When I go to Haiti, in addition to my academic research I work with a very small NGO that deals with children who live in the streets, especially little girls, most of whom live in a cemetery. When the people who started the NGO asked me to meet with the person to whom they entrusted the daily work of helping the children and young persons, I did so and met a Salesian priest, Father Stra. He was very able to articulate his vocation to me and took me to visit all of his projects.

I met Father Stra in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, last March. As we crossed the town from north to south, we were stopped dozens of times by young men who manage small businesses (repairing tires on the roadside, selling basic goods to drivers, welding iron parts on the pavement) so they could greet Father Stra. Each learned his trade from him, at the Lakay Center he supervises—"Lakay" means "Home" in Haitian Creole.

Father Stra a man in his seventies with the energy of a dozen youth. He has lived in Haiti for 26 years, and before that he spent 20 years in Vietnam. He discovered his vocation when, after receiving his degree in engineering, he went to Vietnam for a year and joined a group of Salesians whose calling is education. He went back to his hometown of Turino, Italy to receive his religious training; once ordained, he returned to Vietnam to teach engineering to young Vietnamese men from disenfranchised families.

After working for a short time with Vietnamese refugee families in Los Angeles, he was posted in Haiti. There, in one of the poorest sections of Port-au-Prince, he manages a fairly big space. Besides the regular workshops for young men and women—complete with a daycare center—he welcomes about 15 young men of 14 years and older, who stay at Lakay to receive professional training instead of the jail terms they are supposed to serve.

He also supervises a small NGO program for young women trying to escape prostitution. Even more recently, he has opened Lakay to kids who literally live in the streets. Lakay provides them a shelter from the brutality of street life, if only for a few hours. Everyone can come, eat and wash, as long as they participate in the collectivity, even if it is with one "gourde" (the equivalent of a few cents). His only requirements are that no drugs and no guns are allowed in. He does fund-raising himself and lives in a spartan fashion as well. A humble man, he decided to open Lakay to street children after wondering why he always gave them a few cents to pacify them instead of listening to their needs. He is perhaps one of the very few who will dare cruise Port-au-Prince at night to chat with the little groups of teenagers haunting the city to make sure that have had enough to eat and that they are as safe as can be.

A teacher at heart, he is trying to give a community to all who come to him. Lakay lives with some of his principles, which he calls EPICES (Spices in French), an acronym that stands for spiritual, physical (including health), intellectual, creative, emotional and social education. A joyful soul himself, he has dedicated his life to heal the most destitute and to provide shelter with great care, ethics and endless work.