Get Involved
Become a Partner
Running Toward Urgent Spiritual and Physical Need
There are so many ways to become involved. If you are here in this section, you obviously are drawn toward service. You may be literally in preparation to embark on the path to a new found life in the service of others, our neighbors. Why do we serve others? Why do we go? There are many reasons… some of us are called by faith into His service… some are searching for greater purpose in their life… some begin with a good heart, good intentions, and a sense of adventure… for some it becomes a way to see where they can use their gifts and talents best… and yet others come to understand and help. There are many reasons for short term missions trips, but to sum it up, most of us go to meet urgent spiritual and physical needs; to bring love, life, and fellowship. When you run toward the need; when you show up… those you serve experience love, caring, knowing they matter, know that their struggle is important to you. When you stand before those in need with compassion, you are a true brother or sister. It makes a difference!
Short-Term Mission Trips
In the future; Empowering Partners will consider short term volunteers, in small groups. We can help you prepare for service in a variety of ways. Please contact us for more information and availability. We have seen short term mission service when properly prepared, specific in its purposes, and well planned by those with experience to be extraordinarily effective. Some of our purposes are listed below, others may need to be custom created for maximum provision and effect for all involved.
Participation: some areas to consider...
- Evangelism & Discipleship
- Construction Projects
- Provide Training in Specific Skills
- Professional Seminars
- Accounting Skills
- Marketing & Advertisement
- International Relationships & Culture
- Videography & Cultural Relationships
Empowering Partners Volunteer
There are many opportunities within the US to partner with us. Partners are important as our work continues to grow, thrive, and expand opportunities toward individuals and communities in Haiti. You can become part of the Empowering Partners team by participating in educating others about Haiti, its history, and its current needs. Other areas include Empowering Partners fundraising, team building, sponsorships, and introductions to churches or interested groups, as well as individuals. Empowering Partners desires creating and continuing partnerships with a diverse group of people and organizations who share our mission and philosophy. We believe one of our greatest strengths is being willing to listen to new ideas, and include the best into our framework of service. Please contact us to learn more about opportunities in partnership.
Corporate Partnership
We desire to grow stronger and more effective together with passionate corporate sponsors. Our corporate sponsors would see value in our mission and have a passion for eradicating poverty through education, skill-set training, and provision of opportunity. Often groups hope to make a big splash in community development… we believe that the hard work of relationship building, often focused on one individual, one family, one community at a time is most successful and sustaining. Elements of relationship including love, caring, trust, passion, common goals, and truth are not often easy or immediate. It takes time. It is the same with those we serve or with those whom we are partners. If you are a business that is already active in Haiti, or maybe you have had an ongoing desire to do more with what you have built, Please contact us to explore the possibilities! Together we are more effective…
A Sincere Thank you to our Corporate Sponsors
Scarmazzi Homes
Pittsburgh, PA
Wagner Family Eye Care
Seneca, PA
Sponsorship
Producing dignity in community and empowering individual lives through education and the creation of opportunity
What should sponsorship look like? Often sponsorship comes as a free gift bestowed upon an individual, “a hand out” if you will. At Empowering Partners we have often taken a different approach. Everything we do is centered on a few structured tenets. One of those is sustainability I know we all talk about this but how does it look in our efforts. That is the reason we look to sponsor our programs, instructors, or supplies rather than an individual. All of our programs are required to have a self-sustainable date. How do we accomplish this? There are a few different ways that may include, an affordable tuition a (personal investment), requiring successful graduates to “pay it forward” in a small yet significant way, salable items produced by discipline and those receiving instruction, and partners like yourself who chose to sponsor our programs on a monthly basis.
A sincere Thank you!... from all of us at Empowering Partners for considering becoming a volunteer, a short term missionary, corporate sponsor, or a sustaining sponsorship donor. We value your support and are ready to answer all of your questions, or provide you with specific related financials, including our budgets.
Donate
“Empowering Partners is dedicated in its goal to create sustainable opportunity for those living in a world where dignity, justice, and mobility is not always present for all people. We believe the most pressing need for the world is the life changing Gospel of Jesus Christ with its eternal impact and making disciples of all nations as Christ instructed us to do. Through Christ's love, mercy and grace, we extend opportunity, a true “hand up” in partnership with joint accountability so that individual lives, communities, and nations may be transformed."
A Hungry Ear
Our Vision
We believe that education and opportunity can enable an individual or a community to thrive and to plot a course toward a future where shared goals become realities. Our faith calls us to form goals founded in partnership with the culture we strive to empower. The opportunity created must be important to, meaningful for, and sustainable by those we serve, true transformation. All too many failures occur when the opportunity is either not properly defined, the vision is not sustainable, and / or the community does not see the value in it. We require partnership with accountability; anything less is a disservice to those who provide and also to those who receive. Partnership is mutual love in action; accountability is the obedience to God’s plan. Empowering Partners strives for a future where all people feel empowered through opportunity to chart a course forward that includes dignity, justice and a shared sense of community.
Haitians today
...malnourished
and severe food insecurity
...of 189 countries
lacking water, electricity, sanitation, and healthcare
...of children perish
due to preventable disease
Education in Haiti Today
The education system in Haiti today does not provide an education for all children. In the US and much of the developed world basic public education is a “right” of all citizens, it is not decided by ones social status, wealth, or gender. While there are a few government run schools, most schools are privately owned and operate under the Haitian governments regulations. There are times when the country is stable that the government may provide programs that assist in provision of food service or some monetary support. This is usually absent and schools must do their best to provide all services, teaching salaries, supplies, any meals, and any possible activities such as music, sports, or intro to computer. Providing a consistent, well rounded, and contemporary education is an extraordinary challenge in Haiti. Unfortunately when you live in generational abject poverty you are presented with harsh choices and a stark reality. You may have to choose between education and nutrition, between education and seed to plant crops, you may have to determine which one of your four children has the best chance of succeeding at school. Empowering Partners understands that while the unskilled labor market is saturated, those with a professional technical skill in the trades, coupled with opportunity begin to thrive through hard work and dedication.
...Haitians live on
less then $2 per day
unemployment
Skills
...in a trade
...lead to opportunity
A Hungry Ear Cannot Hear
The statement "a hungry man has no ears" is often attributed to an unnamed missionary in Africa, but also is close in meaning to a worldwide proverb "a hungry belly has no ears", or “ a hungry ear cannot hear” Either way, the principle remains the same. A hungry person, a hungry student cannot hear.
Obviously, a hungry person is most likely not physically without ears. The statement is a figurative one. Whether the message be the gospel, school work, or parents instructions, a person with an empty tummy has no concern other than satisfying the relentless hunger. Most of us have never known hunger. Many of us who live comfortably have used the expression, “I’m starving”. From what we see in a country like Haiti most of us have absolutely no idea, no conception of real hunger. About 50% of Haitians live today in severe food insecurity. As you work and live with our brothers and sisters you come to know that many only eat once a day. The “hungry ear” illustration is useful when evaluating the relationship between evangelism, education, and creation of opportunity in mission work In many areas where abject poverty persists there are accounts of putting a little salt under ones tongue to stave off the pain of hunger, even ingesting a bit of earth off the family floor in search of some nutrients.
Now that you know that in the communities all across Haiti there are many kids and adults in acute food insecurity. What will you do in this situation?
***Would you conduct a Bible drive in the United States and ship the Bibles down?
***Would you reach out to understand how to join in a feeding program that at the same time addresses real issues in crop production through education, irrigation, and more productive methods?
What if you had more information... like the literacy rate in Haiti is about 60% and lower in the rural more impoverished communities. What if you knew many adults cannot read well and neither can many of their children in this place who are malnourished and undereducated.
***Does this change what you might do?
***Would you consider partnering with a group like EmpoweringPartners to become a monthly sponsor of a program that provides international level skills and opportunity for a family to feed itself?
***Will you take the time to help feed and educate this generation? Will you tell others?
***Do you have the willingness to give the gift of time, talent, or resources as a volunteer at EmpoweringPartners?
Do you want to build a relationship with other brothers and sisters across the world; one that creates a trust and sees Jesus in you? Or do you just want to hand the Bibles out, preach a bit, give an altar call and head out since there are many more souls to save?
These words may sound harsh, but this either/or argument within Christianity about evangelism or social work is simply absurd. Unequivocally, we must care for a person's physical needs as we take the Great Commission and beautifully allow God to weave these two mandates together in a way that only He can do.
Have you ever sat through a class that’s right before lunch, staring at the second hand on the clock, imagining you're crunching on chips? Watching that clock becomes far more important than French or algebra.
For too many kids in the world, their first meal of the day is dinner. Lunchtime doesn’t mean relief from chronic hunger, and that hunger drastically impacts the way children learn.
It turns out hunger doesn’t just affect how we learn or pay attention in school – it also affects how well our brain works or develops. A healthy brain uses 20% of the body’s energy, and energy comes from food. That means that hunger starves the brain. Children who are malnourished fall behind in school because they can’t concentrate or they often miss classes to help the family put food on the table. Is it really surprising that it is difficult to learn (an essential part of ending poverty) when your body needs all the energy it can get just to get to school? With proper nourishment, children are able to learn and grow, sometimes even going on to become teachers themselves.
With your help, families are equipped to grow healthier, more abundant crops and livestock to feed her family and generate income. Unfortunately, that's not always enough. When families and communities need more immediate assistance to get started or withstand life's setbacks, World Vision and many others, ensures there are safety nets in place, like school feeding programs, emergency food supplies when there's a disaster, and special assistance for vulnerable groups, such as the sick, elderly, orphaned, pregnant/lactating mothers and young children.
In a HungerFree world, children are able to grow and learn the way they should.
A HungerFree world means everyone gets enough food for both today and tomorrow. It means families can become self-sufficient through the skills, education, and productive assets.
A HungerFree world means they can be hungerfree for a lifetime.
That world doesn’t have to wait. This is our time to make it happen, our time to boldly embody change. Will you join the voices calling for better?
Brought to you by: World Vision
