Video: School educates youth, lifts community in Haiti

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Haití-República Dominicana: 700 trabajadores migrantes haitianos autorizados para regresar a RD

Ouanamithe-Dajabón) 8 de febrero de 2013 — Hoy la ciudad de Ouanaminthe en Haití amanece con una buena noticia: luego de un mes de espera, 700 trabajadores migrantes haitianos que habían quedado varados al norte de la frontera haitiano-dominicana  recibieron ayer sus pasaportes debidamente sellados con visas dominicanas.

Hoy pueden cruzar de manera legal el puente fronterizo, ubicado sobre el río Masacre que separa ambos países, para volver a sus puestos de trabajo en República Dominicana.

Esta decisión que beneficia a esos trabajadores migrantes haitianos es resultado de un acuerdo al que llegaron las autoridades de ambos países, bajo la mediación del director de Solidaridad Fronteriza del Servicio Jesuita a Migrantes (SJM), el Padre jesuita Regino Martínez Breton.

School educates youth, lifts community in Haiti

A two-year commitment and $225,000 from Jesuit Refugee Service/USA is enabling a new preschool here to provide education, and nutritious meals, to more than 195 students.

A group of Catholic nuns from the Carmelitas de La Caridad de Vedruna order had been providing the service to 60 children, but with the help of JRS they’ve been able to expand the educational program. Classes were once held in the community chapel, but the new school just outside of the town center opened last September. In addition to the classroom block, a latrine was built, and a well for fresh water.

Fond Parisien is located only about one and a half hours from the Haitian capital of Port au Prince, and saw an influx of displaced families from the capital following the January 2010 earthquake.

“When we began thinking about this project we realized there was no preschool; schooling began here at the elementary level. They were forgetting about the most basic education. We saw a gap,” said Sr. Nuria, one of the school founders.

Read the full story on the Jesuit Refugee Service/USA website: bit.ly/Honti2

Pre-school nutrition program aids Haitian town

Jesuit Refugee Service is seeking to provide a head start to students in Fond Parisien, Haiti, a small town near the border with the Dominican Republic.

While bolstering the ability of children to succeed in future educational pursuits, the early childhood education program also acts as a protection mechanism for these young Haitians.

For more information about our programs in Haiti, please visit our website jrsusa.org or bit.ly/n4updB

For Haiti, clean water is life

Clean water for consumption and irrigation is the goal of a new project sponsored by Jesuit Refugee Service in the mountains of Haiti.

Organized by Catholic nuns to supply fresh and clean water to the community, a pipe will transfer water from higher in the mountains to stone cisterns were it can be stored, before then being piped further down the mountainside to the central community and surrounding fields.

“The place we used to drink water from before, pigs and piglets used to be in that water. All the animals were drinking there, and doing whatever there. Sister Maria saw that, and said if we didn’t have clean water all the children are going to die,” said Ereze Prophétte.

The irrigation systems allow local farmers to have a steady supply of water for their fields and additionally allow local residents to have community gardens and gardens outside their own homes to grow their own food; altogether these efforts work toward restoring the livelihood of the community. For the Dominican Sisters water is a major catalyst for community organizing and change.

“We’ve proposed that there be no people living near or animals kept around the source of the water, this will help keep the water clean. A pipe will carry the water from the source to a cistern, and there will be a purification process before the water is held in the cistern,” said Sr. Maria.

“Farmers will have clean water to protect their families’ lives. The people here will be able to have their own gardens in front of their houses.”

Learn more: jrsusa.org/haiti

Los Cacaos: Road to Clean Water

A new project spearheaded by Catholic nuns and sponsored by Jesuit Refugee Service aims to bring healthy water and reliable irrigation to this mountain village in central Haiti.

Los Cacaos is located near Banica in the Dominican Republic. The area is parched and dusty during the dry season, and muddy and dangerous when tropical storms lash the countryside. The area was nearly impassable before the nuns arrived and bulldozed more than 23 miles of roads through the rocky mountains.

“The nuns came to help us, especially with the road. This is one of the greatest things we’ve ever had,” said Ereze Prophétte, 62, of Los Cacaos.

“Before the road we used to have a lot of problems here. When a woman was pregnant and ready to give birth, but had problems, we had to take that woman on a chair or a kind of hammock and get her to Banica,” said Desinard Oracius, 52. “By the help of God, and of Maria, we have this road today. Trucks can get to us, and take us when we have to get to a hospital.”

Learn more by reading the full story at jrsusa.org/haiti

School project provides hope for Haitian migrant children in the Dominican Republic

Outside this small town on the southern coast, Jesuit Refugee Service is supporting an education project of the Altagracia Parish in the Diocese of Barahona. Two migrant worker villages in the area are home to Haitians and Dominican-born persons of Haitian descent. Following the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti the area witnessed an influx of Haitians displaced by the natural disaster.

ALCOA once operated a large bauxite mine in the area, and the road they built for the mine still provides the main access to the inland area, but the mine closed in 1982. Although odd formations still dot the landscape, nature has mostly covered the mine’s scars and the overall view of green mountains descending gently to the blue Caribbean Sea is a tranquil one. But life here can be far from tranquil.

“Haitian migrant life here is very difficult,” said Fr. Antonio Fernandez Rodriguez of Altagracia Parish. “Fifty percent of what they grow they have to give the owner of the land. Sometimes they take loans at high interest (a 15 percent to 20 percent monthly rate) to buy fertilizer for the land. If there is no good harvest, they are saddled with many debts which cause them additional problems.”

Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the island of Hispaniola, and although Haiti is about half the size of its neighbor, it has a slightly larger population. The increased population density and the centralization of the population in Port-au-Prince have resulted in additional challenges for food security and sustainable agriculture initiatives.

Water project highlights recovery in Haiti

Two years after an earthquake struck Haiti the community of Los Cacaos has demonstrated what happens when neighbors work together to solve a problem. Fresh, clean water is now available to 700 families thanks to the community’s commitment to build a positive foundation for long-term improvements.

Catholic nuns based across the Artibonite river in San Francisco of Banica Parish in the Dominican Republic organized the project in consultation with community leaders. Jesuit Refugee Service/USA provided $113,000 to fund the project, and members of the community supplied the labor to build roads, construct cisterns and lay miles of plastic pipe and tubing.

Read the full story here: bit.ly/wzccCh

School educates youth, lifts community in Haiti

A two-year commitment and $225,000 from Jesuit Refugee Service/USA is enabling a new preschool here to provide education, and nutritious meals, to more than 195 students.

A group of Catholic nuns from the Carmelitas de La Caridad de Vedruna order had been providing the service to 60 children, but with the help of JRS they’ve been able to expand the educational program. Classes were once held in the community chapel, but the new school just outside of the town center opened last September. In addition to the classroom block, a latrine was built, and a well for fresh water.

Fond Parisien is located only about one and a half hours from the Haitian capital of Port au Prince, and saw an influx of displaced families from the capital following the January 2010 earthquake.

“When we began thinking about this project we realized there was no preschool; schooling began here at the elementary level. They were forgetting about the most basic education. We saw a gap,” said Sr. Nuria, one of the school founders.

Read the full story on the Jesuit Refugee Service/USA website.

Water for Haiti

One of two cisterns holding fresh water before it is piped to homes in the community of Los Cacaos.

Read more here.