Humanist Relief Work: Children of the Border
We have a great opportunity for service by collaborating with Children of the Border, an international NGO led by Sebastian Velez, a graduate student and Evolutionary Biologist at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, and member of the Harvard Humanist community. Sebastian researches evolution by studying rare Beetles found on the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which he quickly saw firsthand is home to the poorest people in the Western Hemisphere. When Sebastian realized young children not far from his research site were in desperate need of medical attention, often sold because of their families’ abject poverty, he felt he could not stand idly by. So Sebastian created Children of the Border, a project run by volunteers and staff in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and the United States. CotB’s staff and volunteers repair schools, secure donated educational materials, and give support to teachers and students in communities serving Dominican children of Haitian descent. CotB also pays the salaries of two local women, one Haitian and one Dominican, who work full-time to constantly monitor and document Human Rights violations in nearby farms and forests where people work as virtual slaves.
Children of the Border is now in desperate need of a house to host pregnant women from the forest before their situation becomes critical. Just last month CotB came to the aid of several emergencies involving women giving birth while being transported to a hospital, often from up to 125km away. Some of these children are born life-threateningly premature. Others die, including one whose mother is currently still hospitalized while recuperating from the blood loss. All these crises could have been avoided if the women were staying at a location near the hospital as their due date was approaching, with access to $13 ultrasounds. See pictures and more information about this at CotB’s website.
We could stop these and many other deaths every year by having a house near the hospital. For now, we need $10,000 to rent a house, set it up, staff it and run it for a year, and from then on just $3,000/yr to maintain and staff it. Religious folk really have a leg up on Humanists when it comes to fundraising for their projects. In the community where CotB works, the Catholic church has two huge church buildings, always closed except to give mass (and they pass a collections basket, of course), while children and women die every month just a few meters away. And of course the church is against birth control but does little to stop the suffering of living women and children around them. The community is well aware of this, and we are very well received as Humanists. “Every single day that I’m there, people are more and more receptive to the idea that atheists can do things a lot better than religionists,” Velez explains. “They’re learning that for us, the bottom line is meeting human needs, not obeying sacred texts.” CotB even has the local Haitian protestant pastor on its side; he is not only helping spread the word about the need for contraception, but he and his wife want to get more involved!
We are making serious inroads in these vulnerable communities that proselytizers so easily prey upon. CotB receives support from the American Humanist Association, and The Norwegian Humanist Association also completely supports all the costs of the Human Rights monitors, as well as all the medical costs we’ve incurred since June. At least a dozen people owe their lives to the Norwegian Humanists.
But this year, recognizing the extraordinary circumstance of a current Harvard Humanist student starting a Humanist NGO, literally saving lives right in our nation’s backyard, the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard and its students and alumni are getting involved. Check back soon for more information about how you can help raise funds for and otherwise support Children of the Border.
