HCDF Summer Institute

HCDF Summer Institute

The following is my brainstorming only; I have not spoken to any of the prospective teachers about this projected institute.

Motto:  Christ, kingdom, church, community, cooperative

1.  Jesus Christ:  personal salvation, discipleship, justification by faith

2.  Kingdom of God:  Jubilee justice for the oppressed poor.

3.  Church:  the body of Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit to incarnate the kingdom of God.

4.  Community:  teams of Christians rebuilding oppressed communities following CCD principles.

5.  Cooperatives:  best balance combining individual initiative and community interests.

The first week:

Topic:  Comparative examination of U.S.  systems of oppression and Haitian systems of oppression.

Teacher:  Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow.  I think she is the best analyst of U.S. systems of oppression, past and current---unjust mass incarceration of young black and Hispanic males.

Content:  A cross cultural comparison of U.S. and Haitian systems of oppression.  In the U.S. systems of oppression never end; they are only redesigned.  A Haitian should assist Alexander in teaching this course.

The second week:

Topic:  How generations of oppression cause individual, family, community and cultural PTSD.

Teacher:  Joy Leary, Afro American with a doctorate in social work; done research in Africa; wrote Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.

Content: Prolonged oppression creates deep and pervasive trauma with lasting consequences.

Weeks three and four:

Topic:  A comparison of Haiti and Rwanda, two devastated countries; the role of women leaders.

Teacher:  Didi Farmer, a Haitian with a doctorate in anthropology, who has lived in Rwanda.

Content:  How Rwanda women have provided leadership to begin a rather impressive change in Rwanda; how this model could be applied in Haiti.

Weeks five and six:

Topic:  Developing a biblical kingdom of God theology with a present and social emphasis.

Teacher:  Josiah Thomas who was born and raised in Haiti.

Content:  Understanding the kingdom as Jubilee justice for the oppressed poor.

Weeks seven and eight:

Topic:  The kingdom of God applied: the HCDF model.

Teacher:  Jean Thomas, a Haitian with 30 plus years doing Christian Community Development.

Content:  The principles and practice of CCD in Haiti.

Weeks nine and ten:

Topic:  Student internships in community; teams of two, three or four.

Teacher:  Jennifer Nelson, a white American with a doctorate in sociology.

Content: teaching and applying the kingdom of God in poor communities.

Week eleven:

Topic: Debriefing and writing a paper on the above.

Teacher:  Jennifer Nelson, an American with a doctorate in sociology.


Comment: This would be more training than the Nashville Eight had under Rev. James Lawson.  The Nashville Eight became the elite special forces unit of the civil rights movement.  Without parental or pastoral support, the Nashville Eight continued the Freedom Rides after the first group of Freedom Riders had been beaten into submission and stopped their freedom rides.

Jean, Is this summer institute feasible?  It could stand alone or become the foundation of a university education.

Perspective:  I would like to quote at length from a chapter by Didi Farmer, "Mothers and Daughters of Haiti," in Paul Farmer's book Haiti: After the Earthquake.

"In March 2011, just over a year after the quake, a Rwandan colleague of mine put it this way: 'Rwanda and Haiti, they are the same.  People lost family members.  They lost husbands.  They lost wives.  They lost children.  People's homes were destroyed and everything they owned was taken away from them.  And afterward, people had to keep on living.'  My colleague is a warm and generous woman with a ready smile and an indefatigable spirit.  Even after her husband, a Tutsi, was killed by a neighbor during the genocide, she took in six Hutu orphans to live alongside her own five children, and she has supported all of them ever since.  When I asked her how she kept on living in the wake of so much loss, she replied simply: "I worked."  And she smiled as she said it."

"As of 1994, 70 percent of Rwanda's population was female.  It was largely on the backs of these women---victims of rape and physical violence, wives abandoned by husbands imprisoned or fleeing imprisonment, women who had lost family members, friends, neighbors, lovers, children---that Ruanda was rebuilt.  As Paul often likes to say, it was built back better.  In Haiti, we often wax poetic about the role of women as the center post of the nation, but Rwanda has actually put this idea into practice, with an emphasis on female leadership, economic empowerment, and education."

"Women are organized into associations and cooperatives. . . .agricultural cooperatives. . . . solidarity and entrepreneurship of its working women."