everyone
my name is Matthew and this is my good
friend and colleague Josh our story
really begins about six years ago with a
simple but profound moment when we to
average absolutely average guts from
northern New Hampshire stumbled upon one
of life’s classic Forks in the road in
2009 after about eight years of doing
work informally in the Dominican
Republic we found ourselves in the
community of San Luis which is about a
about thirty minutes outside of the
capital of Santo Domingo Josh and I had
been invited into the bought a and the
the home was a very typical home dirt
floor one room scrapped corrugated steel
walls and roof and we had been invited
in when the hopes that we couldn’t do
something about a situation and what we
found when we entered this home was a
severely malnourished infant about three
weeks old who was failing to thrive and
had very little hope of survival
basically what was happening was because
of a slight change in the family’s
ability to bring in income this child
was dying of starvation as so frequently
happens in communities of extreme
poverty where a slight change literally
means the difference between life and
death this kid wasn’t gonna make it
so after talking to the family for a
little while we left kind of shaking our
heads a tear in our eye and we later
that evening went spent 25 hours on
three months worth of high-nutrient baby
formula and we left it anonymously out
in front of the family’s home however we
were quite doubtful that $25 was
magically going to save the life of a
child later that night Josh our
dominican friend and colleague alberto
and I sat on Alberto’s roof and we
reflected upon the eight plus years of
work that we had done in the
in Republic and what we had accomplished
and we decided quite definitively that
it wasn’t enough that we needed to do
more and in that moment we gave life to
the bought a foundation which would
become a vehicle for addressing some of
the serious human rights abuses on the
Betazed of the dominican republic
bringing minds and money and expertise
and empathy from new hampshire to serve
in some of the most destitute
communities in the world what we did not
expect at the time was the profound
impact that this little endeavor would
have on the lives of people especially
students living in the north country of
new hampshire this is a story about us
though this is a story about people and
cultures I’m gonna bring you back to
1996 Bill Clinton was president I think
I was a junior and he was already old
and the Macarena was number one on the
pop charts right over here at the
hospital Kayla Martin was born about
1,700 miles away in one of those bought
a homes a girl that we’re gonna call
Heidi was born now
Heidi’s gonna represent hundreds and
hundreds of girls born in the bat a
every single year you see Kayla was born
white in a US citizen that citizenship
guarantees her access to public
education access to health care access
to equal access under the law or equal
protection under the law and if she
absolutely needs it when she’s older or
any point in her life a safety net Heidi
on the other hand was born poor and
black now being black in the Dominican
Republic especially Heidi’s dark skin
tone means being vulnerable and
marginalized Haitian origin and descent
is often assumed an anti Haitian
sentiment is palpable at all levels of
dominican life
in addition Heidi was born without
citizenship anywhere she is neither
Dominican or is she Haitian she has
denied citizenship by the Dominican
government because of her Haitian roots
however she’s never been to Haiti
she doesn’t speak Haitian Creole and she
is not Haitian Heidi does not have a
passport she does not have a birth
certificate hi
he was born a stateless child I’m gonna
focus on those incredibly important
first five years for a minute
Kayla’s first five years were far from
easy born to a single mom in northern
New Hampshire that situation is not
particularly easy one to get through
however with hard work Kayla may not
have had everything she wanted but she
certainly had everything that she needed
she had clothes on her back she had food
on the table access to early childhood
education
Heidi’s situation those first five years
was different in her first five years
Heidi
slept every single night on an old
mattress on the dirt floor of her
family’s home with her five brothers and
sisters and her two parents she went
many days without food and when she did
have food it was often two to three
meals of plain white rice at age five
kayla enrolled at bethlehem elementary
school the same place that matthew nice
children started there they have small
classrooms with small classes dedicated
teachers a school lunch program a full
library technology it was really there
at Bethlehem that Kayla’s love for
learning flourished
in Heidi’s elementary school years she
often had to make the decision about
whether to go to school or whether go to
the local street corner or stoplight to
pedal or beg to help put food on the
family’s table when she could go to
school she was crammed into two
classrooms with a hundred and fifty
other students the rooms were sweltering
the roof leaked and when a trained
school was cancelled there were very few
chairs and desks and most of the kids
sat on the dirt floor to do their work
there was a one out house for all of
these children needless to say this was
not an environment that was conducive to
academic or personal growth for Heidi or
any other student at that school after
Bethlehem elementary school Kayla came
over to profile and that’s where I met
her
profiles consistently one of the best
school in the state and it’s filled with
opportunities and Kayla took them all
she acted in a play she played three
seasons of sports for four years she
took AP courses got into the National
Honor Society she took every opportunity
that the school provided her and because
of that combined with her
self-determination in that
hard work that her mom had instilled at
a young age she was incredibly
successful for Heidi though she was a
committed student strong and intelligent
and though she wanted desperately to
continue her studies because she knew it
was the only way to defend herself
because she did not have citizenship she
could not study beyond the seventh grade
so she left school she went and found
odd jobs to help out with the family’s
income and she cared for her little
brothers and sisters she resisted the
path that so many of her young female
peers took to get married and begin
having children at a very young age
Heidi had effectively fallen into the
cycle of poverty as so many had done
before her that would prohibit her from
ever leaving the but a in 2010 these
stories start to converge a little bit
I had Kayla in class with me when we
showed up to school and learned about
the devastating earthquake in Haiti I
remember we were able to watch the thing
unfold right on my smart board but the
experience was completely academic I
mean I did my best I stood up on desks
and ranted and raved about how an event
like this could hurt the extremely poor
but the bell rang and eventually the
kids just left
Heidi’s experienced with that earthquake
was incredibly done following the
earthquake people flooded into Heidi’s
community fleeing the devastation in
Haiti the already minimal resources in
Heidi’s community were stretched
incredibly thin in her household alone
the number of residents increased from 8
to 13 and Josh and I remember very
clearly being in San Luis at that time
the people coming from Haiti especially
the ones that landed in Heidi’s home
were severely injured or burned from the
earthquake these were difficult times in
San Luis and hunger was rampant in 2003
the stories actually collide Kayla
traveled with the but a foundation down
to San Luis but a in Santo Domingo and
she worked for a week side-by-side with
girls just like Heidi it was there that
they realized that those 1,700 miles the
color of their skin and their language
didn’t actually separate them as much as
they thought they loved to play they
played some of the same games they
learned to laugh
had a lot of the same ideas about their
future they wanted to be successful they
wanted an education and at some point
when they were older they wanted to be
able to provide for their own families
when these two worlds collided centuries
of misunderstanding of cultural
difference of contrived political
borders and boundaries melted away and
they were replaced with lasting
friendship and understanding Heidi had
found in in this collision a voice and
when these two worlds collided all that
had been before and disappeared was now
palpable in their future it see at that
point or up to that point
Kailas understanding of extreme poverty
was simply intellectual but to be able
to actually spend a week side-by-side
tasting it smelling it feeling poverty
in her hand it absolutely changed her
life I remember she was sick as a dog
getting on the plane to come back and
what she was worried about was
forgetting the experience and she told
me I can’t let this stay like this there
has to be something that I can do for
Heidi he gained an ally someone who
could share her story with all its ugly
poverty and oppression with the rest of
the world something that she had never
been able to do because she does not
have the power or privilege to do so for
the first time she felt hope for a
better future because she had found that
voice and as Kevin mentioned before we
cannot underestimate the power of that
hope so where are these ladies now kayla
was invited to be here tonight but she
couldn’t make it she’s at Georgetown
University getting her degree in
international health with a minor in
Spanish she helped us a ton with this
slide show and she told me truly not a
day goes by where she doesn’t think
about that experience she did leave me
with this quote though it was my first
experience with poverty at the level and
it was eye-opening and how much
disparity exists in our world the
experience forced me to take a step back
and analyze my own values and what I
want to do with my life I want to do my
part to eradicate extreme poverty and to
abolish serious human rights abuses
around the
Heidi is now back in school through the
help of Abbott a foundation scholarship
she is studying to become a lawyer to
serve hopefully in the future the
vulnerable people in her community
through a partnership in a collaboration
between people from here and people in
the Dominican Republic the children in
Heidi’s community now have a brand new
school that serves 900 students who
before did not have had not ever gone to
school because they effectively didn’t
have one
the school has ten classrooms it has a
basketball court it has functioning
bathrooms and toilets it has a strong
and dedicated faculty and a committed
administrative team
it has desks and chairs and materials
the people in Heidi’s community now have
a two-story 2500 square foot community
center where for the first time the
entire community can come together and
begin building and planning for a better
future they have a small clinic they
have access to public health initiatives
things are looking up in that community
though there’s still lots of work to do
you see the world isn’t as big as it
used to be northern New Hampshire and
Santo Domingo are not as far as part as
they once were we believe that it is our
responsibility to foster the connections
that aid the most vulnerable amongst us
we believe that it is our responsibility
to inspire both individual and
collective action for good we think that
bringing the Kaela’s and the Heidi’s of
the world together is just one of the
ways that we can be the change that we
hope to see in the world
so to circle back around and kind of
wrap things up a little bit
two years after Josh and I found
ourselves standing over this dying
infant I was leading a group around the
community of San Luis and this woman
comes running up to me she’s all excited
she’s like my town my town she comes up
and she gives me a giant hug and she
says I need you to meet somebody
I was like okay she disappears around
the corner and comes back a couple
minutes later and I remember it like it
was yesterday running behind her was the
most beautiful vibrant healthy little
two-year-old boy
twenty-five dollars they have the life
of this kid Josh and I and every single
one of our programs with a simple but
profound quote by Margaret Mead never
doubt that a small group of thoughtful
committed citizens can change the world
indeed it is the only thing that ever
has thank you [Applause]