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Hello All,
Yéle has been busy for the holidays, always keeping the Haitian community busy! Good news from Yéle! Wyclef Jean held a magnificent free concert in his native country on December 1st in the beach town of Jacmel on the southern coast of Haiti. No Haitian living there wanted to miss the cultural event of the year:
YéleFest
YéleFest concert given by Wyclef Jean
Christmas Children party at Telemax: The activities started with Wyclef arriving in Haiti on Friday Nov 29th. He landed on the soil of his native country and went directly to Telemax where almost 1,000 children were waiting for him with great anticipation. Santa Wyclef came and gave gifts to each one of them. For many of the children, it was the first toy they ever had. The kids were so happy to get gifts, and especially from the Haitian Santa himself!
Santa Wyclef giving gifts to youth >from schools and orphanages in Port-au-Prince
YéleFest: YéleFest is a connection of culture, arts, youth and development, held in conjunction with the Festival Film Jakmel, which presented a series of activities such as the Christmas Children Party, the Wyclef Jean Free Concert, the Development Seminars, the Artists Forum (TOHU), and also included a 5 day visit >from the New York Red Bulls professional soccer players to the community.
The Premiere Sponsor of YéleFest and the Jacmel Film Festival is also the primary sponsor of Yéle Haiti: Voilà. In addition to being the Premiere Sponsor of YéleFest and the Jacmel Film Festival, Voilà sponsors 10 of Yéle Haiti’s programs, in full or in part. These include Yéle Cuisine, Primary School Scholarships, School Rebuilding, Teacher Training, Yéle Cinema, L’Athletique d’Haiti, 2 Youth Soccer Programs (over-20 and uncer-20), University Scholarships and Ecole Verte.
Thank you Voilà!
Jacmel Film Festival: Yéle Haiti partnered with the Jacmel Film Festival to bring cultural events to the community. The Jacmel Film Festival is the only international film festival in Haiti. The founder acquired 80 films from international film festivals around the world and dubbed them all into Creole, as the Haitian population is over 60% illiterate and would not be able to read sub-titles. All the films were free admission, opening the door for the poor to participate. Yéle Haiti’s collaboration with the festival was to use music and film to engage the Haitian people and develop new models for community development, using popular mediums to engage and empower Haitian youth. The festival is creating an institution that will eventually have a film school – because the population is largely illiterate, and because they are so isolated, coupled with the fact that electricity and access to television is so limited, this is a way of educating, raising awareness and broadening horizons. On an educational front, people are able to, many for the first time in their lives, see how other people handle life situations, work out issues and develop resolutions. It also allowed people to see how other Haitians, and other cultures, interact, and allows for that feeling of “relating” to a situation that so many of us have easy access to. The impact of the festival very profound on the Haitian population, and adding YéleFest added another and significant element to the events.
Development Seminars: Earlier during the week, the Development Seminars began on Nov 27th. They consisted of a series of five seminars over the course of the week (one per day), each beginning with a documentary (dubbed in Creole) on a key social and/or development issue:
SEMINAR 1: ENVIRONMENT SEMINAR 2: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Featured film: An Inconvenient Truth Featured film: Favela Rising
SEMINAR 3: LAW ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN’S RIGHTS SEMINAR 4: FOOD SECURITY
Featured film: Sisters in Law Featured film: We Feed the World
SEMINAR 5: HIV/AIDS
Featured film: Yesterday
Each film was followed by a moderated “town hall” style discussion about how the issues in the documentaries related to Haiti, followed by a call to action for Haiti, particularly implemented by youth. Each seminar was moderated by a well-known Haitian personality who was assisted by three facilitators representing NGOs, UN agencies or institutions active in that particular field in Haiti.
Speakers of the seminars, (right to left, Ronald Luxieux of L’Athletique d’Haiti, Bob Montinaud of Yéle Haiti and Danel Georges of MUCI)
Wyclef at the HIV/AIDS Seminars on World AIDS day Wyclef greeting the development seminar audience
Artist Forum: The Artist Forum was one of the best activities of the week, because 15 young Canadian artists spent a week together with 15 young Haitian artists and created art together! This cross-cultural program brought Canadians from TOHU, la Cité des Arts du Cirque, a Montreal-based NGO that is on the cutting edge of enlisting the arts and culture to develop new models of sustainable development.
There were two aspects to the forum. The first was to explore the role of culture and the arts in creating new models working towards sustainable development. Resources for the forum were drawn from several Haitian NGOs currently involved in this field, including Fondation Connaissance et Liberte (FOKAL), Fondation Sant D’A Jakmel (FOSAJ) and Fondation Tarazat. The artists initially traveled to the protected Parc National “la Visite“ in Seguin, the last protected forest in Haiti, to begin the project. (Due to the fact that only 32% of households in Haiti have electricity, people cut down the trees to cook, which has resulted in an environmental emergency of 1.5% forest cover remaining in the country).
The second part of the forum involved the design and building of a giant sculpture (known as a “falla”) made of garbage, recycled material and paper mache.
Haitians and Canadians artist building the Falla Parts of the Falla
The Falla installed on Congo Beach in Jacmel
TOHU, la Cité des Arts du Cirque, has a history of building and burning such sculptures, drawing on precedents as diverse as European peasant rituals and the annual Burning Man event in the Black Rock Desert in the US. On a local level, Jacmel, the arts epicenter of Haiti, is famous for the paper mache masks made by local artists for the annual Carnival celebrations. At the conclusion of Carnival, left-over costumes and masks are burned—local lore dictates that burning them prevents the spirits of the masks from haunting the wearers for the rest of the year.
The falla created by the Canadian and Haitian artists draw together all these elements, adding the use of garbage and recycled material for the construction along with the Jacmel tradition of paper mache. When completed, during the Wyclef Jean free concert, the Falla was set ablaze to mark the official close of YéleFest and Festival Film Jakmèl. The burning of the falla also symbolizes the vitality, talent and potential of Haitian youth as they begin to tackle issues of environment and development.
The burning of the Falla at the YéleFest Concert Wyclef and the burning of the Falla created by the Canadian and Haitian artists
Free Concert by Wyclef Jean: Wyclef gave a concert with his full band on the evening of Friday, December 1. The stage was built on a stage on the waterfront. No one knows exactly how many people were there, but estimates range from 20,000 to 50,000. The concert marked the official conclusion of the Festival. A large screen behind the stage projected the image on stage of Wyclef as well as carrying images of the work of Yéle Haiti, Festival Film Jakmèl and TOHU, la Cité des Arts du Cirque. The concert started with known Haitian artists including Starmania, Gracia Delva, Black Alex, Jimmy O, Djakout and Tru Rasta…to name a few! The concert concluded with the ceremonial burning of the Falla.
Break dancer at the YéleFest Concert A young Haitian “Shakira” signing “Hip Don’t Lie” with Wyclef
3 Professional Soccer players play soccer with Haitian children!
Wyclef was not the only the surprise of the week -- 3 professional soccer players (2 of them Haitian!) and two members of the management from the New York Red Bulls came straight from New York to Haiti for a 6 day service trip, playing soccer every day and sometimes twice a day – and bringing so many soccer balls >from adidas and Nike that children at every field they played at got to keep much-needed soccer balls!
17-year-old forward Jozy Altidore, whose parents were born and raised in Haiti, forward Jerrod Laventure, whose father was born and raised in Haiti, and midfielder Seth Stammler came to Haiti to play soccer and hold demonstrations, clinics and seminars for youth, coaches and refs. This trip marked Altidore and Laventure’s first visit to their families’ former homeland since their early childhood.
During their first two days in Haiti, the Red Bulls joined Wyclef in Jacmel for the concert and festivisites. From there, the Red Bulls traveled to Port-au-Prince and conducted instructional clinics and seminars at the sports NGO that Yéle Haiti supports, L’Athletique d’Haiti. Even though Haiti has a national obsession for soccer, many coaches and refs are not trained well enough to give the children the best instruction. Seminars and workshops were considered an important element in development, as only 4 out of 1,032 schools in Port-au-Prince offer sports to students, and sports provides children with the tools to foster much needed self-esteem and confidence.
Jozy Altidore and Jerrod Laventure with two young soccer players at L’Athletique d’Haiti Seth Stammler and Jerrod Laventure with a young soccer player
Jozy Altidore with kids
The five members of the group each wrote a daily diary of their visit there. To read their amazing stories, go to
redbull.newyork.mlsnet.com/news/team_news.jsp?ymd=20061203&content_id=79794&vkey=news_rbn&fext=.jsp&team=t107.
This week of festivities, my dear friends, was one of the greatest and biggest cultural of the year. YéleFest was at his first year and it was a success, we are planning more in the upcoming years, but next time we suggest you come and invite all your friends and family of the country to attend! You can’t miss that! Will let you know!
Wyclef is really proud of his nation, proud to give back to his country and wants to share the Haitian legacy, gifts and everything related to the homeland with the world…! This is why he created Yéle Haiti. He is proud of everything that includes his Haiti! And believe us, it’s just a beginning…
Until next time!
We want to give special thanks to the sponsors who help make the whole project happen, without these sponsors, this project would not have been possible:
Special thanks:
To our gold sponsors: AVIS HAITI, AMERIJET, SCDI GROUP INCLUDING HIT, AIC, REBO and CULLIGAN
To our silver sponsors: SOGEXPRESS, ACCESSHAITI, VALERIO CANEZ and BRASSERIE LA COURONNE
To our bronze sponsors: SOGECOMAT and TORTUG'AIR
To: AMERICAN AIRLINES and RED BULL
We want also thank Sophie Paris, our photographer, for the wonderful pictures that she took, without her, readers, you would never have the feel of the whole week of festivities! So special thanks to her!
We want to thank our board members, especially Maryse P. Kedar, President of the Board, for dedicating extra hours and putting her heart into this project.
A special thanks to our dear YéleFest Executive Director, Cinthia Kanzki Thebaud.
We want to thank the Yéle team and the volunteers, THE VOLUNTEERS…without you… we would definitely not be able to succeed the way we did! Thank you to Carlene Dunn, Karen Pardini, Dave Kass, Dawn Leikness, David Rampy, Patrick Thebaud, Jo Dams and Sherley Kanzi Jean.
We want to thank the media and everyone for their participation.
Thank you so much!
Yéle!
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