Summer 2018 achievements

July 6th, my plane is about to land in Port au Prince, Maud Laurent is at the airport with a few boys as usual, when the pilot announces the airport is on lockdown and we are re-routed to the Dominican Republic.   A 40 % gasoline price increase unleashes total chaos, riots, looting and road blockages. I didn’t make it to Haiti this summer. BUT, there is WhatsApp! And so, I can report on what is going on.

Rendez-vous: Haiti is pleased with the progresses made by several of our “youngsters"
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We are supporting Fedeline, who graduated from nursing school in December 2017 and has been taking mandatory internships. She should be done at the end of September. Fedeline is one of the oldest children of the Foyer, dearly loved by all: she can do anything that needs to be done when she is at the Foyer and the little ones in particular are very attached to her. 

Fenel is making me particularly proud: thanks to the Delco we provided him, he is able to work at welding and he recently got a job on a large project in Jacmel. He was injured fairly seriously in late May and had to use the money he had put aside for his sister’s tuition for his own medical bills. RVH paid for her whole year in school.  We have been mentoring Fenel for a few years and Maud Laurent facilitated his training in iron work.

​Edouardson successfully sold all the spice mix “ Epis Lakay”  he invented but didn’t charge enough to replenish his stock!   Maud was so impressed with him that she gave him a job running the little café at the car wash.

We are funding a workshop for him to learn about Marketing and public relation. He is going to teach what he learns to Bully and Fredeline who are both also taking business seminars. RVH funds three different ones with the condition that each of the grant receiver teaches what he learns to two other people and I get a report from those who are taught. The goal is to help all of them become successful small entrepreneurs.

Bully is supporting his family, including the little boy he adopted, with “ ABC market”, the wholesale store we helped him start. He and three other friends distributed school supplies to 32 families after identifying that indeed this was the obstacle to them sending their child to school

RVH is very happy with this local initiative and we look forward to more projects from this group of young Haitians.

The last week of August, the Foyer saw the installation of a digital media classroom and eleven teachers received the preliminary training to begin changing their pedagogy from rote memorization to more interactive learning. RVH funded the week-long workshop.  This is a project started by Grandir en Haiti and funded by the Agence de Développement in France. 

So, no visit from me but a lot is still going on and I am delighted to report that we were also able to send the sponsorship funds in time to start the school year on September 5.

Of course none of this would be possible without the generosity of the children’s 13 sponsors (Giuliana Robberto-Risso, John Hebb, Teri Louden, Janice Sanna (x3), Tracy Sanna, Angela Christman, Philippe Bruno, Andrea Giampetro-Meyer, Liz Sax, Nicola McQuiston, Kathy Forni, Andy and Isabelle Robinson, Heidi Brown) and in particular this summer Fr. Tim Brown, Association Terre des Montagnes, Marc Bilodeau and our most generous donor Bob Freson!  To all of them and all of you, a heartfelt THANK YOU!