Earthquake Solidarity Project 4 Haiti by Haitians

Dear Friend,

Links:

• BBC Article on Current Situation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Dear Friends,

"Bon bagay" means good thing/stuff/actions in Haitian Creole. It's a compliment and a badge of accomplishment.

The situation in Haiti is still not 'good news', but we haven't given up. We don't plan on giving up and despite challenging logistics, we continue to move forward and to work with our communities to support themselves. Should we mention again that we are very grateful for your support? Yes, we should. There are so many good causes in the world and we appreciate your support and your commitment. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

Did you know that « espwa » means hope in Haitian Creole? When community leaders had to select a specific name for The Haiti Community Foundation in 2014, they insisted that espwa was part of it, thus Fondation Communautaire Haïtienne-Espwa, also known as the Haiti Community Foundation. Through years of community led planning with ESPWA, Inc being the agency coordinating the Haiti Community Foundation Initiative, “espwa” had been the rallying cry and brought to Haitian communities the hope that they could lead their communities and reach out for their dreams…

This update and photos will (we think) bring some hope and “lespwa” to Haitians and the many people around the world whose hearts belong to our island:-)

In Latibolière, working with the community, we are finishing up the reconstruction of the Latibolière Community Health Center thanks to the support of MedGlobal and Inter-American Foundation .

In Gran Vensan, Community Partner/grantee KPGV coordinated the transfer of goat offsprings from first community members who had benefited from the program to the second group of community program participants. What you have to know is that these farm animals are assets that help farmers to manage their key life events better. “Bèt se kanè bank peyizan” Animals are farmers’ bank account. Our thanks to GlobalGiving and their constant support for Haiti’s communities through thick and thin!

In Pestel, we’re finishing up the installation of a second community cistern that will go a long way in helping community residents to access potable water. They had lost all of their water infrastructure with the 2021 earthquake… We’re also going to work with them on the repair of their grand cistern that serve over 20,000 in Pestel and its surrounding communities. This work wouldn’t have been possible without the commitment of community organizers like Jackson who’d been at it relentlessly for over a decade. It wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Ocean Reef Community Foundation and Yurianna Mikolay who fully embraced our community-led approach.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the support and commitment of our Board of Directors, our hundreds of Community Network Leaders, our amazing staff, our institutional partners such as Fondation Sogebank and (you!!) our many loyal individual donors.

Mèsi anpil, anpil! Thank you so very much everyone!

#work #health #community #share #network #leaders #help #water #planning #infrastructure #nevergiveup

Bonjou zanmi nou, bonjour notre ami, good morning friend!

It’s time to thank you again for your support and tell you how your support is helping us work with Haitian communities to move them forward. Thank you friend! Mèsi anpil as we say in Creole. Things are challenging and worrisome in Haiti but we continue to move things forward. Life goes on and families still need to send their children to school and seek to secure a better future for them.

What have we done after the first response to the 2021 Earthquake? We did what we usually do, we worked with communities to figure out what their priorities were. We worked with community partners and local and global funders and partners like the Inter-American Foundation, Fondation Sogebank, Ocean Reef Community Foundation and GlobalGiving among others to help us support our communities.

As part of the community, we think long-term. We are here to stay. After we responded to emergency calls from communities like Pestel and Corail that had no water and lost 95% of their housing, we worked with our community leaders network to assess damages and put together a list of the most impacted communities. We then sat with these communities’ stakeholders to establish their priorities:

Support for school fees to families that were most in needs? In partnership with Fondation Sogebank, we helped 14 schools by providing them for scholarships for children whose families were unable to cover their tuition.

Water cisterns to help communities like Pestel get long-term access to water as many residents were desperate enough to have to get dirty and polluted water to meet their basic needs. We started the installation of two community water cisterns to serve the city. One cistern’s installation was finished last week. The second cistern’s installation is about to get done. We are also planning to repair the city’s central cistern that serves the city as well as its neighboring communities. It will serve over 25,000 community residents and their families.

The reconstruction of a health center in Latibolière. Jérémie that had been destroyed beyond redemption in on the way! Yay! Our thanks go to our partner MedGlobal working with us on this project. Please note that the community is contributing 10% of the costs of the project. Community residents were involved in every step of the project’s design and planning. This is what we call “community-led” reconstruction and development. This is what “Building Back Better” is supposed to look like!

There is much going on, and we are doing a lot with our limited resources. If you can, please, do give again, because many communities are left to fend for themselves and have no chance of recovery if we don’t lend them our support for their journey back to self-sufficiency. Do know that your support will go towards meeting the needs of the communities as they have identified them (not to what we think their needs are). Thank you again!

In solidarity,

The Haiti Community Foundation Network (ESPWA and Fondation Communautaire Haitienne-Espwa/The Haiti Community Foundation)

The August 2021 Haiti Earthquake did not just destroy the regions we serve; it broke our hearts! 

We've done our best throughout our past eleven years of working for and with Haitian communities to help them meet their dreams and find pathways to making their modest dreams a reality.  Hurricane Matthew had devastated the Grand Sud of Haiti in 2016.  A region crucial for Haiti's food security and its environment.  The region and the country had not quite recovered from Matthew when the earthquake hit.  Haiti has had to face countless issues for the past few years (if not to say the past decades).  It hurt.  We responded, because it is our country, our communities and because we can never stop caring.

We want to thank you, our supporters and donors for coming through for us in our time of needs.  We are also grateful for the hundreds of other institutional and individual donors who stepped up to the plate and offered their support and solidarity.  A special note of deep and warm thanks to the team of GlobalGiving who offered us unrestricted grants that allowed us to move fast and be there for our communities at the onset.  We are so grateful to all of you.  You support has been priceless.  We will never forget the ones who lent us a hand when this disaster struck us down and hurt our communities.

What have we done?  A lot. It's hard to describe the type of energy that our network poured into our disaster relief and transition efforts.  

We served more than 5,757 families or a minimum of 28,000 community members.  As per is our practice, we focused on the most affected communities and the most impacted families of these communities.  We worked with local authorities and local leaders to determine who needed the most help.

Communes helped: Jérémie, Roseaux, Marfranc, Corail and Pestel.  Pestel for example had lost 95% of their housing to the earthquake (the rest of the homes being structurally damaged).  They had no access to water.  People were sleeping in the street in Beaumont.  Thousands were hurt, dead.  Too many had lost everything.

Jérémie

-          Gébeau, mobile clinic: more than 600 patients

-          Haute Voldrogue: 125 families received food and hygiene kits

-          Haute Guinodée: 125 families received food and hygiene kids

-          Fourcand, Centre-ville: 50 families received food and hygiene kits

 -          Knowing that there will be a next disaster, we organized a training in first aid to 82 community leaders

Roseaux

-          Fon Kochon, Pousin, Bwa Sèk, Chaplèt: 150 families received food and sanitary kits

Marfranc

-          Ravin a Chal: we distributed food and hygiene kits to 50 families 

Corail

-          Pat laj, Boukan nwèl, Champy: 155 families received food and hygiene kits

Pestel

-          Kasavon Dezè, Madan dòm, Kasan, Nan Mizo: 205 families served with kits

-          Kafou Zaboka (Twou Bwa), 85 families received food and hygiene kits

Beaumont

-          St Martin, Terre Rouge, Bois Misket, nan Ginen: we distributed food and hygiene kits to 155 families 

The kits included:

-          Rice

-          Beans

-          Wheat flour and cornmeal

-          Cooking oil

-          Cans of salmon

-          Spaghetti

-          Sugar

-          Soap

-          Laundry soap 

-          Tampons 

-          Toothpaste

 Other actions:

-          Distribution of 37.000 gallons of water to Corail and Pestel.

-          Gifts of medication and medical supplies to hospitals and health centers in the following localities: Corail, Pestel, Lopineau, Sassier, Léon, Prévilé, Latibolière, Grand-Vincent et l’Hôpital Ste-Antoine de Jérémie.

We worked with AMAR, a humanitarian group from Puerto Rico to serve more than 600 community members in remote communities.  We hired a number of young people to support this initiative's logistics (translations and orientation of medical staff).

What are our next steps?  Reconstruction.  We held a regional meeting of community leaders on September 11 to figure out with them the communities' priorities.  Our plan reflects and integrates these priorities. We are working on more from installation of water cisterns in Pestel to the reconstruction of a health center in Latiboliere.  

Join us!  Support us!

With a million thanks to all of you,

The Haiti Community Foundation Network (ESPWA and the Haiti Community Foundation) on behalf of the Haitian communities that we continue to serve.