March 18, 2024

Middle schoolers learn about poverty in other countries

‘Many Hands for Haiti’ program used in BMS community relationships lesson

Technology has made the world seem smaller to many of us.

Some Berg Middle School students recently were shown how people in another part of our small globe have completely different needs from people in Iowa.

“Many Hands for Haiti” is a missionary and support program that brings clothing and other supplies to families in Haiti, where 60 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Berg Middle School eighth-grade teacher Shannon Clark heard about the Haiti benefit program, and decided to have her students make diapers for children, to be sent over to Haiti after a supply-donation drive ends May 18.

“For some students, community service means picking up trash around town,” Clark said. “This effort helped them learn the entire planet can be their community, and there are needs in some places that are nothing like the needs most of us see here in Iowa.”

Last week, Clark brought in Tim Brand, the founder of Many Hands for Haiti, to talk about the program and the needs of the Caribbean nation. The event was timed with the start of Clark’s Language Arts class’s Community Relationships Unit, and Clark suggested students bring in old T-Shirts to make diapers to be donated as part of Brand’s “Bundled Bottoms” sub-program. Clark said the students responded well to the activity. “I have 86 students, and each created at least one (diaper),” she said. “This really seemed to spark their creativity.”

Clark said Brand will be sending the cut out patterns to Haiti in May, where local women will attach Velcro and sew them together.

This provides an added benefit for Haiti, Cook said, as it creates jobs for the women sewing the diapers together. Haiti is an island nation located 750 miles southeast of the Florida coast. Its poverty is well-documented, and a 2010 earthquake and recent hurricanes haven’t helped matters.

Cook said a team of eighth-grade students will also be collecting school supplies through May 18 for the Many Hands for Haiti program. Hannah Edwards, one of the Berg eighth-graders who helped make diapers for the program, said she learned diapers are one of many items a struggling nation might not have in its villages, and it might be a safety issue.

“Even a simple thing like that could save someone’s life,” Edwards said. “When we help others, we see how each one of us makes a difference.”

Tucker Cupples said he brought in Iowa State Cyclones gear to be used for the pattern.

“Haiti needs help,” he said. “Everyone needs help — some people need help with the simplest things.”

Haley Budak said her parents “adopted” a child in a foreign country years ago, in terms of sending annual financial support, so Budak was already familiar with conditions in other countries and the outreach done.

Budak said learning about issues in other countries has helped her remember there are needs closer to home as well.

“Haiti has a lot of needs,” she said. “But we can have the same attitude of help toward people right here in Newton, too.”