My (True) Fairy Tale from Strongheart on Vimeo.

All of Us

all of us from Strongheart on Vimeo.

strong hearts

I don’t think I realized how long I’ve been holding my breath until this moment. Charity, Elizabeth, and Grace Freeman just arrived at Strongheart House. I met these kids years ago in Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana. Charity & Elizabeth were both born in the camp – Grace arrived when she was only 5 months old. Their parents had fled the fighting in their home country of Liberia but by the time I met the girls, their father had disappeared back in Liberia and their mother had died of unknown causes in the refugee camp.

There are six incredible kids in the family total. They’ve stayed together despite incredible odds. They ran their own business in the refugee camp – a precious little shop called The Freeman’s Family Video Games Center – a “video game parlor” composed of tv’s run off a generator and Playstations donated by my friends. It was a real business – entirely their idea, based off a business plan they wrote and presented to me. It enabled them to buy food and clothes and special treats at holidays. (To those of you who gave videogames – THANK YOU!)

Freeman Family, 2006

But we always knew the refugee camp was only a temporary place. The war had ended in Liberia but the kids had no surviving relatives that they could return to. The UN offered to send refugees back and give them $100 for each person over 18. That would have meant the kids could return to a country where they knew no one, with sky high war inflation, with $300 total to begin a completely new life. (It costs about $50 just to get any form of transport from the airport to the main town! Don’t get me started on prices in Africa. Look it up on the Mercer Cost of Living Scale.)

More and more people were leaving the camp – either resettling in other parts of Ghana or returning home to their families in Liberia – but the Freemans had no where to go. Way back in 2006, we started planning that they’d be the first kids – along with Lovetta Conto – to enter the Strongheart program. (“We” is the Strongheart team – a small NGO I co-founded with the best people on earth.)

Our goal was to  establish a healing & education community for exceptional young survivors of conflict & extreme life circumstances, in the hopes that we’d be able to give young people like these a place to heal, learn, and transform into who they could be.  They were perfect candidates for our program: resilient, resourceful, open hearted – the blaze of life/love/creativity alive in them no matter their surroundings.

From idea to outcome, it seemed to take FOREVER. We were creating something new – not an orphanage, not a girls school “like Oprah.” (We welcome kids who have parents or not, boys and girls equally.) We weren’t creating a school and we weren’t just warehousing them until they could grow up and figure something better out. We were creating a program that offered true transformation and healing, that focused on each young person individually and combined the best elements of what we had all gathered on our own personal journeys through life.

We had to create a structure – both physical and organizational – that would hold these kids with enough strength and integrity to allow the work to be done. We had to create the details of the program – the ‘how to’ – that would do what we had hoped. We had to grow into the roles ourselves. It wasn’t a no-brainer. Lovetta Conto – who so many people now know through her work with her Strongheart project AKAWELLE - came to live with us and we piloted the program with her. We searched for the right city in Liberia, the right house, the right people on our team, and then we dreamed and worked and met and created.

The kids were so patient. We had so many delays – finding a house, raising money for the renovation in the midst of the economic crash, putting together staff. Every time I’d get on the phone with them, I’d feel awful telling them “Not yet. We have roof problems. Four more months.” “Not yet. We have erosion problems. Two more months.” They were so kind, “Don’t worry yourself, Cori. We want to go when it’s right.” We’d talk about the house and their dreams for a new life and a home that would be theirs and place where they could finally BE. From the time we started talking about finding them a place to live – to deciding to begin Strongheart House – to finding it – to funding it – to opening it….it was just 2 months shy of four years. (I just checked an old email. Nov 14, 2006 was when it was decided.)

In June of 2010, we finally decided the house was good to go (leaky roof and all) and were able to bring in three of the six kids from Ghana to their home country of Liberia: Georgia, Gabriel, and Emmanuel, who joined other Strongheart Fellows at what everyone now calls Strongheart House.

Charity, Grace, and Elizabeth stayed behind – we had more delays of various kinds – until finally …. TODAY.

Today just now – about five minutes from the time I started writing this – Charity, Elizabeth, and Grace walked through the front door of Strongheart House and into the arms of the beautiful Strongheart family.

Charity & Elizabeth, 2008

Their whole lives they’ve been identified as “refugees” – from the UN cards they carry to the signs identifying the camp where they lived. And now – that’s over. They have a new identity, one that comes from who they really are: STRONGHEARTS.

NOW I can breathe.

(If you want to become a part of our team, join our Circle of Mothers. We need as many “Moms” as we can get!)

This Piece of Truth & Beauty

“When all the words have been written, and all the phrases have been spoken, the great mystery of life will still remain….The world is a great mysterious place, and its possibilities are infinite, governed only by what our hearts can conceive. If we incline our hearts towards the darkness, we will see darkness. If we incline them toward the light, we will see the light.

Those of great heart have always known this. They have understood that, as honorable as it is to see the wrong and try to correct it, a life well lived must somehow celebrate the promise that life provides. The darkness at the limits of our knowledge; the darkness that sometimes seem to surround us is merely a way to make us reach beyond certainty, to make our lives a witness to hope, a testimony to possibility, an urge toward the best and the most honorable impulses that our hearts can conceive.

It is not hard. There is in each of us, no matter how humble, a capacity for love. Even if our lives have not taken the course we had envisioned, even if we are less than the shape of our dreams, we are part of the human family. Somewhere, in the most inconsequential corners of our lives, is the opportunity for love…. There is no tragedy or injustice so great, no life so small and inconsequential, that we cannot bear witness to the light in the quiet acts and hidden moments of our days.

And who can say which of these acts and moments will make a difference? The universe is vast and is a magical membrane of meaning, stretching across time and space, and it is not given to us to know her secrets and her ways. Perhaps we were placed here to meet the challenge of a single moment; perhaps the touch we give will cause the touch that will change the world.”

Kent Nerburn wrote this. It’s almost unbearably beautiful to me.

Remember the time…

…we hung out in Nigeria, built the school in Ghana, worked our a**es off in Liberia…and met all these beautiful people?

I feel like Emily in Our Town. The heartbreaking final scene:

“Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

authentic adults

“The most potent seeds of cultural renaissance come from the uniquely creative ventures of authentic adults, those who have consciously discovered and committed to the one true life they can call their own, a life that emerges from the largest conversation one is capable of having with the world. All such adults are, by definition, true artists, visionaries, and leaders, whether they live and work quietly in small arenas or very publicly on grand stages.”

from www.animas.org

For My Strongheart Fellows.

“Your identity is not equivalent to your biography. There is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there’s a seamlessness in you – and where there is a confidence and a tranquility in you. And I think the intention of prayer, and spirituality, and love is now and again to visit that inner kind of sanctuary.”

Again, the beautiful John O’Donohue.

Lovetta & the Dalai Lama

When I met Lovetta five years ago, she was 12 years old and living alone in Buduburam Refugee Camp. She had more emotional and social intelligence than anyone I’d ever known. I fought for her fiercely, convinced if the US Embassy would just give me a visa for her, the world would open…neural pathways would shift…we’d have a leap, a miracle, a deep transformation, flowering from the blueprint of who she was meant to be. Of course, I thought that would happen for her, never considering it would also happen to ME.

I think anyone who really knows us would agree it was a rough but rewarding path – and we’ve come a very long way together. Of course, SHE got to meet the Dalai Lama while I had to scrub 20 years of mold off our walls in Liberia…

Shatter and Rise

“There are circumstances that must shatter you; and if you are not shattered, then you have not understood your circumstances. In such circumstances, it is a failure for your heart not to break. And it is pointless to put up a fight, for a fight will blind you to the opportunity that has been presented by your misfortune. Do you wish to persevere pridefully in the old life? Of course you do: the old life was a good life. But it is no longer available to you. It has been carried away, irreversibly. So there is only one thing to be done. Transformation must be met with transformation. Where there was the old life, let there be the new life. Do not persevere. Dignify the shock. Sink, so as to rise.”

Leon Wieseltier

Why I’m Going to Haiti

A lot of people assume I’m going to Haiti because I’m the person they know that goes to places like that and at times like this. Not actually true.

1) I’m a wimp. Faint at the sight of blood. I don’t like planes either.

2) I’m not a skilled medical person so I generally stay the h*ll away while real trained brains and hands are needed to save lives.

3) Lord, I’m vain as heck and would hate to be seen as a bandwagonner. I tend to stay away from the beaten path.

I definitely do feel the need to go help when I can – when I feel like I can address a real, unsolved need – but ONLY when I think I can do some good with my own weird and particular set of skills or if just no one else is doing it and it needs doing.

So here’s why Haiti and why now:

Five years ago or so, I read an incredible book called MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS. Written by Tracy Kidder, it’s a fascinating read about Dr. Paul Farmer and the incredible organization he founded called PARTNERS IN HEALTH. Public health – yawn, I know. But no, this was riveting. Farmer was different from anyone I had ever really heard or read about – brilliant, sharp, not afraid to just do what’s right and common sense even though every NGO, govt body, and bit of prevailing wisdom went against him.

Someone recently put it this way “Partners in Health doesn’t say ‘what’s the best use of these limited funds to affect x number of lives’ – they say ‘what does it take to save and improve the lives of everyone we serve?’ “Everyone they serve” happens to be humanity.

PIH’s mission statement says:

“At its root, our mission is both medical and moral. It is based on solidarity, rather than charity alone. When a person in Peru, or Siberia, or rural Haiti falls ill, PIH uses all of the means at our disposal to make them well…Whatever it takes. Just as we would do if a member of our own family—or we ourselves—were ill.”

In Haiti – and then in Peru, Rwanda, Mexico, Russia – the people at PIH have challenged the accepted conventional wisdom time and again. They’ve dared to ask “why?” Why are we letting the poor die when solutions exist? Why does a child have to a die of a disease that a vaccine was created for decades ago?? The easy answer, the default, is “there are just aren’t enough resources to go around.”

But Partners in Health rejects that fiercely. The knowledge is there, the resources are there. The comforting lie we tell ourselves that it can’t be helped is wrong, the basic argument faulty, not based on fact.

They believe not dying of a terrible, preventable disease is a basic human right. If you know how to cure someone, have the resources, and don’t – no matter where you or they are in the world, no matter how far from each other ‐ you’ve basically
stood by and watched them die.

It’s been estimated that the total cost of providing basic social services in the developing countries, including health, education, family planning, and clean water, would cost $30 to $40 billion per year. The world spends more than this on golf annually.

Paul Farmer has said, “Many people think all the world’s problems can be fixed without any cost to themselves. We don’t believe that. There’s a lot to be said for sacrifice, remorse, even pity. It’s what separates us from roaches.”

That’s a challenge, my friends. It’s uncomfortable to think about. I know many of you will disagree with it. But it resonates with me.

As most of you know, part of my day job is producing movies. Five years ago, I tried to get the film rights to the book Mountains Beyond Mountains. They were very uninterested. They were so focused on their mission, they felt that a movie would interfere with their service to their peopl. Eventually the organization came around – and began to consider it. (I may have harassed them a little.)

Finally – LATE 2009 – After an arduous interview and vetting process – against multiple formidable contenders – Partners in Health gave me and my partner director Kief Davidson the rights to make a documentary about their work. We were set to go to Haiti in February to shoot some footage and start trying to find the story.

And then the earthquake happened and the story found itself.

This will not be a movie about an earthquake or even a relief organization. I hope – and believe – it will be about a bold and courageous group of people who have committed to keeping their eyes and hearts to the reality of what CAN be done in the world- even if it’s more comfortable to think that “really, we’re doing what we can and poor people just have to die sometimes because it’s the way it goes.”

So Kief and I – and a stalwart tight crew of Dave Chameides (camera) and Scott Hanlon (sound) – are on a plane, heading to Haiti.

I won’t be saving lives. But hopefully I’ll be able to answer some of my questions by documenting the people who do – not just in a crisis – but everyday, with the way they’ve chosen to think and act and treat every person in the world as if they’re a member of their own family. Which, in essence, we all are.

Love, Peace,

Your Correspondent

Cori

PS – This article about a family that really is living the “solidarity” way gave me hope and made me wonder what more I’m able to give: http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/07/02/hunger.house/index.html