Bob Davisson

Building schools and hope in Haiti

It’s impossible not to marvel at the optimism in Bob Davisson’s voice when he speaks about Haiti, whose capital, Port-au-Prince, was left in ruins after last January’s earthquake. “People ask me, ‘How are things in Haiti?’ And I say, ‘I see progress!’” Hard not to marvel because where others see setback, Davisson, who’s been opening schools in Haiti since early 2006, sees hope and possibility.

The retired business-man and former RCMP officer is a full-time volunteer with Lifeline Haiti, an organization he founded with his wife in 2007. With 56 schools in 51 locations, Lifeline is increasing access to education in a country where only 50 percent of children go to primary school, and less than two percent graduate high school. More than 13,000 are enrolled in schools either built by Lifeline or opened in an existing facility.

Only one, says Davisson, sustained damage during the earthquake. Yet Lifeline isn’t just opening schools—it’s working to fund their operation. When Davisson isn’t in Haiti, where he spends four to six months a year, he’s home in Medicine Hat, Alta., raising capital. The goal is to have enough money to pay every teacher, he says, and to ensure every child gets one hot meal a day—something Lifeline isn’t yet able to do. “We’d be providing four million meals this year if we could. For many, when they go home on Friday, it’s their last hot meal until Monday.”

If a generation of children are educated, Davisson believes Haiti can break the cycle of poverty that has plagued it for decades. “To change the country we have to change the children growing up now—this generation who’ll be the next leaders. If we teach them leadership and entre-preneurship, it gives them a chance to get out of that $1-a-day job most people have here.”

In that spirit, Lifeline also provides micro-loans for businesses (71 so far), and is opening a cinder block factory to generate both jobs and revenue. Poverty is not foreign to Davisson. Raised by a single mother in Saskatchewan, in a house without water or electricity, and besieged by lung dis-ease that almost cost him his life, he sees himself in the children of Haiti.

Though his mother eventually married, he never forgot what struggle can claim of childhood. “I understand what these chil-dren feel, and believe what I went through was to prepare me for this.” Yet, despite all this, Davisson says luck has been a friend. When his lung disease unexplainedly disappeared, he saw it as a sign. “Suddenly the blinders came off, and I could see that even if I saved one child—well, what’s the value of one child’s life?”

-Deborah Sanborn