This story ran in the Jan. 8, 2009 Montville Times. Suzanne
Few Americans may realize that the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere is only 600 miles off of our eastern coast. It is Haiti, which shares half of the island of Hispanola with the Dominican Republic. Eighty percent of its 8 million citizens live under the poverty line, 54 percent in abject poverty, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) World Fact Book.
For almost 25 years, the Haitian Ministries for the Diocese of Norwich, based in Uncasville, has been working with counterparts in Haiti to support and empower the Haitian people. Following the Haitian proverb, “Men anpil, chay pa lou” (“Many hands lighten the load”), the ministry has sought to build relationships between Americans and Haitians in the process.
Founded in 1985, the ministry is housed with other diocese functions at the Bishop Flanagan Ministry Center on the St. Bernard School campus. Through its Mission House of Norwich in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capitol city, it has had a physical presence there since 1987.
“We’re on the ground in Haiti and we can get to the use of funds and assure donors that the money they donate is used specifically for projects,” said Emily Smack, executive director.
Also an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization, Smack said it collected and donated around $1 million, its largest amount ever, for projects in Haiti in the past fiscal year.
The ministries’ programs include emergency relief, medical assistance through emergency support, a clinic, and medical missions to work with Haitian caregivers. It also supports two orphanages, funds reforestation projects and neighborhood meals, and a long-standing scholarship program for children from elementary through college levels.
Smack credits the ministry’s success in part to its ability to bring Americans to its mission house for 7- to 10-day immersion experiences. This is where they can meet their Haitian counterparts and learn first-hand of the needs and challenges the country’s people face.
“We have learned working in a third-world country, when we go there thinking we have the answers to their problems, they are accepting, and tend to say ‘Yes, we’ll do that.’ But when you move away, the sustainability of that project isn’t there because they truly haven’t gotten into that project. Or our solution is too sophisticated,” she said.
She described how on a first mission trip to Haiti, an American man announced he had the perfect solution for a local community: a bakery back at home was shutting down, so why not tear down the equipment and ship it to the island?
But the automated equipment couldn’t be run without constant electricity. There was no clean water in the area. The local people didn’t really want a bakery.
An essential component of the work is in uniting Haitian parishes and projects with American churches, schools, and other groups through its “twinning” program.
St. John the Evangelist Church Parish at 22 Maple Ave. in Uncasville is one of a dozen such twinnings. For almost 10 years, church members have supported the L’arc-en-Ciel Rainbow House orphanage in Port-au-Prince. It provides a home to 32 children, from infancy through 17 years old, who are either infected by HIV/AIDS or have lost one or more parents to the disease.
“We support them with quarterly payments of cash, and send toys for Christmas and a shipment of over-the-counter medical supplies, things people could pick up at their pharmacy,” said Joan Malchiodi, one of the parish committee members.
Most of the original members have since cycled off of the committee. Malchiodi, who got active about five years ago, and Sheryl Lambert, one of the originators, have recruited a handful of new members in the past year.
Thanks to the Internet, the St. John Parish is able to communicate directly with the leaders of the orphanage, Robert Sr. and Danielle Penette, and their son, Robert, Jr., who visited Connecticut earlier this year. L’arc-en-Ciel also has set up a community outreach program and medical clinic for families affected by HIV/AIDS.
“They run a very good, accountable organization and they know how to go for grants worldwide,” she said. “The fact that many big organizations support their outreach program shows that they are not just a fly-by-night organization.”
The orphanage was one of the first models in Haiti that showed locals that people could live with others who had the disease and not get infected, Smack said. In the first years, when anti-viral medicines were not always available, it faced the tragic choice of having to divert medication from healthier children with the disease to sicker ones. As a result, a couple of children died each year, she said.
There haven’t been any deaths of orphanage children in the last five years, Smack said.
Although sometimes intermittent, Internet access has made it possible for St John’s members to stay in touch with the orphanage and see how their support is being used, Malchiodi said. The Christmas gifts had to be shipped out in August.
“At first, people had questions about if the money and gifts really got there. But with the e-mail, we hear back quickly. They also send us disks of photos of the kids getting their toys. We can share this with our parishioners.”
The orphanage has been around, and successful, long enough that some of its youth are old enough to set out on their own. To raise funds for them, the orphanage has started an arts project, where the students create holiday and other note cards that it sells. The proceeds are split between the artists and orphanage and put into savings accounts for each youth.
After the holidays, the St. John’s committee will consider supporting the gift card project. Malchiodi said they might buy some of the cards and resell them at church activities.
Malchiodi and the newest Parish committee members haven’t been to Haiti yet, but several have expressed interest.
“The whole purpose of twinning is to make lives larger, both here in the United States and in Haiti,” Tolson said, adding that many of the Americans come to feel that they get more out of the relationship than their Haitian counterparts.
“Being involved with Haiti is such an eye-opening, mind-expanding, and, we hope, heart-enlarging experience. There is something rather amazing about Haiti,” said Tolson, who grew up in Africa and has traveled the world with his miltary family. “It’s not just the shock of poverty. It is so close to the United States, but it is so different.”
The ministry also maintains Haiti’s Back Porch, a retail shop that offers a selection of art, crafts, clothing, and specialty foods that it has purchased directly from Haitian artisans and artisan collectives. It is located at 100 Riverview Center in Middletown.
Another popular program with individual donors is scholarships for children to attend elementary school through college in Haiti, she said.
“Only 60 percent of children in the country get to go to school, most of it private schools, which charge tuition,” Tolson said. “This can run from $200 to $400 per student per year, which is more than a family might make in a year.”
About 150 students currently are supported by five-year-long pledges through the Tierney-Tobin Memorial Scholarship administered by the ministry, Tolson said. These are based on family need and student merit or performance.
It costs about $2,000 per year to attend university, she said. Scholarships helped students in medicine and agronomy graduate last year and are supporting a third-year medical student and a number of young men in technical schools who are preparing to become electricians and plumbers.
“You would be amazed what some families will sacrifice because they so much want their child or children to go to school. It would break your heart and inspire you at the same time,” she said. “They see that as a way to get out of poverty.”
For more information, go to www.haitianministries.org.