Winter 2023 / Honoring our Clever students
Forever’s Haiku:
Papa Noel likes
La neige, le jour de noel
Et les miracles
Grady’s Haiku:
Papa Noel loves
L’hiver, les bonhomme cookies
Et Joyeux noel
Aaliyah’s Haiku:
Papa Noel likes
To say Joyeux Noel et
Manger bonnhomme d’epice
As this project wraps up its fourth year, our Team pauses to reflect on all of the challenges and chances we’ve enjoyed in the process of bringing the Clever Chicas mission to life. Good news: once again, the chances far outweighed the challenges!
Four years ago, the daily kindness of strangers in North and South America, the Caribbean, and Europe inspired a mother and her son to say ‘thank you.’ This was pre-Covid-19, when we all entered stores without concern for each other’s health status. We travelled the world freely without worrying about masks or hand sanitizer. And stickers were the rage. All over the world, we noticed people putting up stickers to promote a wide variety of ideals.
So we joined the craze, creating our Clever Chicas stickers and offering each Patron of our project three stickers—one to keep and two to share to others who were kind to them. Over the last four years, this simple idea of growing the project has been realized in some of the most improbable and magical connections.
For example, when celebrating one Chica in a Georgia store, she recognized the project when she saw the sticker, noting that her friend in Colorado had also been recognized and had told her about the movement.
When we recognized another in Washington, DC, she’d seen the sticker in the Caribbean on a vacation and noticed it because the owner, a kind shopkeeper with a Chica heart, was so good to her and her granddaughter.
Four years later, we still share stickers for those who are kind to us for no other reason than that is the cut of their jib. They are kind, and it comes out no matter the context. We are proud to recognize the compassion with our words and our Project. But we’ve added a lot along the way through those connections made with stickers and ‘chance’ meetings.
We are in our second year of monthly lessons on language and culture with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Northwest Georgia. In those meetings, some of the most creative elementary and middle school students in the American South gather with open hearts and critical minds to learn more about language and how to make their local communities stronger and better through their actions. Each month, we get to watch these young people assume the agency they are born to, and each month, they remind us of the agency this collaboration returns to the Project in kind.
As we head to Christmas, we celebrate this month with Christmas traditions in France and French Polynesia, learning basic French vocabulary words of the season from both regions, then comparing and contrasting their traditions to those in Northwest Georgia to remember that we are all richer by learning more about our fellow man. The culmination of that Wednesday afternoon event is shared below, the haikus generated by the group. May these poems and the amazing young people who created them serve as the light to take us to 2023 and beyond.