BLAINE, Minn. – (Feb. 5, 2015) – A local non-profit called World Wide Village has been partnering with local churches to find ways to help the people of Haiti. Emma Leger attends Grace Lutheran Church which planned a trip to the country. After visiting, she grew an affinity with the people, the place, and the culture.
She admitted she didn’t know what to expect when she first visited.
“It was kind of shell shocking going down at first because it’s like, completely different and the culture is so different from here,” she said.
The more time she spent, the more she grew accustomed.
“You just kind of fall in love with the place when you’re down there, like, I mean, I did,” she said.
After her first trip, she knew she wanted to go back and started saving money for a future trip.
“I referee soccer so I worked the summer to get enough money for my plane ticket and then we did a lot of fundraising and a lot of relatives and friends donated to get the rest of it.”
Her mom, Amy Leger, went on the first trip and has been hearing about how she wanted to go back since then.
“Once Emma raised the money that she needed for her airfare we had to follow through with our promise which was, ‘if you raise the money for your airfare, then I guess, we’ll go’,” she said.
While there, they worked on a few projects for the community, including a chicken coup for a family.
“We’re going to build a house for someone next to the chicken coup so they’ll be in charge of the chicken coup and they’ll be able to produce money for their family and they’ll also have a food source, like they can eat the eggs and stuff and they can go to market and sell them,” she said.
They’ve also been working on building relationships with children who don’t always get enough attention from their families.
“We played this all girl soccer game when we were down there too, which is kind of a big deal because, men and women equality is not really there exactly. Men are kind of above women so girls don’t get to play soccer.”
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and most of the people live on less than two dollars a day. So while she witnessed obvious differences on how Americans lived, even more than that, she said there are significant differences in how we think.
“All the people here, they’re just like, ‘hey what can I do for myself, OK, what am I going to do next month, I’m going to start planning my vacation in a couple months’ as opposed to down there it’s… ‘OK what am I going to eat for breakfast? How am I going to feed my kids tonight? How are my kids going to get clean water for the day?’”
This experience has even led to some changes on her future plans.
It kind of changed what I want to do when I get older which is now nursing and it was architecture but I decided I wanted to help more people,” she said.
Her mom definitely seems to be happy with the changes as well.
“I’m proud of the fact that she seems to be coming into her own, and knowing what she wants to do. It was architecture and she had a bit of a revelation this fall and said, ‘I think I want to change this, and I’d like to be a nurse.’
Amy Leger seems to be in full support of her daughter’s revelation.
“You can be a nurse almost anywhere and it would be more helpful for people down in Haiti, and if that’s what she wants to do and that’s important to her and important to her heart then I think she should absolutely do it.”
Of course, Emma’s mom said she is already planning a two week trip for next year.
“I’m sure she’ll be going back a lot, but I think she’s learning a lot from it, I think it’s helping her be a more well-rounded person, which I’m really proud to see.
Leger and her family are organizing a 5k this spring to help raise money for the community of Williamson in Haiti, and the houses they are building.
