Breaking cycles of poverty, one community at a time

Cara Sottile had been doing humanitarian work in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake. In January 2019 she visited Damabiah Orphanage in Port-au-Prince and learned that the 75 children living there were eating and drinking only every two or three days. The compound had no running water, no electricity and no space to grow food. The school on its grounds was underfunded and barely operating. She went home to the United States and, working with her network in Haiti and friends in the U.S., organized a food delivery. Then another. To keep them going and to take on the problems underneath them, a board of directors was formed and One With Earth was born. Seven years later the deliveries still run every two weeks, and the work around them has grown: clean water and solar power at the compound, a school rebuilt and supported, medical care funded when a child needs it. Several young adults who grew up at Damabiah are now in college, including medical and dental school, with their tuition sponsored. None of that has happened in easy conditions. Political instability, gang violence and insecurity have made everyday life in Port-au-Prince dangerous and have made getting food and supplies in safely both harder and more expensive. The organization's steadiness through a pandemic, through rising costs and through countless logistical problems is the part Sottile is proudest of — along with the relationships built with children she has now watched grow up.