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St. Charles Haiti Committee
Report to Our Parish for 2005

Overview: Our sister-parish relationship with the Parish of Cavaillon and its many rural chapels began well over a decade ago. Now that parish has been divided into three parishes (Cavaillon, Gros Marin and Sudre) and a fourth (Boileau) is in formation. Although political turmoil and deepening economic woes complicate our efforts, our relationship with our Haitian brothers and sisters has deepened. We look forward to continuing and strengthening those ties.

2005 Highlights

Education: Thanks to the enthusiastic support of parishioners and friends our Godparents Program is sponsoring 556 students for the 2005-2006 school year. This is a 20 percent increase over 2004. Our godchildren attend four rural Catholic schools. Berrette, Boileau and Flamands are elementary schools. The Gros Marin School includes both elementary and middle school. The great majority of our godchildren are in elementary school.

Lunch Programs: $26,000 was collected for school lunch programs. This will be used to help support lunch programs at the four schools our godchildren attend. Last year $17,000 was collected and sent to Haiti for lunch programs at two schools.

School Construction and Teacher Housing: Most of the teachers do not live in the rural communities where they teach. Most live in larger towns and travel by bus to the villages and stay there during the school week. At Gros Marin, a three-bedroom house is being built for the teachers to share. $4000 was contributed to this project last year and $3000 was contributed this year. During the 2004-2005 school year $3000 was contributed to add an additional classroom to the Flamands School.

Economic Development: This is a challenging area. The deteriorating national economy of Haiti makes it difficult to pursue successful economic development projects at the local level. The parish priests in Boileau and Gros Marin have been working with Caritas (the local equivalent of Catholic Charities) to promote micro-credit programs.

Health: In previous years the St. Charles Haiti Committee has helped build and support rural clinics at Flamands, Boileau and Sudre. This year the Gros Marin Parish received an offer from a Spanish organization to build a clinic. Gros Marin is requesting annual support from St. Charles to run this clinic. We are working out the details and estimate that we could provide six to eight thousand dollars annually to support the clinic's operating costs.

Support to Parishes for Religious Activities: The monthly tithe for Haiti which averages about $1400 is divided between the parishes of Cavaillon, Gros Marin and Sudre. This works out to about $5000 per year per parish.

Bonding with Our Sister Parishes: Committee member Pat Newman and her son visited Cavaillon in February 2005. Father Dieuvelome and Father Jocelyn visited Arlington in July. If conditions permit, committee members will visit Cavaillon in February 2006. Travel from Port-au-Prince to Cavaillon has become somewhat risky and we are no longer sending letters and money to Visitation House in Port-au-Prince for pick up by the priests when they visit the capital. We now rely on e-mail and wire transfers. In addition $3000 has been sent to install a VOIP (computer phone) connection at Cavaillon. The Christmas/New Year's greeting cards that our godparents sent our godchildren were received in Haiti and distributed to the children.

Working with Other Parishes in the US: St. Anthony's Parish in Falls Church and St. Philip the Apostle Parish in Lewisville, Texas also support projects in the Cavaillon area. The St. Charles Haiti Committee has also met to exchange ideas with local churches, such as Our Lady Queen of Peace, that support projects in other parts of Haiti.

Note: This report appeared in the January 15, 2005 bulletin