\u201d she said during a choppy Skype interview from her temporary home in Cange, located in Haiti\u2019s mountainous Central Plateau.<\/p>\n

Summers sometimes shouted above the roar of a chainsaw and had to leave for a few minutes to avoid insecticide being sprayed from a truck. She was coming down the homestretch of a year spent as Furman\u2019s contracted \u201cproject manager\u201d teaching English and natural sciences to students at Centre de Formation Fritz LaFontaine (CFFL).<\/p>\n

A French and biology double major, Summers became fascinated with global health and sustainable agriculture and read \u201cextensive\u201d amounts of Haitian literature at Furman. She jumped at the chance to help a place she felt she knew but hadn\u2019t seen and doesn\u2019t mince words about America\u2019s culpability in creating one of the world\u2019s most impoverished countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. has been involved in Haiti\u2019s political situation since Haiti gained independence, and a lot of U.S. policies actually hurt the Haitian economy,\u201d she said. \u201cClinton approved a huge rice subsidy that allowed incredibly cheap rice to be dumped on Haiti and just destroy their rice market. That essentially crippled a lot of farmers in the country. In addition to that, U.S. marines have occupied Haiti throughout history, and we have been complicit in helping dictators . . . in the sense that we would use the dictators\u2019 complete control to enrich certain companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

An example is Cange<\/a> itself, which was created by a dam built in 1956-57 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The lake it created displaced the valley residents and destroyed their ability to feed themselves when it submerged the arable land.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who live here now have literally no means of surviving,\u201d Summers said. \u201cThey were farmers throughout their history, and there is not farmable land around Cange. We\u2019re on a mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furman\u2019s involvement began when Gillaine Warne<\/a> challenged the school to help during her convocation speech in 2011. For 15 years the Australian who now calls Upstate South Carolina home has worked to help Haiti through mission work with the Christ Church Episcopal<\/a> in Greenville and by founding Zamni Agrikol (Partners in Agriculture<\/a>) and CFFL.<\/p>\n

Malnutrition is one of Haiti\u2019s biggest problems, and CFFL\u2019s main purpose is to teach the people in and around Cagne how to again cultivate crops. Funded largely by the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina<\/a>, the vocational school strives to educate around 65 students between the ages of 18 and 42. Smolla was so moved by Warne\u2019s words he immediately charged CroweTipton with figuring out a way to help, and ultimately he concluded that grooming a student or students from Haiti to attend Furman would be the best way.<\/p>\n

That was the task Summers faced. Creating her own curriculum, she taught natural sciences and resources as well as English to a population not especially interested in learning English, and complicating an already complicated task was the discovery that being fluent in French was only somewhat helpful in communicating with a population that spoke Creole<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Haitian learning style is a lot like the French learning style with its memorization, and I asked them to do a lot more critical thinking and application of what they were learning,\u201d Summers said. \u201cThey\u2019re students who don\u2019t really have a lot of options in life. This represents for them one of the few opportunities they have really to start a career and continue advancing their family forward . . . A few of them are really, really engaged in all of the concepts, just very intellectually curious. And some of them are just there to try and find a fighting chance in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if she felt as if she was making a difference, Summers paused before answering.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a really hard question. I think a lot of what I\u2019ve learned here is aid efforts can provide a Band-Aid but not necessarily a cure for the inherent problems,\u201d she said. \u201cI can see the problems with the (non-government organizations) coming in and giving away free things, so many free things, and then expecting the economy grow. But how are you supposed to sell something when things are free? So am I helping? I think I\u2019m helping my students. I really do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Summers says she made \u201ca lot of great friends,\u201d and despite a painful case of chikungunya <\/a>the Simpsonville, S.C., resident will miss Haiti. But the lessons she learned will come with her as she begins pursuit of a doctorate in ecology.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited and motivated to try and apply what I\u2019ve learned and work in my own community where I think I can be really effective,\u201d she said. \u201cThe problems are bigger than us, but a lot of us makes a big thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

A decision hasn\u2019t been made as to whether or not someone will continue Summers\u2019s work, but CroweTipton says he couldn\u2019t have asked for anything more than he got.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew we tasked her with something that was pretty much gargantuan,\u201d he said. \u201cI think she did a smashing job with the whole thing. I think she got a student right at the edge of potentially being able to apply here, but ultimately I think the English language issues (were a problem). Nevertheless, this student is on fire for education at this point and looks like he will enroll at a Haitian university and continue his education there, which benefits Haiti immensely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furman awarded Warne with an honorary Doctorate of Humanities in 2012 for her work in Haiti. Learn more about her and Partners in Agriculture here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

University chaplain Vaughn CroweTipton couldn\u2019t send just anybody to Haiti. In fact, he couldn\u2019t send anybody period, which presented a particularly vexing challenge in Furman\u2019s quest to fulfill former president […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":13540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3,19,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-alumni","category-biology","category-modern-languages-and-literature"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}