Haiti

In March, I took another trip to Haiti to check on five of the 35 schools operated by Haiti Education Foundation (HEF) in the South Mountains of Haiti. HEF is mostly supported by Presbyterians across the US and works through the Episcopal Church, Diocese of Haiti.

  1. The private sponsors for St. Philippe & St Jacques in Petite Riviere are collecting funds from friends and family to begin construction of a cistern and rooftop rainwater collection system, plus a new toilette for the students and staff.
  2. The Virginia church sponsor for St. Timothy at Larevoir plans to repair the water treatment plant and hopes to give the school a good coat of paint (with assistance from the community) when they visit in November.
  3. A new church sponsor near Morgantown, WV brought their backpacking tents and hiked into the mountaintop village of Gazou, to stay with the students and their families and repair St Croix (Holy Cross) primary school, following destruction from the 2010 earthquake, then 2016 Hurricane Matthew. The sponsors greatly impressed their Haitians partners!
  4. I met with a Haitian building contractor to scope out work on the St Andre school in Cavanack, a mountaintop village that reminds me of Switzerland with its beautiful vistas. This school is badly in need of a new building, as the original has gradually degraded after earthquakes and hurricanes. To house its growing population of students, a new building will need nine rooms and cost $90,000. We’re trying to raise the money in bits and pieces or find a sponsor.
  5. The last project I checked on is near and dear to our hearts, as it’s the mother ship for all the other 34 HEF schools, and one of the top performing schools academically in Haiti. St. Matthias School in Cherident is home to the wonderful parish priest, Father Frederick Menelas. Both the elementary and the high school buildings were completely destroyed in the earthquake and the students have been meeting in makeshift structures ever since, as they are large schools and thus expensive to rebuild. HEF first plans to raise $100,000 to rebuild the high school, so the contractor and I spent several hours looking over options as to where to most practically build the school. We are prayerful that the money will eventually be raised for this project.

I welcome your prayers and questions! If you’d like to know more about our work in Haiti or about HEF (haitifoundation.org), please email me at rob@rvwc.com.

 

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