Contributed by Mria Dangerfield

Giselle Osborn, a Social Circle homeschooler and High School Senior, was among a handful of outstanding youth from across the US who were selected to travel to Haiti this past August as part of a goodwill mission to help build sustainable housing in the remote Haitian village of Papaye.  She and a group of 10 youth helped to build the foundations for homes for the peasant farmers in the Central Plateau.  Working in partnership with a grassroots organization in Haiti called the Papaye Peasant Movement  (MPP), the youth worked side-by-side with the villagers to construct eco-friendly housing.  They not only had to contend with oppressive heat, humidity and mosquitoes, but also the torrential rains of Hurricane Irene.            

Giselle laughed off the hurricane.  “It was pretty scary for the parents back in the US to think that we were in a remote village with a hurricane bearing down on us, but it was just one day with a lot of rain and strong winds.  The only bad part was missing one day of work because we couldn’t travel on the water soaked roads.  But we were having fun, so we didn’t care at all!”

Giselle or “Gigi” as she is known to her friends, is no stranger to community service work.   A Girl Scout since the age of 5, she has grown up taking on project after project including making blankets for an Alzheimer’s Unit at a nursing home, volunteering for three years to help lead a Troop of Brownies and making and donating equestrian equipment for a Georgia Girl Scout camp.  She traveled to India for a month in 2009 as part of a leadership program where she met and worked with girls in a Muslim Orphanage a few hours from Mumbai.  In 2010, she was one of 12 Girl Scouts chosen to represent the United States at the 100th Anniversary of Girl Guiding - the sister organization of Girl Scouts.  Shortly before her trip to Haiti she spent a week in Iceland studying geothermal energy.

The faces and smiles of the people in Haiti touched her during her stay.  “The children were amazing, just beautiful and happy.  They were fascinated with my skin because it is so white.  They kept poking me and giggling.  It was so cute!  They taught us Haitian freedom songs and we taught them Disney songs and we sang them while we worked together.  I took about 40 pounds of school supplies with me, reams of paper, books, pencils, and lots of book bags. I even took three deflated soccer balls with an air pump.  This one little girl was so sweet, I gave her the book bag that was my favorite when I was little, with a painted butterfly on it.  It made me happy to know that someone special has that now.”

She has plans to start a non-profit organization called HIPPO -  Helping to Initiate Powerful & Positive changes - to help women and girls around the world break through barriers that prevent them from getting an education. There's currently a Facebook page for the group, with a link to Fundrazr where people can donate to help her defray the cost of her next trip, as well as to fund the purchase of more books.

Gigi cites her experiences in Haiti as her most recent inspiration. “While I was there, I learned about a lot of other programs that MPP is involved in. They make and distribute medicines to the local people, they organize the farmers to help them improve their farming techniques, and they train midwives and attend births.  One of the best projects they have is a place called Camp Oasis.  Camp Oasis is not a camp like we think of in this country with arts & crafts and canoes.  This is a refugee camp for 40 girls ages 8-14 who were rescued from the general refugee camps after the quake.  These girls had no family left to provide for them and if left in the camps would have been forced into prostitution just to stay alive.  This is a group of girls that I know I can help.”

And help she will.  Not one to sit back and wait for others to fix a problem, Gigi is returning to Haiti in late January to take even more supplies.  Despite dire warnings from family and friends of the dangers of travel to that unstable country, she plans to return with even more supplies than she did the first time around.

“When I went to Haiti in August, I had to guess at what the needs were.  I had seen poverty in India, but Haiti was far worse than anything I saw there. There are homes that are in complete ruin from the quake, and yet people are still living there.  It has been almost 2 years and it looks like a war zone in many places.  There is a huge need for books in French.  Only 10% of the people in Haiti speak French, but that is the language of the elite, of the government, and of the media.  If these girls hope to become Leaders in their community, they have to understand French.  They have teachers to teach them, but many times they have to share one book for 40 girls.  Imagine how hard it would be to go to school in our country and have to share your book with 39 other students.”

Gigi has been sending out messages through email and Facebook about her need for French books – hoping that the more people who know about it, the more likely she is to reach her goal of having much more than 40 pounds of school supplies this time around.  And her efforts have finally begun to pay off – just before Christmas she came home to find a package on her doorstep – Harry Potter in French – sent to her by an anonymous donor.  “I have no idea who sent it, but I am so happy.” she beamed. “This is exactly what I need.  I want books that will make these girls want to learn French.  I don’t know many teens who wouldn’t want to read Harry Potter.  But I want early readers and textbooks as well.  These girls need a lot and I won’t be happy until I can make that happen.”

When asked why a second trip down when she could just ship the items and stay safely in the States, she laughed again.  “I went to Mumbai just months after the 2008 bombings, and I arrived in Iceland on the same day that the neighboring country of Norway was terrorized by a gunman who killed dozens of kids.  There are dangerous places in the world for sure, but I won’t live my life in fear.  I am not stupid - Port Au Prince is a big city and there is certainly a lot of crime there, but I will have people there to meet me and stay with me.  There was nothing that would have replaced being with the children of the village in Papaye, those are memories that I will carry with me always, and one day I do want to return there.  I know that meeting the girls at Camp Oasis will be the same – a chance to make friends, hug and laugh.  I only know a little Creole, but I do know some songs to sing – and maybe just maybe, they would also like me to teach them some Disney songs.”

Gigi’s trip to Haiti is a natural extension of her commitment to serve others.  An excerpt from her winning essay says it all, “I have been raised to understand that there are always people worse off than we were, and that when we cannot give from the wallet, we give from what we have.  We invest our time; we use our hands and hearts to support those causes where our efforts can make a difference . . . I want to have the satisfaction of knowing that even without the resources of Bill Gates, that I can make the world a better place.  To quote my most favorite author and philosopher, Dr. Seuss, ‘Unless someone like you . . . cares a whole awful lot . . . nothing is going to get better . . .  It's not.’”

Gigi will leave for Haiti in late January, carrying suitcases full of books in French.  How much she takes will depend on how generous her donors are. And what are her plans after this?  “Well, I am planning to start my own non-profit to help remove barriers to education for girls and young women in other areas of the globe: Haiti, Africa, India, and even the US.  The causes are varied, but the needs are the same.  HIPPO (Helping to Initiate Powerful & Positive changes) will be my way of keeping the project going.  First I need enough money to buy the books for Haiti, then I have to cover my plane ticket.  After that, I need money to file for my non-profit corporation.  It will be a lot of work, but that doesn’t scare me.  I don’t give up easily.”

Hurricane Irene may not have made much of an impact on Haiti, but Hurricane Gigi?  Well, that might just be one force that will.