Helping in Haiti
Helping Haiti Help Themselves
Sts. Peter & Paul, together with St. Francis Xavier Parish (Poseyville, IN), St. Wendel Parish (St. Wendel, IN) and Zion Lippe United Church of Christ (Mt. Vernon, IN) provides resources and support to Haitian communities. Our parishes support St. Albert the Great, a Catholic parish located in the small town of Ravine Trompette in the northern mountains of Haiti and 1,000 students studying at the local Catholic schools of Notre Dame de Grace and St. Cyprian. St. Albert the Great is a Catholic parish comprised of about 2,300 parish families and 700 students at the Notre Dame de Grace parish school. St. Cyprien is a Catholic parish located in the mountains 5 miles from Ravine Trompette. There are about 400 parish families and 250 students. Father Marcel Javier, a native Haitian from Boyne, Haiti serves as pastor for both parishes.
Priorities
Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. Most Haitians, especially those living in the rural northern mountains do not have access to basic human needs. There is no consistent government assistance for food, clean water, healthcare, education and employment. Together with our partner parishes, we focus on the following priorities:
Nutrition: Each student receives a simple rice and bean lunch each day at school. Most students take half of the lunch home to share with other family members who may not get any other food. For $60 per year, one student can be fed.
Clean Water: Water samples from the previous water sources did not come close to meeting water cleanliness standards due to extreme contamination. Everyone from the schools, parish and town now have access to clean drinking water from two purification and pumping systems that have been established.
Healthcare: Through Haiti Helping Themselves, we support a parish clinic staffed with a doctor, pharmacist and nurses. In addition to the clinic, health mission trips for dental, vision, women's health, intestinal health and hypertension have helped improve residents improve their health. The emotional success stories of people being able to see family members' faces for the first time in decades, being able to chew food without pain and able to get out of bed and work pain-free demonstrate the importance of our work in Haiti.
Education: Student are able to better focus on learning when they have access to food, water and healthcare. The addition of 8 classrooms with insulated walls and ceilings, give students a learning environment that is earthquake and hurricane resistant. Notre Dame de Grace School was recently recognized as the fifth best school in northern Haiti and is attracting tuition-paying students from nearby towns.
Reliable Energy: A large network of solar panels and battery storage provide cheap and reliable electricity for the school and parish. Access to electricity is not taken for granted in Haiti, and the students and parishioners appreciated dependable lighting during school and Sunday Mass.
Faith: St. Albert the Great is full of faithful and inspiring Catholics. The success of Helping Haiti Help Themselves helps residents focus more on God and less on the worry of meeting basic human needs. Haitian parishioners know that God had not forgotten them; the support of our southern Indiana parishes helps them to know that the world hasn't forgotten them either.
Nutrition: Each student receives a simple rice and bean lunch each day at school. Most students take half of the lunch home to share with other family members who may not get any other food. For $60 per year, one student can be fed.
Clean Water: Water samples from the previous water sources did not come close to meeting water cleanliness standards due to extreme contamination. Everyone from the schools, parish and town now have access to clean drinking water from two purification and pumping systems that have been established.
Healthcare: Through Haiti Helping Themselves, we support a parish clinic staffed with a doctor, pharmacist and nurses. In addition to the clinic, health mission trips for dental, vision, women's health, intestinal health and hypertension have helped improve residents improve their health. The emotional success stories of people being able to see family members' faces for the first time in decades, being able to chew food without pain and able to get out of bed and work pain-free demonstrate the importance of our work in Haiti.
Education: Student are able to better focus on learning when they have access to food, water and healthcare. The addition of 8 classrooms with insulated walls and ceilings, give students a learning environment that is earthquake and hurricane resistant. Notre Dame de Grace School was recently recognized as the fifth best school in northern Haiti and is attracting tuition-paying students from nearby towns.
Reliable Energy: A large network of solar panels and battery storage provide cheap and reliable electricity for the school and parish. Access to electricity is not taken for granted in Haiti, and the students and parishioners appreciated dependable lighting during school and Sunday Mass.
Faith: St. Albert the Great is full of faithful and inspiring Catholics. The success of Helping Haiti Help Themselves helps residents focus more on God and less on the worry of meeting basic human needs. Haitian parishioners know that God had not forgotten them; the support of our southern Indiana parishes helps them to know that the world hasn't forgotten them either.
Helping Haiti Help Themselves
To help support our Haiti ministry work, the following programs help provide the necessary resources to support our priorities:
- Die Kirche Auktion Fest Funded Item: Sts. Peter & Paul designates the funded item at the end of the Die Kirche Auktion to support our efforts in Haiti.
- Education: Sts. Peter & Paul partners with St. Francis Xavier to provide $5,000 from our financial budget to improve education in Ravine Trompette.
- Helping Haiti Help Themselves: Our goal is to help Haiti start to end the cycle of poverty. In 2015, a pay-it-forward yam farming program was established that gave 25 families from St. Albert the Great Parish starter plants to grow. After about 9 months, they use the mature yam plants as food for their families, sell them at the market for income, and give a portion of the harvest to new families as starter plants. The program is designed to grow each year without additional financial investment. The farmers created a co-operative organization and inspect each other’s progress and monitor their sharing.
- Mission Trips: The goal of each mission trip is to focus on short-term and long-term needs and solutions.
- School Food Program: Parishioners from Sts. Peter & Paul participate in a sponsorship program to help feed the 925 students at Notre Dame de Grace and St. Cyprian schools. The cost to feed one child is about $5 per month. This provides each student with one meal per day of rice and beans. Our goal is to achieve annual contributions for the total parish of $10,000. This level of contribution would feed 200 students per year or about 22% of the total need with St. Francis Xavier covering the rest. The hunger of the students in Haiti cannot be described with words as they sometimes eat mud to stop the pains. The comfort of daily nutrition helps them focus on their school activities.
