After passing by a hazy eastern tip of Cuba, our American Airlines flight banked steeply to the right and within minutes we were passing over the northern peninsula of Haiti, so recognizable due to the heavily rutted landscape.

The French had not been kind when they ravaged the once-lush western half of Hispaniola of all the mahogany trees and shipped the lumber back to Paris to make fine furniture.

More than 200 years later, the nation is still 90 percent barren, and what little good topsoil remains is eroding into the Caribbean.

We circled over the Canal du Sud strait approaching Port-au-Prince, a teeming city I had not been to in 19 years. As we touched down on the single runway “international” airport, memories began to take focus.

Child Survival – What Does Ti Chape Means?

I’ll never forget that trip. A wiry American with a unique accent was my guide. He had been living in Haiti for six years, assisting with various ministries, and eventually signing on full time with Compassion. His name was Wess Stafford.

It was on that trip that I snapped one of my all-time favorite photos: a little child of about 3 with a distended belly, wearing a ragged striped T-shirt and nothing else, proudly hoisting his torn little handmade kite on a 10-foot string made of scraps of twine and wire he had found.

The breeze was only keeping the kite about 5 feet aloft, but the boy was as gleeful as any child I had ever seen.

Wess was seated next to me in our van, and noticed my fascination with the tiny urchin.

“Ah, yes … another little Ti Chape.”

“What is a Ti Chape?”

“It’s a Creole phrase that many parents in these poorest areas of Haiti use with their youngest kids. I’m sure you’ll hear it often over the next several days as we visit homes. It’s a term of endearment … but also a harsh reality that reminds everyone of how devastating each day can be for people living on the brink. Ti Chape means little survivor or one who has escaped death.”

As a very tenderhearted man, Wess could not conceal his passion, and tears began to well in his eyes. With a catch in his throat he continued:

“Sadly, for the majority of the poor here in Haiti, the infant mortality rate is as high as 50 percent for children under the age of 5.

“Often parents won’t refer to their littlest ones by their birth name until they celebrate their fifth birthday because they know all too well that many of them won’t make it that far.

“While they are still in this most vulnerable toddler stage, the children are affectionately called Ti Chape.

“I guess it is often too painful to consistently call them by their real names for fear of assigning too much hope to their prospects.

“This same phenomena happens, by different names of course, in other desperately poor cultures around the globe.”

I watched intently for a few more minutes as that toddler joyfully tried to keep his tattered toy buoyant on the air. Then we lurched forward in the traffic flow.

For the rest of our stay I pondered what that child’s chances of survival really were.

Even now, whenever I look at that tyke’s photo in my collection, it gives me great pause, and those feelings all came back to me as we drove through the packed streets of Port-au-Prince again.

On the trip’s final day, we drove out the N2 highway along the southern Massif de la Hotte peninsula, weaving past colorfully painted tap-taps (old pickups converted into buses often over-loaded down with upward of 20 people), soot-spewing diesel trucks, and U.N. troop patrol vehicles that help keep the peace in the politically unstable environment.

We were headed out to see one of our child development centers — one that had been in existence for 23 years, but had added a new program just a few years before, a program that is helping revolutionize our work: our Child Survival Program.

Child Survival – Rescuing, Nurturing and Discipling Little Ones

When we arrived in the rural town of Papette where our local church partner had become a real community center over the past two decades, it was obvious that the 1,000 residents had a deep respect for all that the church had helped them with.

My group and I were ushered into the sanctuary where 93 mothers and their infants had been patiently waiting. It was amazing how quiet and disciplined the 120 or so little ones were — we commented amongst ourselves that the same scene in America would’ve been utter pandemonium.

There was a look of gentle appreciation on the face of each young woman when we made eye contact.

A handful of the moms came forward to give testimony to what had revolutionized their lives.

Over Compassion’s 57 years of existence, we’ve always been laser-beam focused on child development for kindergarten-age kids through high school. But in the past five years we launched our Child Survival Program, which supports mothers and children all the way from their pregnancy on into infancy and through the toddler years.

One of the young mothers, Irmice, had her little 18-month-old boy draped on her shoulder, fast asleep, as she shared with the crowd.

“I serve a living, loving God. If not for Him or Compassion, I, and certainly not my baby, wouldn’t be alive today.”

She went on to explain the loving care and instruction she had received from the Child Survival Program staff, nurses and social workers who showed her how to improve prenatal health via exercise, nutrition and supplements. Then after her son was born, the encouraging practical lessons like proper breast-feeding, preventive vaccines, immunizations and other medicines continued.

On a subsequent tour through the child survival wing of the church we saw cribs, tiny chairs, baby swings, scooters, tricycles, a huge supply of learning toys and instruments, exercise mats, building blocks, and everything else you would see in a well-run education-based nursery. They even had weekly classes for social interaction/training and early literacy.

For these moms, who come from households where the average monthly income is perhaps $40 at best, this is a sanctuary for their babies in the truest sense of the word.

The Child Survival Program center Director, Rose, explained how the tots are regularly weighed, measured and examined to make sure they are within healthy parameters. There was a full pharmaceutical closet with everything a young mother could need for her child. Extensive files are kept on each mom and baby, and they’re regularly updated with information gathered from the weekly visits to the homes and the families visits to the center.

I was thoroughly impressed. And the results were obvious in the shiny eyes, gleeful giggles, and yes, even the healthy full-throat wails of some little nippers.

I saw the wall charts that are proudly displayed showing the progress of each and every infant that had come through the program … and not a single one had died.

In fact, once the 3-year-olds “graduate” from the Child Survival Program, they then become eligible for our Child Sponsorship Program, and all of them from four to five years ago were enrolled there!

Outside the center, I saw some healthy-looking kindergartners sailing their tattered kites. They were in their school uniforms, with good shoes on their feet.

I always like asking these little Haitian dynamos their names. It swells my heart every time to hear them proudly blurt out their moniker: Pierre! Camille! Sebastien! Monique! Alain! Simone! Yves!

And when I asked these mothers on to introduce their littlest ones, there wasn’t a single Ti Chape in the bunch.

Support a Child Survival Program

Editor’s note: Mark wrote this post about a trip he took to Haiti in March 2008. He originally published it on his MySpace page and allowed us to share it with you here, in its entirety. The photos are not from his trip, although they are from child survival programs in Haiti.

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The Maasai community has been rearing cattle for years, all their known lifetime and history.

In fact, there is a joke that goes around Tanzania about how the Maasai people claim that all the cows in the world belong to them, and the Maasai have the duty to return the cows to their natural home, in the Maasai community, which is why in the past there has been cattle rustling in the community.

To Maasai, cattle rearing is an adventure and keeping cattle is more than just an economic activity. Rearing cattle is part of the culture.

To have cattle is a symbol of prosperity and respect among the community members. Maasai are famous for their cows and goats that keep moving from one place to another in search of a greener pastures and water. Because of soil erosion and an effort to protect the environment, there has been a great and forceful campaign from the government to encourage soil conservation and land management.

The Maasai are being encouraged to keep few animals and sell the rest to improve their lives and escape the risk of losing them in times of droughts and famine. And as part of this, a new thing has been born in Likamba.

A sponsor of several children at the TAG Likamba Student Center visited them, and she was moved to do something to bless the children and support the families in their struggle against poverty.

But she actually decided to do more than just touch the lives of the children she is sponsoring. She was moved to respond to the people’s need and to the hundreds of children and adults in the community. She helped provide goats to all the families in the child development center.

The supply of a she-goat to each family of a sponsored child at the child development center is a new thing not experienced before and not heard of in the whole of Likamba community. There is great excitement and enthusiasm among the people as they now transition to a modern art of cattle rearing, keeping goats in house.

According to the pastor of the church, “goats are more advantageous than cows. They need and use a smaller space. They eat fewer grasses, and this will contribute to the protection of the environment. The goat is a great blessing to the people of Likamba.”

Much effort had to take place before the goat distribution was completed. It was not easy to get the supply of all 244 goats at once. Compassion had to look for the goats from different sources, bringing each lot to the families as they were available. Gathering the goats took about three months to complete.

Before the families were given the goats, the whole community was given three days training on how to take care of them, and each family was given the responsibility of making a special shade for the goats.

The people of Likamba also formed cooperative groups, and each family is contributing money every month to their common fund. The objectives of the cooperative are to:

• Improve the welfare of the group members and their families.
• Enhance cooperation among the herders and peasants.
• Protect and improve the health of their children.
• Have more power over the products of their labor (i.e., to have more when they sell milk and other products).

All these having been done, the families were ready to receive the goats. On the day of the visit, about 40 parents gathered at the church compound, waiting anxiously to receive the goats.

The pastor of the church welcomed the parents of the sponsored children and guardians to receive their goats. He read the following passage from the word of God,

“You will have plenty of goats’ milk to feed you and your family and to nourish your servant girls.” — Proverbs 27:27 (NIV)

The pastor also said, “The child is building. There will be building through the children. I am praying that Likamba will change.”

Now that all the Compassion families in Likamba have been supplied with a goat, there is great joy and optimism in the community.

I visited several families and took some time to talk with parents about how they have received the support.

Asnath is the mother of sponsored child, Amani. The family has two sponsored children, so they received two goats. I asked Asnath how she feels about the goat support to her family:

“The goat will do a great deal to support family income. With the goat we will be able to get milk. We will use the milk to increase the health of the children in general and sell the milk and use the proceeds to educate our children. Not only milk but we will also get manure, which we will use in our farms and thus increase the farm income for the products we will be growing.”

I asked her how she felt when she heard she was receiving the goat.

“I was very happy to learn that I will receive a goat. I was ready to build. I was ready to build a shade, and I used all the resources I had to accomplish the task. I bought three roofing sheets and two kilograms of nails. I had several pieces of wood, and this helped me finish the shade on time to receive the goat when they arrive. My husband is very happy also about this project ,and he has helped me in building the shade.”

Rose is the grandmother of Amani, and she is taking care of another child of the family, who is a twin sister to Amani and also a sponsored child, Neema.

One woman from a nearby village gave a testimony of how blessed the people of Likamba will be after receiving the goats. She told of what happened to her when she received a dairy goat from another organization that was helping poor families in her village.

“I received a loaned dairy goat from a project that was helping people fight poverty. The only condition was for that the loaned beneficiary pay back three goats as they reproduce. In the course of the years I was able to pay back three goats and sold several others. I used the money to buy cows and also buy land. I was able to support my children to go to school.”

But she said the advantage the people of Likamba is that they have not been loaned goats, and they don’t have to pay back.

The celebration and fanfare about the goats came to its climax on August 3, when all the children in the center had received all 244 goats. This was a great day.

People from all corners of the valley and plains of surrounding villages came. Children were dressed in special clothes they were given from the project center. A children’s choir graced the occasion with beautiful Christian songs.

Parents were so excited, and to show their acknowledgment for the goats, they had prepared gifts for the pastor of the church and his wife and the Compassion partnership facilitator and her husband.

The parents appreciated the effort they had put into making this project a reality. Maasai are generous people, and to give like this showed that they had accepted the message of the church.

After the church service, food and drinks were served to the invited guests and the community gathering. The entire time a group of Maasai women was dancing and singing on the church grounds, sending messages across the valleys and hills to celebrate the good news. A new era had dawned in Likamba. It was a special day, praying for the goats and dedicating them for the glory of God, for them to multiply and reach many families in the Maasai plain.

The government committed to support the children’s families and provide them with advice on how to take good care of the goats. The director of Compassion Tanzania, Dr. Emmanuel D. Mbennah, reminded the parents to acknowledge God, who used the sponsor to give them this unique gift.

For their part, the families appreciated the blessing and have promised to pass it on to another village that is running a Compassion ministry. They have decided that each family that got a goat will give out a goat when they multiply to another community. In this way they will support many other families, helping many people in the long run.

People are optimistic that after several years the goats will spread all over the entire area of the Maasai plain and that life will never be the same.

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