May 2016 3D printers and more in Haiti and New Orleans

Sticking Up For Children took a few giant steps forward during May 2016 in terms of what we're able do with our youth-education partners in Haiti and New Orleans.

The month included delivery of Creator Pro 3D printers to the Kuumba Institute in New Orleans and the FEPE orphanage/EPE school in Port-au-Prince. We also brought

a Flashforge Creator Pro 3D printer to College Canapé-Vert in Haiti.

Also, we began active partnership with e-NABLE, Ultimaker and Healing Hands of Haiti. We expect that within one month teachers and students among our partnbers will be making prosthetic upper limbs through 3D printing.

Also, thanks to the initative of Jeff Campbell of Hungry for Music and the generosity

of trumpeter/composer Nicholas Payton, SUFC was able to help with purchase of

an Englehardt bass for 16-year-old Jabair Phillips as he enters the New Orleans College of Creative Arts. The Phillips family in New Orleans have been stalwart

and very able contributors to SUFC.

Also, we had another fine Music & Arts Day at the Ashé Cultural Arts Center. Master drummer Fanfan Damas of Haiti gave us rhythms that inspired several pairs of splendid drumsticks-as-art.

Also, out of the blue, we received photos from SUFC's co-founder Cyril Neville of spectacular "Crazy Hats" created by three of his and Gayneille's grandchildren:

Ari, Ailani, and Cyri.

Here are Jabari and his grandmother Sheila Phillips with his Englehardt bass. Much credit for his advancement into NOCCA goes to Make Music NOLA and its director Laura Patterson and Jabari's particular teacher Grayson Hackelman. Photo by Maryse Déjean beside the Phillips' house in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward.

Here are Kesha McKay and Frederick "Hollywood" Delahoussaye of the Kuumba Instiute of the Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans, with Carol Bebelle and Viola Johnson of the Ashé, Charles Jones of the architectural firm One to One, and

SUFC's own Gaynell, with the FlashForge Creator Pro 3D printer set up on May 14 for the Kuumba's art students' resourcefulness and creativity.

On Msy 14 we also did a Music & Arts Day in partnership with Kuumba in the Ashé's Big Room. Master drummer Fanfan Damas of Haiti and the Ashé Luther Gray helped with rhythms. Students and our old friend saxophonist Matthew Shilling, founder of the New Orleans Youth Sound Experience classes in sound-engineering, excelled.

Hard at work, making drumsticks-as-art!

Fanfan Damas, drummer and artist!

Matthew Shilling, showing his keen eye and drumsticks-as-art with their superb aesthetics and

phenomenal exactitude.

We went on to Haiti after Atlanta and (for me) Austin. Here are Maryse Déjean, our inspiration and Director of Operations for Sticking Up For Children, with Mireille Chéry, Adminstrator for College Canapé-Vert in Port-au-Prince, the Creator Pro that we brought to the College and its 500 students, May 27, 2016.

Maryse Déjean and Mirielle Chéry with Creator Pro brought to College Canapé-Vert.

College Canapé-Vert is headed by Maryse's aunt, Madame Marie-Marthe Franck Paul. Mme Paul founded CCV in 1974 and has seen the College graduate more than 20,000 students. She was Mayor of Port-au-Prince between 1986 and 1989. She's author of a four-language textbook that serves 110,000 students in Haiti. The Le Nouvelliste newspaper in Haiti profiled her on her 80th birthday this past April. You can read the profile here--http://lenouvelliste.com/lenouvelliste/article/157884/Mme-Franck-Paul-80-ans-aujourdhui

Mme Marie-Marthe Balin Paul at age 80 in Le Nouvelliste

Mme Paul is one of the great people in the world, I think, and SUFC is honored and very, very pleased to now be partner with College Canapé-Vert. For another coincidence, Mme Paul was teacher to Marie-Jo Poux, founder of the FEPE orphanage and one more of the world's great people, decades ago.

May 27 we also met with Dante Verostas and Joe Fairley of the eNABLE team at at the headquarters of Healing Hands for Haiti. Pierre Mendez Roseau of College

Canapé-Vert joined us there to immediately begin his education in 3D printing of

prosthetic hands.

On Saturday afternoon, May 28, we got to reconnect with students of the FEPE orphanage and EPE School. We delivered a Creator Pro 3D printer to the EPE school.

Students sang, spoke, and performed skits to celebrate the occasion. We were again

amazed by staff and student of FEPE and EPE. There's potential beyond measure from the light in their eyes.

Dashna, singer

Manaelle, speaker

Samuel, actor

Jonathan Saintiné, a teacher of FEPE and EPE, students wtih one Maryse names another 'young star'

Sunday morning and Monday morning, May 29 and May 30, Jonathan and his EPE/FEPE colleague Claudine Aimé were present at Healing Hands of Haiti with Pierre Roseau of College Canapé-Vert and more than half-a-dozen more volunteers,

learning how to 3D-print and assemble eNABLE and Victoria hands from Joe and Josh and Dante. Jonathan, Claudine, and Mendes were all given permission by their schools to attend the workshop. All were essentially volunteers.

Jonathan Saintiné and Claudine Aimé, facing upward in foreground, with Pierre Mendes Roseau,

and Canadian instuctor Joe among prosthesists in training at Healing Hands of Haiti, 5/29/2016

Just before Maryse and I left for Haiti, May 24, Cyril Neville e-mailed us photos of

the 'Crazy Hats' that grandchildren Ari, Ailani, and Cyri had created. They're donating these spectacular beauties to benefit Sticking Up For Children.

Sticking Up For Children is more than blessed by the adults and children who work with us. The more that we continue to help one another move forward, the more certain it is that we'll win a whole, new future.