Upon arrival in St Marc, we became aware of the fact that a number of community members are not able to meet their daily nutritional requirements. Traditional NGOs have not been able to penetrate into the community (they rarely leave their vehicles and aside from CCRP personel very few foreigners are ever seen with feet on the street) to meet these immediate needs.

CCRP volunteer David Eisbrenner is beginning to collect the information necessary to design a limited reach feeding program, which we hope to launch early next year upon our return to Haiti. This will require the contacts necessary for the acquisition and safe, structured distribution of food on volume and time limited basis. As with all of our programs, this is vary from traditional approaches to aid as it will encorporate aspects of economic development. Food distribution is a very difficult and risky issue. If not done carefully, it can not only increase dependence but also reinforce local inequalities. Here is how we plan to deal with that.

We will intake only a limited number of families, each of whom will have a file started on them. They will not be receiving handouts but rather will get food in exchange for development of economic and business plans, micro credit applications and the like. In order to qualify for our program, community members will have to work for us in developing concrete plans to create a situation in which they become self-sustaining. This may be a business plan which will allow for personal profit, a micro credit application to help in establishing new businesses or even outlines as to how they plan to obtain the employment necessary to leave our program as soon as possible. Once this work is done, CCRP will assist these families in bringing their various economic plans to fruition.

We will not be contributing in any way to the culture of handouts which has so long victimized Haitian society rather we seek to empower the local individuals and help them get the leg up they need to no longer be reliant on handouts of any kind.

Initial costs for this project and feasibility phase will be approximately 2000$ US dollars, and, once this project is up and running, will require approximately 3-5 thousand American dollars to complete.

CCRP volunteer extrodinare Leslie Schroeder is working overtime to write us a quick reference guide to mental health for the survivors of the earthquake. These guides will be translated into Creole and distributed throughout the camps of Port au Prince and other localities with large refugee populations.

Mental health awareness and care is greatly lacking if not almost non-existent in Haiti and with the undeniable impact of the death of 350 000 Haitians in less than 30 seconds the need for such information is inexpicable.

A trained crisis counselor and Winnipeg based social worker, Leslie has been spending all of her spare time consulting with Haitian diaspora, other professionals, reading books and World Health Organization guidelines and gathering cultural context to meet her self imposed deadline of July 5 and to produce a small concise and simple guide which can help raise awareness of the mental health challenges survivors face.

In a few weeks, she will be getting on a plane and flying down to Port au Prince to see first hand the challenges of the situation and to conduct a feasibility study into training small clusters of youth on basic mental health support so that they can share this expertise with community, family and friends.

It is physically and logistically impossible to address the mental health needs of literally MILLIONS of survivors and we hope that these guides can assist in promoting a culture of community self help and mutual support.

We are looking at total initial project costs of between 2000 and 3000 US dollars which will cover printing and distribution of thousands of copies of our mental health guide. Any help in rasisng these funds, or contributions would be greatly appreciated. Please contact us at [email protected].

About 20 kilometers or one rough motorcycle ride into the hills from St Marc, we have contacted and assembled a community based collective to support in the building of their first community school. Approximately 90% of the kids in this area have not gone to school and have no locally based hope for education.

Just over a week ago, we held a community meeting at which were assembled approximately 50 community members (not including those who came late due to world cup). We explained to them the requirements for collaboration and the brilliant community building model set forth by Winnipeg based Haitian school teacher Alix Jean Paul. The community was immediately receptive and has set forth fulfilling their part of the agreed obligations.

They are forming themselves into a legal organization, assigning roles and creating a considerable volunteer base. They are working towards acquiring the land on which the school will be built. They are putting volunteers in place for acquiring and securitizing building materials. They are also organizing the structures and ways in which the teachers will be selected, hired and paid.

This community structure will allow them not only to build a sustainable educational institution but will also provide an experiential base on which they can grow and develop their community in the way that they, as community members see fit. This structure will also allow for a situation in which our school cannot be co-opted for the eventual profit of a few people, but rather can enrich the community for the forseeable future through education and community solidarity.

It is inevitable that the community will be able to fulfill their part of the deal and it is now incumbent of CCRP to fulfill our part. Through grant writing and direct outreach, we are seeking to raise between 35000 and 50000 USD dollars in order to obtain the building materials and expertise necessary to erect the school. Various CCRP members will be working full time filling out government, CIDA and various private foundation grants in order to provide the base resources upon which the school will be established. Any donations earmarked for this project will go 100% towards the building of this school and any help any Canadian community member can offer with fundraising, grants etc…. will be greatly appreciated.

In order to rebuild Haiti –comme il faut- it will be important that opportunities such as education are available outside of the capital region. This way young people will not have to leave their homes to crowd into dangerously built Port au Prince neighbourhoods. In many ways, this very migration was a key factor in the massive death toll of the Jan 12 earthquake. This school in St Marc is hopefully only the beginning of many projects which will help ensure a repeat of the catastrophic death toll does not occur.