RJM Earthquake Relief Update
May 20, 2010

• work with religious, civic, ecumenical, and Church organizations, as well as other relief agencies, to maximize relief efforts, foster systemic change, and insure intervention at the level of need.  
• involve Haitians in developing processes to implement programs to improve living conditions. 
• empower Haitians through education and by teaching new skills or trades and avoid fostering dependency.
• favor those people who are disproportionately impacted by the earthquake: elderly, women, and children.
• offer spiritual accompaniment and formation for Haitians in their efforts to recover from the earthquake.
• meet short-term needs with a view to setting in place long term solutions.

With time, we hope to identify where and how we can best respond to longer term needs in Haiti. Once again, your generous donations will be used to fund these projects!

"Men anpil, chay pa lou." (With many hands, the load is light.)

Some of the projects undertaken with donations to the RJM Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund include:

In Jean Rabel:
Located 5.5 hours north of Port-au-Prince (PAP), Jean Rabel is where two RJMs, Sr. Rose, from the province of Ireland, and Sr. Nazareth, from the province of Castille, minister.

• Transportation:  Many families in Jean Rabel were impacted by the earthquake through relatives in PAP who were injured, killed, or wanted to return home. Donations were used to provide transportation to bring some of these people to Jean Rabel. These funds have also provided transportation for volunteers who brought food to distant and remote areas, distributing it to needy families, and for mobile clinic teams who brought their medical skills to remote communities.

Spanish medical team with Haitian translator, Sr. Nazareth, and Haitian driver heading out to remote areas near Jean Rabel.

• Food:  Like Gros Morne, Jean Rabel received people returning to families from PAP, roughly 16,000.  This has placed a strain on Jean Rabel relatives in terms of providing food and housing. Unfortunately, the prices of many items have increased as a result of this influx of people. The cost of food alone has increased between 60-80%. Donations have supplied food for the malnourished and for PAP refugees.
• Housing:  With the return of relatives from PAP, families in Jean Rabel have also experienced an increase in the number of people living in one house. In some situations, the numbers have risen from 5 to 14 individuals. Donations have helped build simple homes for PAP refugees.

In Gros Morne:
Gros Morne is a town about 3.5 hours northwest of Port-au-Prince where two RJMs, Sr. Jacqueline Picard and Sr. Patricia Dillon, of the US province and Brittany Galvin, a US year-long, lay volunteer, minister.   

• Food security for families who received relatives from PAP:  A nearby neighborhood is densely populated and has many families who took in relatives displaced by the PAP earthquake.  Families shared their limited food with these relatives. Thus, when it came time to plant, they had either eaten their seeds or had less money to buy what they needed. Donations purchased thousands of dollars of pitimi (sorghum) seeds and tools which were given to groups like the members of the Association Developpement Citerne Gros-Morne (ADECIGM). When the pitimi is harvested, they will give back to Caritas, the organization that managed the seed distribution, one and a half times the amount of seeds they received, thereby offering others the opportunity to participate in the same program.  With a good harvest, members could have a hundredfold return. 

Distributing seed.

Distributing planting tools.

School furnishings and supplies:  Donations bought lumber and supplies to build benches and to provide school supplies for children from PAP who are now attending schools in Gros Morne. 

Employment for former PAP students:  The literacy project has a two-fold purpose:  to teach adults to read and write and to provide employment for youth and adults who left PAP after the earthquake. After an initial test and two-day training, 14 monitors were chosen for 11 literacy posts, two in Gros Morne and the other nine in the mountain communities.  The average number of participants is 20 per literacy post. Literacy sessions started Monday, April 19. The groups meet three afternoons a week for one and a half to two hours each afternoon. Each group decides when they will meet. Donations covered the monitor training sessions, stipend, and materials as well as booklets and supplies for the students. 

Monitors picking up teaching supplies.

Student practicing making her numbers.

In Port-au-Prince:
Two RJMs are again living in Port-au-Prince (PAP), using the first floor of our house for cooking, eating, and showering but sleeping outdoors in the patio in tents. There are two RJMs:  Josee Therrien, from the province of Quebec, and Isa Sola, from the province of Aragon. Our postulant, Gardyne Jean-Jacques, returned there to complete the first year of her program in catechetics as did our pre-postulant, Middia Doute, who is completing her first year of course work at the university.

Tents where we are sleeping in the patio.

Government engineers evaluated our house. Yellow means that it can be repaired but is not habitable now.

Isa has been working with the pastor of Sacred Heart parish, Rev. Hans Alexander, to secure tents in which to celebrate liturgies during the rainy season. She also accompanied three Spanish volunteers: two doctors and a dentist. The former worked with individuals who became amputees after the earthquake.  Finally, she has been gathering information from engineers about the condition of the house in PAP as well as whether and how to repair damage from the earthquake.

We are committed to sharing ourselves and our goods with our Haitian brothers and sisters for as long as we are able. To this end, we invite and welcome your prayers and financial support.  No donation is too small!...and your donation is tax deductible.

You can also donate through other relief organizations such as Catholic Relief Services.

For those interested in volunteering, please phone Theresa Patterson at (615) 673-3501, as she organizes volunteer groups. Or Google search PTPA (Parish Twinning of America).

Go to the The Religious of Jesus and Mary U.S. Province website.