Education Haiti Project #8012

Nutritious meals for 200 disabled Haitian children

by The Red Thread Promise

Nutritious meals for 200 disabled Haitian children

Project Report | Apr 16, 2014
Food crisis at St. Vincent's continues

By Sonya Yencer | Vice President, The Red Thread Promise

Our hearts break a little more with each new conversation with Father Sadoni Leon (Director of St. Vincent’s Center for Handicapped Children in Port-au-Prince) only to hear that the food for the children at St. Vincent’s is becoming even more scarce. The Center—which serves as a dormitory, school and community for the deaf and blind as well as those missing limbs and children who have impaired cognitive abilities—lost it’s main food donor in 2013. Ever since, Fr. Sadoni has been working fervently to establish a new food source for the children so they can grow and thrive while in his care.

Currently, the residential students and the live-in caregivers receive two meals per day. The breakfast is light, usually bread and butter. Lunch consists of a single plate of beans and rice. All meal service for non-residential students (close to 200 children) has been put on hold with no reinstatement date in sight.

In an attempt to ward off hunger pains at bedtime, older residents—mainly teens and young adults—set aside a portion of their lunch to eat in the evening. The younger kids often don’t fare as well. No doubt it is difficult for the smallest ones to set aside part of their meal when their stomachs are still growling.

To add to their plight, the filter on the Center’s water purification system needed to be changed and the system shut down, cutting off the water supply. When the technician came to replace the filter, the custodian of the building wasn’t available so the water service has been temporarily interrupted. Thankfully, this should be rectified quickly, hopefully by the end of this week.

The situation is bleak now, but there is hope! Our partners from West Tennessee were at St. Vincent’s last week to provide well-child checkups and reported that the kids are still relatively healthy. They were kind enough to snap a few pics of the kids at lunch time which we share in this report. The kids’ spirits were high and, as usual, they thoroughly enjoyed having the US team in their midst for the week. They are doing remarkably well under the circumstances.

While a partnership of teams researches both aquaponic and aeroponic garden solutions for the Center’s long-term sustainability and to minimize future food shortages, there is still a real need to fill the children’s bellies. This, friends, is where your support is critical.

With your gifts to this project, we are able to continue to feed the children in the short-term. THANK YOU for both your gifts and sharing this need with others who may be in a position to help. Every gift counts.

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Jan 29, 2014
An inspirational teen gives to feed his peers

By Sonya Yencer | Vice President, The Red Thread Promise

Dec 17, 2013
Food crisis at St. Vincent's

By Sonya Yencer | Vice President, The Red Thread Promise

Food crisis in a nutshell

Have you ever tried to write something but the message is so upsetting that you can't get the words out adequately? That's the way we feel now as we share the severity of the food shortage at St Vincent's Center for Handicapped Children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The infographic as part of this report tells the story more succinctly than words.

Ever since a large international agency stopped supplying food to the Center without explanation, St. Vincent's administration has been working diligently to find a sustainable solution. Expenses have been drastically reduced and all available funds used toward food.

This critical shortage has even forced them to restructure who they feed and when. The current situation only provides food for 76 residential students and 10 residential staff on a rotating schedule. Loosely translated, that means they don’t get 3 simple meals of beans and rice every day – some days they do, but many times they do not.

Tragically, the Center's electricity was recently cutoff as they are unable to pay the growing debt. Instead, they have diverted those funds to buy beans and rice to feed the students.

In a recent correspondence, Father Sadoni, Director of St. Vincent's, stated:

Occasionally an agency gives us some rice and beans, but it is not enough to operate the Center. We have re-approached other agencies but without success. We are now truly breathless. All St. Vincent's input is spending in the food program. At the time I wrote this report to you, there is no electricity at St. Vincent's. We don't have enough money to pay the current debt. This is the first time since my ascent to the management of the Center that I find myself in such a situation. Despite these problems, I keep hoping that one day St. Vincent's will meet its needs and that there will be no debt to pay. And we could easily feed our children.

Our hearts are broken to hear these words and our compassion for these precious children brings us to action. We ask you for your continued support of this project and, in light of this new information, we hope that you make a commitment to help to a greater capacity. Finally, please share this dire need with others. If each of us shared this message with 10 friends / co-workers, what a difference we could make!!!

NO ONE should go without sufficient food – ever. Let’s do our part to feed the kids and start 2014 on a positive note for our brothers and sisters at St. Vincent’s.

As always, we appreciate any gift, large or small. Thank you!

St. Vincent's students during our trip in Nov '13

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