28. The Other Side of the Story: A Caregiver & Resident Share Their Orphanage Tourism Experiences with David Sanon & Steph DeLuca Robinson

Jan 22

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Stitcher

Overview

It is critical to center the voices of lived experience experts in any human rights conversation. This episode is sure to give you pause at different moments, as David Sanon shares his experience growing up in a boarding school in Haiti, where American donors sponsored his education. After meeting Steph DeLuca Robinson and other trusted partners, he found an opportunity to lead and develop his fellow Haitians into independent, sustainable solutions that promoted their freedom from foreign money.

If you are currently sponsoring an ‘orphan’ or an ‘orphanage’ somewhere in the world, don’t listen to this episode unless you are open to having your perspective rattled by the childhood experience of institutionalized care.

“When I was younger, teams would come in and say, ‘We’re here to see the orphans,’ And I thought, ‘The foreigners are here. Jesus is here. God is here.’”
- David Sanon

“Haiti is full of good, caring, hard-working, image bearers. That is the Haiti I know, and it’s people like David and others we’ve started this with who will be the catalysts for change there.”
- Steph DeLuca Robinson

“This is something I want to make sure the Church in America understands…that for our money and our resources, it is VERY important how we use that. The same people who are going to fund an orphanage in Haiti are the same people who would be horrified by the issue of human trafficking or by the issue of loneliness and isolation as a young adult.”
- Lauren Pinkston

Episode Highlights

4:35 - How David and Steph met and eventually founded Konbit

10:00 - What is misunderstood about Haiti + David’s story

15:30 - How the phrase “White Saviors” relates to David’s Story

20:48 - A formal apology from Lauren in the way she engaged with Haiti in the past

22:09 - Attachment issues with institutionalized care

29:10 - The cost of orphanages > Supporting parents

33:18 - Sexual abuse in orphanages and sex trafficking once a kid ages out

26:16 - Isolation and the prevalence of suicide after youth exit care

38:05 - Why Konbit supports families instead of children

42:43 - David’s hope for Haiti

Links