On Monday of this week, we sent the $6691 that was donated during the Christmas season for the Kids for Kidz goat program to Etienne so he can launch the first Class of ’22. Etienne says there is not a shortage now of those goats, so he won’t need to import any. Even the special billy goats he sources from the US Virgin Islands are available. How lucky is that?
However, there are still many issues that could affect the goat program schedule: COVID, fuel scarcity and exorbitant prices for fuel, government instability, and social unrest. Etienne and his agents have managed to get a lot of other major projects done over the last several months despite these challenges, so we’re hopeful that they will be able to prevail in this as well.
Etienne will first calculate the number of goats he can purchase, print up the correct number of curriculum books, and schedule the classes for the chosen children from the target village. He and his team will administer classes for the goat recipients over two Saturday mornings.
In parallel, he will buy the billies and nanny goats, gather them up, and deliver them on the Saturday of the children’s graduation. The total time is going to probably be about a month unless one of the issues mentioned earlier derail the schedule.
Haiti Ap Grandi continues to help those hit hardest by last August’s earthquake through our many partners on the ground in Haiti: Etienne Francois and his team at Passion for Haiti, Reciprocal Ministries International, and the Les Anglais church and school.
Earthquake Relief October – December
Water access for families and communities is a key focus for us. Many wells went dead after the earthquake and water storage cisterns were destroyed, leaving many thousands of people without water for drinking, cooking, and cleaning. Thanks to you, Etienne and his team have already delivered twenty of the 300-gallon and 500-gallon chatados (water tanks) and plan to deliver more soon.
Tanks Ready to Deliver
In November, they finished planting tens of thousands of coffee and banana plants in Camp Perrin, in the hills north of Les Cayes. These provide a cash crop for farm families, and they are part of reforesting the steep mountain slopes because trees are planted along with them to provide shade and anchor the soil.
Preparing Seed Corn
In association with Heifer International, Etienne’s agents bagged and distributed 14 tons of seed to farmers in December. 18,500 lbs. of seed corn and 9700 lbs. of black beans were given to 400 members in 6 farmers’ organizations in Jacmel and 500 members in 6 organizations in the south Les Cayes area. Etienne reports that “everything is well distributed and farmers are happy to receive the seeds.”
All this work and travel was accomplished despite the critical shortage of fuel throughout Haiti, a testament to the resourcefulness and dedication of Etienne and his team.
Current Activity
Kids and Goats
Through the Christmas season, Community of Faith Church in Lake Oswego has been raising funds for the goat program we like to call “Kids for Kidz”. Etienne has identified the next group of school children to undergo training and receive one or two goats each to raise and help support their families.
What’s Next?
We have also asked Etienne to work with the local well drilling company that drilled all the wells in Les Anglais. We need them to refurbish/repair many of the key wells in the area, as they were damaged in the earthquake. We hope this will be done by the start of the dry season in late January.
Our next steps are to continue to find, buy, and distribute seed to more farmers who have little or nothing to plant. The lack of seeds and starts is due to to the combination of the summer earthquake destroying farms and roads, flooding from hurricanes that followed, and disruption of the transportation for needed products because of continuing political unrest in Port Au Prince.
Finally, there are so many people still living under tarps after their homes and villages were destroyed by the earthquake. We hope to purchase roofing materials to help them rebuild their homes.
Schools Report
We gave funds to RMI to provide food relief to our partner church in Les Anglais. Thankfully their water well system is still working and all buildings are functional. The school is open and serving a hot lunch daily. Enrollment in the Les Anglais primary grades is 600 children and their secondary school serves 200 students. Boco has 80 primary school children and Colse has 170. At the Les Anglais school, they also have a trade school primarily for adults, with classes available to secondary students as well.
This photo is from the recent parent/teacher meeting. Thank you for supporting the work that Pastor Bonel Girard and his amazing wife Monique do in Les Anglais.
Parent/Teacher Meeting in Les Anglais
We are extremely grateful for your continued support for Haiti Ap Grandi’s programs. With the prolonged political and economic situation in Haiti, funding and assisting our Haiti partners, including Etienne and his agents, is more critical than ever. We are so thankful for Etienne’s passion, perseverance and commitment and we are working hard to provide him and his team the resources they need to do the most effective work possible.
Best wishes to you for peace and health in 2022!
Jim Shaw and the Haiti Ap Grandi Board of Directors: Tim Kitch, Robert Jackson, Cindy Jackson, and Kathy Engholm
There is bad news for the Haitian people, and anyone wanting to go there and help them. You may have read in the news that gangs are taking power. The Haitian government and National Police are not able to stop them, so the deterioration of civic order is accelerating. The US government today advised Americans to leave the country while commercial flights are still available.
The good news is that we raised over $30,000 for earthquake relief through Haiti Ap Grandi. We distributed just under half of those funds for the critical needs of people in the Pestel area near Jeremie on the northern coast of the peninsula, north of Les Anglais. There are no water wells there (no water table to tap into), so they used concrete cisterns to store rainwater and spring water. All the cisterns in the area cracked and leaked out their water due to the earthquake this summer. Etienne and his team purchased a large number of plastic water tanks (called “chatados”) to distribute to the people so they can store water. This will help these families with their basic needs for drinking water! It is so important to life. The remaining relief funds will be spent as soon as supplies, fuel, and manpower become available.
Some of the chatados for storing clean water
Etienne and helpers fueling his truck
Etienne and his team are also in the middle of planting coffee and cocoa plants in new areas for erosion control and cash generation for the farmers. They are having a very hard time getting the gas and diesel they need to do transportation for all these far-ranging projects. They are having to pay huge premiums for fuel when and if they can find it. Their work is so important right now. The country is in a bad state and their work continues to provide hope as well as tangible assistance.
Life there has returned to semi normal in the Les Anglais area after the earthquake. Most buildings withstood the tremors and we sent food and COVID masks to them immediately following the disaster. Several of the wells that we maintain need repair. We have relief funds available for this purpose, but we aren’t sure when the well repair folks can get to them. Like everyone else in Haiti now, they have a very hard time getting fuel and their schedule is filled with the many wells all over the SW arm of Haiti that need service. The mountain village of Boco is still inaccessible after the earthquake and landslides, so it will be some time before we can get their well fixed.
Etienne shared these photos with us, showing some of his activities over the last few days.
below: Today Etienne addressed government and community leaders regarding water needs.
left: Helicopter pilot waits with a patient who was flown to the Cayes hospital. She suffered broken bones in the earthquake and had to wait weeks for transport and treatment.
below: The town of Charlette is currently only accessible by helicopter. Etienne, center right in tan shirt, met with the people there to organize a medical clinic.
The Haiti Ap Grandi directors and Etienne agree that the immediate priorities for funding and action are 1) clean water, 2) food, and 3) shelter. Etienne proposed buying twenty 800-gallon water tanks to place in communities currently without a source of clean water. The cost to purchase and deliver each tank is approximately $1000. This will allow water trucks to deliver water in bulk and for the community to efficiently distribute water to residents. We also plan to repair the damaged wells in Les Anglais and the surrounding area as quickly as this can be arranged.
To get clean water to the people as quickly as possible, an anonymous couple has pledged up to $10,000 to match all earthquake relief donations to Haiti Ap Grandi from August 14 through September 30, 2021. If you wish to help and have your contribution matched, click the Donate button on this page and select “Earthquake Relief”. Note that our name change from “Compassion for Haiti” to “Haiti Ap Grandi” hasn’t happened at Paypal yet, but donations made there are being delivered to us with no interruptions.
Etienne and his brother Nobert have been meeting with government representatives in Port au Price, Les Cayes, and Jeremie to persuade them to distribute water, food, and supplies for shelter. Etienne is struggling to feed and house the overflow crowd staying at his home after their houses became uninhabitable. He is still rescuing the injured and taking them to hospitals, while setting up for his team’s next actions. He asks for our prayers.
The Lake Oswego Review newspaper published an article on August 31 about the earthquake aftermath and relief efforts based on an interview with Jim Shaw, one of our Directors. It describes how Haiti Ap Grandi, two churches in the Lake Oswego area, Reciprocal Ministries International, and Etienne’s Passion for Haiti organization are working together to address the critical needs of the earthquake victims. Here’s the link to the article. Subscribers can read the article for free. Others can create an account to view content. I clicked the $5 month option, but after giving my email address creating a password, I was allowed to read this one article for free.
