like to talk about you and for well well i be happy to talk about conduct a and also and i were teaching together for many many years at stuart country day and it was there that we got together went to a conference that paul farmer was the keynote speaker and we were inspired to start some partnership between princeton teens and adults and people in haiti and we didn't quite know what to do until we went down to haiti right after the earthquake in two thousand and ten and found a school that was being run in the camps in the tent camps it was amazing this man had had a saw small school in a wooden shack and he was taking all the students who wanted to learn  and we went down under the auspices of foundations for peace we needed the logistic support the introduction that they could offer f p built them a school house and since then we've been going down and working with the teachers in the students and the director there at that school mario's carno and since then we've we've grown we've got two other schools that we have been working with through time and i as an art teacher was particularly interested in the fact that art was not in the curriculum so we've introduced that as one innovation but there are many other innovations that we've offered yeah and now i can say that our mission of connecting mission is really to i th working with schools over there and communities and giving hope to those communities and allowing allowing children to go to school many of them cannot afford the few dollars for the tradition and this so they don't go to  school and it's really as educators say ok there is no way those kids cannot go to learn and they're so eager to learn when you go there you realize how many how excited they are they can work an hour to go to school so that's where we decided to work to citizens of their can tree and citizen that really can bring different things to the country and their their idea of education is beautiful so we decided connected decided to  sponsor teacher teachers salaries we were thinking that if there is a teacher in his classroom then students can come for free and that's what we do with them so we know the teachers very well we bring them  succeeded have a well drilled so it's really we try to bring what they what they asked us they really first we ask them what do you need what do you want and they're trying to bring that we have a lot of future a project know the best the next one this summer we're hoping to start a garden we're partnering with a local organization that is helping students and teachers to start sustainable gardens they have to learn and we hoping to bring them that and many of them find that have tomatoes i don't know whatever things that they could eat and they could sell for for their school also library maybe one day in the kitchen maybe one day a computer lab this is twenty two and twenty eight year olds and they're the same way they were thinking we need to help students where the education to bring to before they become really good citizen that could make an impact and power them to make an impact in their country so we started with that with we worked with them we had them relocate to a new location we helped them lately by a new land where we are now helping them  to design and new school and we also sponsor teacher teacher and maybe madeline can talk about that or we had an idea that we could really form a partnership between the french students at stewart that ann was teaching and the creole speaking students in the schools were learning french so we haven't translate the folk tales that we came up with into creole french and english but we needed illustrations and it was a wonderful way to bring an art teacher into the schools and have them start illustrating the stories that we're excited about this book that we're producing and another wonderful way of bringing the community together and bringing art to them was painting a mural on their wall they have a large wall in front of the school which we helped build it's necessary for writing reasons but we decorated it with a mural the first we met with the the teachers and the students to find out what they were interested in what would represent them well in the front of their school and then we started drawing various i started drawing various figures and landscapes and symbols that would represent what they were talking about then we grew to be made large on the wall and different schools we go there and we couldn't go there without the help of foundation for peace which madeleine should be talked about they're helping us set our work trip over there and they construction you cannot believe that you know transporting and giving some buckets of cement or big building blocks can really build a very very strong ties between communities is very hard on in  a very hard very tiring but oh my god it's really beautiful to be able to work together like that and and one of the best things that we've brought is the soccer tournament there and employs soccer and she started right off playing with they have soccer balls that are made out of rags and that she started with them and now the tournament is something they all move forward to at the end of our summer summer stay one motivating you guys to do this there as i said paul farmer is a wonderful inspiration he is a doctor he's an amazing man and he he has built an incredible community within haiti but when he talks about human rights and when he talks with the love that he has for the haitians you're just inspired to do something but and i had had reason to wanted to bring it to stuart and and of the larger community of the princeton made a lot of sense and when you get down there and you feel connected clicked it does mean connected and in crail when you feel connected to these people it's inspiring where their friends their their people that we live with and work with and and enjoy being with so so it's it's an inspiration that keeps keeps on inspiring and you'll see the  also a troop leader and we have two students with us we have declan rourke and harley guzman who are both going to a participated in their summer program so to give you guys some background why don't you tell us all about the program that they can get involved and some potential viewers out there you know so well thank you michel and thank you very much for inviting us all here today was so excited to talk about the connector trip i actually went on the first connected trip in two thousand and eleven  and i had come back very excited from her trip to haiti and was organizing a group trip so i decided to go it was my first experience of doing something like that of a community service trip and it was it just changed my life i've never done anything like that before and it was the the thing that really struck me was the the apparent obvious need in haiti but the passion and commitment that the haitians ha rebuilding their community both physically but also just their spirit that they will just overcome you know that devastating earthquake that they had and also their real fundamental belief that education is the future of the country and we worked hand in hand side by side for almost ten days building a school and i remember one night we we literally had to work almost all dark to get the ceiling finished on this classrooms and that's when you really see the fruits of your work and really feel like you're doing something worthwhile and i think that is one of the wonderful things about the trip is that you really get to see firsthand what you're doing and the effect it's having  so that was that was amazing and i came back from that trip and i just somebody asked me said well when you go back and i said well once you've done that once you've worked side by side hand in hand with somebody you know that they're part of your world that part of your family so you can't turn your back on them so that's what it's kind of become we're one big family so i've been involved ever since working with then year round and madeleine and helping organize this summer trip and the trip has evolved we do still do construction depending on the needs of the community as and was talking about before we work with two schools primarily one of which has had to rebuild a lot of classroom  so we've been doing that and we painted the mural but we also get invited to we get invited into the villages where we either talk to them about hygiene or we take them things that we've been donated here  or we distribute fresh water which is hard for them to get or we do crafts with the children we also get invited to church always and we do a wonderful we have a wonderful experience there so everybody is so warm and welcoming we get invited to graduations and parties so every year the trip is slightly different depending on the needs of the community but also it depends on the makeup of our group so if we have people with particular skills or talent or passions that they want to bring to haiti and share with the haitian people then that's that's great that's what we love we've had a lot of parent child combinations too which is  really you know need to experience to see i don't know if all the kids who had their parents along would say the same thing basically it's it's always look like it's been a positive experience let's let these guys talk a little bit more about the specific experiences and memories but one thing i want to say is just how cool it is to take young people they are so enthusiastic and so open that we see them bond with their haitian children just so easily there's just no it's just natural and i think every year you know i i almost experience haiti over and over again every time through that through their eyes and it's it's really awesome to see but also with very we're very committed to education and it's the education in haiti but it's also the education of of our young people you know we really believe strongly that students today have  responsibility beyond their immediate sphere you know we're all members of the same world and these are the future leaders whether it's business or politics or whatever they choose to go into but they need to go through their life with an understanding of the challenges that people are facing worldwide so i think that's a very important educational aspect of the triple threat so i will in fact a lot of our students are being more than one which is great and usually about fifty percent of our students come back ali has been now three times three times yeah so why don't you speak a little bit about about that well to go off of what you were saying about like working hand in hand especially with construction was i went the last time was two years ago so i'm up a lot of my experiences in construction and working at the school and met a man with foundation for peace and what really like i've taken from the experience and still think about today when i need to put my life into perspective is working with students who are going to this school i met a man and actually building their own school and that to me was just eyeopening of like education i'm privileged by education whereas some people have to walk like three hours to go to school so it's kind of just ridiculous for me to think waking up in the morning like i don't want to go to school when it's like a privilege for me to go to school and that definitely put that into perspective for me i don't know who in shock that that is or yeah you just like going there an environment that we're trying to facilitate and for them they just can't wait and they love to be there and there's nothing that would stop them from going to their school so i was helping out with that and i'm creating this new generation a new society there is a big thing for us to be doing well so to be you being a foundational member of this project when you first heard this idea what was your initial reaction and what was your first perception of it before you went and after you went and how it compares and contrasts of my actual trip to haiti i self yeah it's so hard to know what i can't remember what what i thought i was what i thought it would be like before i went because it's it's such a rich visual kind of place that once you've been to haiti you can't remember what it was like to not have beem you know what i mean it's it's very very vibrant there's lots of color and noise and music and there's just so much going on all the time it just fills your senses and it's it's hard for me to sort of one do that but and i was the first time i was really actually pretty struck by the level of of of poverty of need and of the destruction from the earthquake and that has changed a lot go in every year now it's been six years it has improved i mean it's nowhere near where we would like it to be but it's it is improving which is which is also you know it's a positive thing so that's one thing i think that i i've noticed and you guys a student with different things that you noticed about the world and things that you did for me i remember before my first son going in their freshman year high school i remember just reading a lot about haiti i just wanted to be as informed as possible for going and when i got there i this thing that really struck me was just how much i don't know and i definitely took that with me to college that you can like study and say but you just you don't know everything you don't  like there's no way to know everything and going there i realize that like you can read about some place but it's nowhere as near as educational as actually going there and trying to understand the place  for me when i went there i i what i expected was to be working working and helping an impoverished country but when i got there what really changed what changed my perspective was how they grew out of the gratification from it and how the the haitians and anyone who are working with they showed so much gratitude for everything  that we're doing and everything like all of our work there and even though they they they have little to nothing they have they have a great mindset and they're all positives and it made me think that i need to like to be here in this country i need to understand that that you know you need to be positive and positive about everything because once going once you haiti you understand their mindset and they're all positive people and there is just a great great culture and great society to the end and one of my favorite experiences from there was i was talking with two boys who were around my age and they said to me there they said you're forever haitian and we're forever american and they're just happy for us to be there  anything that we do because it really does make an impact and it's very true that they're very that they're so curious about everything intellectually curious so they love having young people come from america to talk about you know where they talk about sport or their hobby is or anything or learning english we actually once had a woman a local one up in this area who was from china and she brought her twelve year old niece who actually lived in china  visiting her on for the summer and she came with us and just i remember seeing april sitting with you know some haitians like reading teaching them english and teaching and some mandarin words and it's just it's a constant of ideas and it's it's wonderful to see and so if there are any viewers out there who you know are interested in an experience like this and visiting haiti and coming with us we would we would love to talk to them you know whatever skills they can bring whether it's whether you like to seeing a like to dance or like to make bracelets or like to paint i mean we we we just it's great we like to have a real mix of people a real mix of activities and you know it just makes makes the whole trip richer for everybody so yeah well it sounds like it was a real enriching experience and i hope that some viewers out there will actually perhaps join you or join in trying to make awareness in our country that would be we would we would love that to though for our viewers that who are interested in finding out what they can do to help you guys out what are some things in terms of awareness and donations that they can do to help you guys out ok well that's great donations monetary donations are obviously always extremely important every every dollar counts and we would really like to stress that every dollar that was donated to us gets to haiti we are an entirely volunteer organization we give the money directly to the people who benefit from it so that's one thing that i think is very important and we we try to make a point also of if we  need items down there and when we're in haiti is we buy them there because it's obviously much better for the haitian economy like for example of t shirts the first year we we made them here and took them with us and now we have that there's a  wonderful organization in haiti that employs local people and we buy our t shirts from them if we are distributing water in the villages obviously we buy that there we're not picking water but one thing that actually is another thing that could be donated right now are some small musical instruments one of our schools is putting together a an orchestra and that is actually then going to bring money into the school because they've be upcoming projects what we also need is you know skills talents from people teachers we do lots of teacher training our lots of also business training we started that a few years ago so that's really those engineers here but they're working with haitian community over there to make sure that what they're thinking will be able to be built over there so it's really then don't go over there all the time but they are what's happening now fundraiser or you know do run and run a marathon or do a five k or whatever and donate money to connect to they can set up a fundraiser on directly on crowd rise to benefit connected so that's another way people can help and our students who come on the trip they do a lot of their own fundraising before they come whether it's a bake sale or you know selling somebody was selling i c s i think or something and things like that or approaching their family and saying ok you know it's my birthday but instead of gifts i'd like to take you know raise some money to go to haiti so there's all kinds of things and if anybody wants to get in touch with us we have photographs we have materials that we can lend so that they can  going to come back we're going to send an email to this is what we did so it's a really nice connection with people who may not be able to go but not interested in knowing understand what's going on anything else you want to say no i mean we are so passionate about it that we spend hours and on top of our job we spend hours because we really profoundly believe in in asia cation haiti and this is such a such a treat such a wonderful thing to be able to work with young and young adults in in haiti and thanks to that those others can fulfill their dream you know they have a big dream in educating kids and different way and  anybody who may be watching and to us and thank you for giving us the experience to learn about this