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1. Must have read and discussed When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Ourselves or a similar book about humility and sensitivity in cross-cultural service and the issues surrounding relief and development. Alternative text must be approved by The Apparent Project staff. We may also choose to give your leader an informational booklet of our own design. If we do, you must read this also.
2. Must have read/viewed and discussed a basic introduction to Haitian history and culture. This could be a documentary, Encyclopedia reference, or a short travel book. Please know that Haiti's story is told in very different ways depending on political and religious affiliations! It may be most fruitful if team members read a variety of these materials and then discuss their findings together. Some such materials can be found below to the left.
3. ABSOLUTELY NO HANDOUTS brought to Haiti unless discussed and approved by Apparent Project staff. The reasons that free material gifts hurt Haiti ought to be clear after reading the required text. (No approval needed for bringing red vines, beef jerky, or m&m's to staff, however).
4. No division of focus.
This means don't do too much in too many locations. We do not want you to visit other missions or friends during your slotted service time at the Apparent Project. If you plan to visit other missions, do it before or after your Apparent Project visit. This is to protect local relationships, reduce the sense of competition for time & support between missions, and keep service teams from having a tourist or "mission shopping" mentality. It also greatly simplifies logistics and use of resources.
5(a). "No" to arrogance & judgments, "Yes" to questions & discovery.
Everything that Apparent does is done for a reason, and we'd be glad to share those reasons with you. The same is true of the Haitian people. They have reasons for the way they do things. This is truly cross-cultural service. Don't assume you know the answers to the problems you see, just ask questions and be open to honest responses.
5(b).Lose the God-complex.
Don't show up in Haiti wearing T-shirts suggesting that Haiti's long-awaited world-changing service team of heroes has arrived. In fact, when you are helping around at home, do you get a special T-shirt made that says "I did the dishes for my mom for free"? Well, if that would look ridiculous to you, imagine how self-congratulatory it looks to Haitians to see people with these kinds of shirts pouring off of airplanes each day!
God himself showed up on earth looking like a helpless baby, only announced his arrival to a handful of farmers & gentiles, and left more work for others to do than he did Himself. You may very well be a huge help to us and Haiti, but maybe not. Just do what you feel called to do with love and respect for the people around you and let your work speak for itself.
6. No facilitating relationships of dependency.
This includes promises or commitments to Haitian people of sponsorships, aid, Facebook friend status, patronage, undying love, or scholarships. We hope that you will make commitments of support to Haiti, but please DO NOT communicate those to individual Haitians, and make sure to process your ideas for continued support with local staff. Also, consider that any skills training you do must also educate the Haitian trainee to attain materials and tools on their own in your absence.
7. Focus on Assets, not on Needs.
We believe that Haiti has what it takes to fix Haiti's problems. Think about it: If every outsider that visited your community told you how messed up your environment and culture was and offered to fix it, how would that impact your belief in your own abilities and responsibility to be an agent of change? For this reason we encourage visitors to affirm the skills and opportunities of Haitians they meet rather than point out what they don't have, while offering aid.
8. Have a purpose rooted firmly in the local needs of Haitians and the Apparent Project.
Teams that cause us the most stress are those that just "come to help" without a specific, agreed upon purpose before they come. Know why, who, when, what, and how you are going to serve before you come. This will keep us from having to drop what we are doing and invent stuff for you to do while you are here. We are already quite busy serving 100s of Haitians with limited resources. If you draw our attention away from them because you don't know what you are doing, you are not serving Haiti's poor, but your own conscience. Your leader will guide you, not the Apparent Project staff (we will guide your leader).
9. Take care of your own needs.
Apparent Staff will be excited to talk to you and share our lives in Haiti with you, but we can't take care of all of your needs. The best team members always think ahead about how they can serve each other so as not to be a burden on Apparent staff and artisans. This also means quickly resolving internal conflicts, hiring translators, cooking and cleaning for each other, and putting stuff back where you found it.
10. Don't do blatantly stupid crap.
If you wouldn't want it to be on the headlines of your hometown newspaper, don't do it here. To be clear:No consumption of alcohol by, or with, or in the presence of minors. No drugs. No weapons. No Violence. No Theft. No death-defying stunts. Feel free to consult the more widely distributed and popularly recognized 10 commandments. You get the picture.
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