Haiti and St. Patrick's School
Above is a special video dedicated to Haiti - Pre and Post Earthquake - by Haitian composer and producer Jean Jean-Pierre. Maestro Jose Antonio Molina leads the Dominican Republic Symphonic Orchestra, actor Danny Glover provides a special introduction. (If the video isn't visable in your browser, click here.)
The Episcopal Church calls for people of faith to stand in solidarity with the people of Haiti as they struggle to recover from relentless hardships. Desperate poverty and hunger have been one with Haiti for decades.
St. Jude's found an opportunity to first get involved in 2008 through a school lunch program for Saint Andre's Episcopal school in Hinche, Haiti, part of an outreach effort led by St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Carmel Valley for almost 30 years. The program serves some 900 students with what for many is their primary sustenance of the day. Most recently, on behalf of the parishioners of St. Jude's, the Social Justice Outreach committee approved $5,000 in 2010 for the St. Andre lunch program, sufficient to run the program for one month.
Haiti is one of the most disadvantaged countries in the world, with 80% of its population living in poverty. Episcopal relief and Development reports that 60% of Haitians are undernourished and just 55% of children attend primary school and only 20% go on to secondary school. Most children in Haiti go hungry every day. Pulverized clay mixed with honey, or cooking oil, is used to make cookies that are given to children to help ward off a sensation of hunger. (An example can be seen in St. Jude's parish hall.) In the face of this extreme poverty, the church, its teachings - and parishes, missions, stations and schools - embrace the people of Haiti in their struggle to address fundamental human needs.
St. Andre’s school enrolls students from pre-kindergarten through high school. Food for the program is purchased locally in Haiti. St. Jude's support for St. Andre's School helps to directly address four of the eight Millennium Development Goals that are designed to end extreme poverty by 2015:
- Goal #1 End Hunger and Extreme Poverty
- Goal #2 Universal Education
- Goal #3 Gender Equity
- Goal #4 Child Health
St. Jude's has begun to do more in Haiti
In the fall of 2010, St. Jude's parisioners traveled to Haiti to visit St. Andre's. During the trip they visited St. Patrick’s a Pre-K through 8th grade school in a remote area of the Central Plateau of Haiti. Its rooms are without doors and have open concrete blocks in the walls as windows. It does not have electricity or running water. The 200+/- students that the school intends to serve are from families who struggle to survive as subsistence farmers and live on small plots of land scattered about the area in which the school sits.
The Rev Rick Matters, rector at All Saints Episcopal Church in Carmel was also on the trip. Upon returning, he invited All Saints Day School (pre-k / 8th) in Carmel Valley, and St. Jude’s to consider partnering together with his parish to support St. Patrick’s school.
As a first step the three parters have underwritten the drilling of a well and provision of water purification to provide a reliable source of drinking water for the school and immediate community. The existing well at the school, hand dug and 40 foot deep, is dry. Under consideration are ideas for developing a program to provide for the annual salaries of the teachers and head master at St. Patrick's.