How You Can Help Haiti
· Sponsor a Child
For only $12 a month, you can help one of the children in Saltadère by supporting his or her education at St. Michael’s School. The money goes to cover school costs, such as basic supplies, clothes, teacher pay, and school lunch. You can exchange letters (in French) with your student and learn about your child’s life in Haiti. Click here for answers to frequently asked questions about the Child Sponsorship program. Contact Tricia Jenkins or Laurie Duncan for more information.
· Read Up Anyone who has tried to learn about Haiti by reading the newspapers knows that there is not much there to learn. Even on the information-saturated Internet it can be hard to find reliable and up-to-date information (in part, of course, because there is much less Internet activity within Haiti than here). But the more parishioners we have who understand not only the specific situation of our sister parish, but the general problems Haiti faces, the better our partnership will be. You can play a part merely by informing yourself. We have found these sites especially helpful as starting points:
· www.haitianeducationfund.com The Richmond Diocese’s Haitian Education Fund, with specific info about our project in Saltadère.
· www.haitiglobe.com A very up-to-date compilation of Haitian news in English from international sources
· www.ijdh.org Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti – a rich source for other links, and includes “Half Hour A Week for Haiti,” a campaign to help Americans help Haiti politically
· www.haitiprogres.com The widest-circulating weekly newsmagazine in Haiti – stories in English, French, and Kreyôl
· www.ahphaiti.com Agence Haitienne de Presse, the most up-to-date reporting available from Haiti – mostly in French
· Watch this space closely For the moment, helping build the new school building at St. Michel’s is one of our highest priorities. There will be periodic small-to-medium fundraisers developing as the months go by. Please keep a sharp eye out for other ways to help keep our partnership with St. Michel’s strong – and keep an eye on the Saltadère page at www.saltadere.org for current bulletins.