Season of giving

In this season of thanksgiving lets give thanks, and never cease to give and give thanks. May it be a practice in all seasons. Yesterday I read a New York Times article that inspired a poem:

Giving Service Humanity

Young girls in Haiti keep fighting to stay in school
Respect to the mothers who spend more than a third of their income on their child’s education because the government won’t
Honor for the spirits who left January 12, peace to those who stayed
Survivors of broken systems and disappearing bank accounts
Amid singing voices, hearts of love unite
School directors keep fighting to keep school doors open
The revolving door to education, only closes when people stop caring, when they loose hope
But girls in Haiti haven’t, they are hoping for more
Caroline plans to put herself at the service of her country, and perhaps humanity
She is fighting for reform, she is reform
Young girls in Haiti keep fighting to stay in school
But the buildings are falling, they’re still unsafe threatening to close the doors
School directors keep fighting to stay open, continue to build tents if you have to so they could stay in school
From girls to ribbons to young women in lip gloss, books, traumas, loss,
Young girls in Haiti need more support, need us to care, need us to pray, need us to act, need us to know
Education to rights, rights become privilege, where is la esperanza?
In Haitian young women fighting to stay in school

Many girls in Haiti are returning to school the mass earthquake of January 12, that toppled many buildings in the nation's capitol. For ten months, the education of Haitian children has moved from suspension, to finicky, to mediocrely steady. Many schools are still afraid to operate on substandard conditions of unsafe buildings. This is the struggle for one Catholic school in Haiti that educates young girls. What the girls and young women want more than anything is an unstable education. We must keep the young women of Haiti who want to be in school, who want to continue to learn, who want to continue to balance books and a social life, like many young women do, have that right. But overall, we must care enough to act, what will you do for Haiti's girls and young women who want to go to school, but are fighting for a precarious human right.