Favorite Things: The Apparent Project

November 13, 2009

If you’ve been following the A Year Without Clothes pledge, you know that part of my motivation for buying no clothes in the next year is a desire to spend less so I can give more. My charitable donations from the project will be going to The Apparent Project in Haiti — a small effort I wholeheartedly believe in.

The Apparent Project is run by two long-time friends, Corrigan and Shelly Clay. Togther with their children (biological and adopted), The Clay’s take care of young ones in Haiti, most of whom are ”orphaned” not because they are without parents, but because thier desperate parents could no longer feed them. In addition to taking care of the children who are already “orphaned”, The Apparent Project also works to create cottage industries for the mothers, so that abandonment will not be a necessity.

As artists, parents, and philanthropists, Shelley and Corrigan never cease to inspire me. Today in a guest post, Corrigan explains about the cost of living in Haiti, and connects the dots between our Year Without Clothes, and a Haitian child’s year with clothes.

A Year With(out) Clothes
by Corrigan Clay

“If you are poor things get cheaper.” This was the cosmic justice I created in my mind as a child. I think I developed it somewhere between being told that starving kids in China wanted to eat my cold asparagus, and finding out that a Mexican Peso was worth something like one gazillionth of a dollar. This misconception was further ingrained in my mind when “Third World” philanthro-tourist friends returned from their global treks talking about how they had paid a quarter for a handcrafted cardigan that “must have taken that lady 9 days to make.” Church youth groups would come back from missions trips rejoicing that they had built a house for somebody for a mere $100. Heartbreaking flies-on-kids infomercials for child sponsorship agencies would promise to feed and educate a child for only a dollar a day. All of this made me think that life in the Land of Naught must be pretty cheap….

Somehow I never really imagined what kind of school could be operated on the on my leftover change. If I had just pictured my shiny textbooks and my colorful jerseys and my Jostens graduation paraphernalia adorning some malnourished Guatemalan 9-year-old, I would have come to my senses. If I had known what my life was costing my parents, I may have figured out that my guilt-easing child sponsorship was not coming close to providing “Pepe’ the Impoverished” with anything close to my own lavish childhood. No, instead I could give my spare change and feel good that” Pepe’” wasn’t starving to death– just as long as I could imagine that a small bowl of rice would be fine for someone who had never been to Red Robin.

And you know what, that level of understanding was okay – when I was a child. Then I grew up. Then I moved to Haiti.

Haiti is the western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. And yet, other than repairing tire punctures every couple weeks, eating lots of rice and beans, and having to filter my own drinking water, my life is in many ways comparable to the life I lived in North America. I shop at a grocery store, occasionally go out to a restaurant, and meager bandwidth and power failures do not make Facebook any less addictive. But the surprising thing is my almost-North American lifestyle is not cheaper in Haiti. And neither is the cost of caring for dozens of orphaned kids and struggling families.

This is island living: everything is imported. Think Hawaii prices. Ninety percent of Haiti’s food comes from the Dominican Republic or the U.S. Fuel costs are high, port fees are the highest in the Caribbean, and electricity costs more in Haiti than in any other nation in the world. The only thing that is cheap is labor. Because most people have nothing and can afford nothing, they will do anything… for nothing. So exploitation and corruption abound, with the weakest and most dependent feeling the crunch the most. The truth is, for those in extreme poverty, having a buck is just having a buck… and one that doesn’t go as far at the merchant’s boutique as it would at Target.

Clothes here cost a lot. Unlike some of the agency commercials you might see on TV, here in Haiti we cannot outfit the orphaned kids we serve on mere pennies. We pay island prices for the basics. And we can’t feed them for a mere pittance. The price of a cup of coffee isn’t going to keep these kids clothed and fed. It’s going to take a little more.

This is why I love the Magpie Girl’s “A Year Without Clothes” project. First of all, it just kind of cracked me up because it made me think that people were committing to streaking for a year! (Nudity can save the world!). But more importantly, it helps subvert the insane waste and psychological warfare of the fashion industry. Better yet, those who contribute their saved funds to the Apparent Project can provide the startup costs for impoverished Haitian women to have their own businesses creating jewelry that will be sold to those fashionistas who have not chosen to give anything up… It’s like playing Robin Hood without having to wear (or buy) any green spandex! Everybody gets to contribute – whether they realize it or not!

So thank you, Magpie Girl readers, for experimenting with a different way of living. And thanks for donating from your clothing budget to our clothing budget. Your donation is an awesome cross-accounts transfer! (Just be careful with that nudity thing…we don’t want to have to post bail!)

Corrigan and Shelley Clay’s artful, joyous approach to working with Haitian families is an inspiration. From art lessons, to meals and clothing The Apparent Project is making a difference. To read more about what they are doing at the grassroots level, please visit The Apparent Project. Thanks for your support!