Everyone Can Be a Changemaker

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others” – Mahatma Gandhi.

Haiti has become the birthplace of countless changemakers, especially the unnamed heroes that have dedicated countless hours and effort working with nonprofits driven by a singular purpose of creating positive change in our world.

Changemakers
People like Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Jefferson, Mahatma Gandhi, Joan of Arc, and Alexander the Great effectively became changemakers. Their great accomplishments changed the world as they knew it in their time.

While all these listed names may be recognizable by just about anyone, what about the names of the people that helped these men and women become the historically famous changemakers we all know them to be?
See, I believe that it can take multiple changemakers working together behind the scenes that made it possible for Alexander the Great to become “Great” and for Martin Luther King Jr. to realize his dream.

International nonprofits are organizations dedicated to bringing like-minded people like those who joined in the changemakers’ mission, as mentioned earlier, that want to change their world regardless of age, gender, race, or popularity.

The Annual Natural Disasters of Haiti
Haiti has been the recipient of international nonprofits and local organizations for years and several reasons. Because of where the country of Haiti is located in the Caribbean region, they have suffered from a lot of natural disasters almost every year.

• Hurricanes
• Earthquakes
• Landslides
• Flooding
• Droughts

These natural disasters have been a yearly source of suffering for the various regions of Haiti. Not only does Haiti get hit with some variation of these natural disasters frequently, the damage they leave behind can be just as fatal as the initial disaster events themselves.

Almost 3,000 Haitians died back in 2004 when the country was hit by multiple major floods and left close to a third of a million people without homes and struggling to survive in broken-down hospitals severely damaged by the floods. These disasters also leave the country starving for food and water.

The worst part of these natural disasters that hit Haiti is the human factor. Haiti has in recent years become the target of political violence and localized urban gangs creating warfare in the streets.

This violence has made the everyday citizens of Haiti not only fear for their lives as they go about their daily business, but it has made getting basic human needs like food and water incredibly difficult because of various roadblocks that cause life-threatening delays of supply deliveries.

The Need for International Nonprofits to be Changemakers for Haiti

Because of all of the recent natural disasters and inner struggles with political violence and urban street gangs, the people of Haiti need outside help. They are unable to receive much help and support from within because of the scarce resources that survive the earthquakes and floods.
This is where international nonprofits can become changemakers for the people of Haiti.

Nonprofits have become the modern-day embodiment of positive change in the world. Meaning that the people involved with nonprofits are the active changemakers that volunteer their time, money, and effort out of the simple and pure desire to help those in dire need.

These charitable nonprofits have come to the aid of Haiti in all of their times of need.

They have fed them, bandaged their wounds, rebuilt their homes, educated, inspired, and cared for their children when they have been unable to do so themselves.

Without the aid of international nonprofit organizations, the people of Haiti would probably be in even more dangerous living conditions than they are now if they didn’t get the outside help that they needed when the earthquakes and floods came.

Just last year, in 2021, Haiti was hit by another large earthquake that was a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that left up to 10,000 people injured or worse and over a million people negatively affected by the earthquake and all of its collateral damage.

Although the people of Haiti are resilient people that continue to push forward after each and every natural disaster they are struck with, they still need outside assistance from international nonprofits and the changemakers that invest themselves into nonprofits.

There are currently five major relief nonprofits that came to the aid of Haiti after this most recent earthquake:

• CARE
• Ayiti Community Trust
• Capracare, Inc.
• Hope for Haiti
• Partners in Health

These five major nonprofits were able to step up to the plate and deliver the help that Haiti needed. These nonprofits are full of changemakers that saw an immediate need and were ready and able to assist.

This is what it means to be a changemaker.
Our world is full of people who can have their entire way of life destroyed at any minute of any day because of natural disasters and/or human-made disasters.

Any one of us could find ourselves in need of help from a stranger.
Being a changemaker doesn’t have to mean that you are the next Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, or Harriet Tubman. There are so many good people in this world that actively work towards bringing positive change to their neighborhoods and communities that will then cause a ripple effect.

One stone dropped in a pond may make a singular ripple effect, but when you have multiple rocks dropped into that same pond, it creates several ripple effects that can cause ripple effects to touch every corner of the pond.

The same can be said about the changemakers in our homes, neighborhoods, and cities.

While every now and then, the world is affected by the giant singular ripple effect made by one person doing extraordinary things. Imagine and think about the dozens, hundreds, and even thousands of ripple effects of positive change that could ripple throughout the entire world when everyday citizens of the world decide to be changemakers in their neighborhoods and communities.

Just imagine the amount of positive change this world could experience if hundreds and thousands of “average” people realized their potential to be a changemaker and then went out and began to make that change happen.