For those of you who have followed us over the years, you know how fortunate we are to be surrounded by so many incredible individuals who have offered their time, their talents, and their resources to help us help the children at Be Like Brit. Last weekend, we recognized one of our most dedicated and generous ambassadors for Be Like Brit, in the awarding of the Star Award to the Reverend Dr. Debra Pallatto-Fontaine. Debbie is a powerhouse in so many ways. We've benefited from her expertise from our earliest days, as Debbie served as a member of our Program Committee back during the construction phase of our work, and now serves in a much more expansive role.
After receiving the Star Award at our Gala last Saturday, Debbie flew back to Haiti with me on Monday of last week to deliver her quarterly professional development staff and teacher trainings to all of our caregivers. Debbie provides this professional level workshops at least 4 times per year, and the benefits of having her perspective and insights in areas of faith, child development, psychology, curriculum development, and early childhood education are invaluable to us. Our staff has grown by leaps and bounds, and they absolutely love it when Madame Debbie visits!
As a Reverend with the United Church of Christ, we look to Debbie (along with our own Father Madden) for guidance when conflict arrives as a result of faith - or, more specifically, differences of faith. While the Be Like Brit Foundation is not specifically a faith-based organization, the Gengels are Catholic, and faith was a huge part of Brit's life, as it is for the family still. As some of our children are from a Catholic background and others a Christian (Protestant) background, we're noticing as they get older that sometimes the perceived or actual differences between the two faiths can cause problems and conflict to arise between not only our children, but our children and our visitors, too.
Debbie was supposed to have traveled to BLB the first week of October, until Hurricane Matthew hit, forcing us to reschedule her trip. When we figured out that we could get Debbie here when I flew back from the Gala, we took the opportunity of asking Debbie to incorporate some kind of service in to her week, where she could talk to the children and to the staff about what it means to be an ecumenical organization here, but more importantly, how we're all created in God's image and every human being is deserving of mutual respect and civility. The values of tolerance and diversity are very important to the Be Like Brit Foundation, and we hope that we can raise our children to hold these same beliefs. Debbie's service, sharing in the body and the blood of Christ together, regardless of formal faith or ideology, was a great lesson for our children. Like she always does, Debbie found a way to work the children in to the service, with a choir, faith dancers, and helpers up on the altar, too!
We are thrilled that at last week's Gala, we were able to announce officially that, through the Yunus Centre for Social Business at Becker College, Debbie has launched what is called the "DREAMS Program: Educating the Future of Haiti This is a 6 module, 15 week hybrid course, focusing on topics around social and emotional intelligence, child development, and intensive English language instruction. We've started out with our first cohort of 11 Be Like Brit employees, who, upon completion of the course, will receive official course completion certificate from Becker College! The group is loving the program so far, and we are excited to see how it may develop and grow over time! What do you think about their Becker gear?!
It is these kinds of initiatives and partnerships that truly do allow us to bring a whole new level of care and professionalism to our children, our program, and of course the organization. We want people to know that when we say we're working to raise the next generation of leaders in Haiti, we mean it, and these types of programs are what set us apart from the rest! We're proud of our work, and especially grateful to Madame Debbie - our Star!!!
After receiving the Star Award at our Gala last Saturday, Debbie flew back to Haiti with me on Monday of last week to deliver her quarterly professional development staff and teacher trainings to all of our caregivers. Debbie provides this professional level workshops at least 4 times per year, and the benefits of having her perspective and insights in areas of faith, child development, psychology, curriculum development, and early childhood education are invaluable to us. Our staff has grown by leaps and bounds, and they absolutely love it when Madame Debbie visits!
As a Reverend with the United Church of Christ, we look to Debbie (along with our own Father Madden) for guidance when conflict arrives as a result of faith - or, more specifically, differences of faith. While the Be Like Brit Foundation is not specifically a faith-based organization, the Gengels are Catholic, and faith was a huge part of Brit's life, as it is for the family still. As some of our children are from a Catholic background and others a Christian (Protestant) background, we're noticing as they get older that sometimes the perceived or actual differences between the two faiths can cause problems and conflict to arise between not only our children, but our children and our visitors, too.
Debbie was supposed to have traveled to BLB the first week of October, until Hurricane Matthew hit, forcing us to reschedule her trip. When we figured out that we could get Debbie here when I flew back from the Gala, we took the opportunity of asking Debbie to incorporate some kind of service in to her week, where she could talk to the children and to the staff about what it means to be an ecumenical organization here, but more importantly, how we're all created in God's image and every human being is deserving of mutual respect and civility. The values of tolerance and diversity are very important to the Be Like Brit Foundation, and we hope that we can raise our children to hold these same beliefs. Debbie's service, sharing in the body and the blood of Christ together, regardless of formal faith or ideology, was a great lesson for our children. Like she always does, Debbie found a way to work the children in to the service, with a choir, faith dancers, and helpers up on the altar, too!
We are thrilled that at last week's Gala, we were able to announce officially that, through the Yunus Centre for Social Business at Becker College, Debbie has launched what is called the "DREAMS Program: Educating the Future of Haiti This is a 6 module, 15 week hybrid course, focusing on topics around social and emotional intelligence, child development, and intensive English language instruction. We've started out with our first cohort of 11 Be Like Brit employees, who, upon completion of the course, will receive official course completion certificate from Becker College! The group is loving the program so far, and we are excited to see how it may develop and grow over time! What do you think about their Becker gear?!
It is these kinds of initiatives and partnerships that truly do allow us to bring a whole new level of care and professionalism to our children, our program, and of course the organization. We want people to know that when we say we're working to raise the next generation of leaders in Haiti, we mean it, and these types of programs are what set us apart from the rest! We're proud of our work, and especially grateful to Madame Debbie - our Star!!!
It was a joy to have spent the last few days working with Debbie, and talking about other ways that we can deepen this relationship! We have an exciting trip for Becker in early 2017, where we will be meeting with the Country Director of the Yunus Social Business in Haiti and visiting some of their projects in the country. We look forward to a long relationship with Debbie and with Becker!
Thank you for helping us help the children of Haiti at Be Like Brit!!!
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