News and Features
3 Tierney-Tobin students killed; Paula's girls still in need of food at orphanage
At least three students in Haitian Ministries' education program were killed in the earthquake, according to an e-mail report on Friday night from Dominique Georges, who oversees the 140 students in the scholarship program.
The names of the students were not available, and Haitian Ministries has not been able to get an accounting of many of the program's students, who range from first-graders to medical school students. All live in the neighborhood of the Norwich Mission House, which was destroyed on Jan. 12.
Dominique reported that he met Friday with all the staff, who gathered at the mission house site in Petionville, despite the fact there is no building and all compound walls--including the retaining wall--are down. The staff received their salary payments and food from Dominique, who returned from the Dominican Republic on Thursday after getting supplies there. Staff members planned to visit Lanitte Belledente today (Saturday), but we unsure where she was taken after the amputation of a foot. The operation reportedly was performed by an American surgeon working at a United Nations site.
Some staff are considering leaving temporarily for Les Cayes. Dominique continues to make contact with the projects that are partnered with Haitian Ministries. He has seen Dr. Wilkens Gilbert, whose mother runs the meal program for 70 poor children in the slums where she lives. He also plans to be in touch with Paula Thybulle. She operates an orphanage for 70 girls, who are now confined to a small courtyard because the orphanage building was damaged in the quake.
The 70 children at at Paula Thybulle's orphanage for girls have received water but still need food, according to another report on Saturday.
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) arrived on at the orphanage, Le Foyer des Filles de Dieux, to assess what emergency relief is needed.
Since Tuesday's earthquake, which damaged the dormitories, the girls--ages 3 to 18--have been confined to the small courtyard there. Their supply of food and water started to run low on Monday, according to an earlier report from Paula.
Paula's community clinic and small hospital, which are adjacent to the orphanage, are safe for the treatment of the injured, she had also said. In their visit to the site on Thursday, CRS also assessed the clinic and hospital--known as Notre Dames de Lourdes and located at Delmas #19.
In other news Thursday night, Haitian Ministries learned that Lanitte Belledente had a foot amputated at a United Nations base by an orthopedic surgeon from the United States, according to a report from Sr. Marie Yannick.
Sr. Yannick is the representative of the Bishop of the Norwich Diocese. She works with Haitian Ministries’ mission house and with Hospice St. Joseph, both arms of the diocese in Port-au-Prince. Hospice St. Joseph was severely damaged in the earthquake, but no one was reportedly injured.
Lanitte, who has been the mission house cook for more than 20 years, was caught in the collapse of the house (Norwich Mission House) during the quake. She and two American staff—Jillian Thorp and Chuck Dietsch—were rescued from the rubble by other staff members, who dug them out by hand and with improvised tools. (Jillian and Chuck were med-evac’ed to the United States and are in good condition.)
Sr. Yannick wrote that she visited Lanitte on both Wednesday and Thursday. “She is receiving good care. Both times I went to see her, her sister was there with her. Her sister will let me know if she is transferred to another facility.” Lanitte might undergo further treatment, she said.
Dominique Georges, the assistant director of Norwich Mission House, was travelling on Thursday to Port-au-Prince from the Dominican Republic, where he had gone to get food and water supplies for other staff members and some of Haitian Ministries’ project partners who are in need of emergency provisions.
Dominique was one of the three staff members who rescued Jillian, Chuck and Lanitte at the mission house.
In news on Wednesday, the priest in the high mountain community of Les Palmessouthwest of the capital, e-mailed an update of his community. The 6.1-aftershock in the morning destroyed homes that had been damaged in the earthquake.
At least 44 people in the community have died and 82 houses collapsed, Fr. Vil Johnson wrote. More than 90 percent of all the dwellings have been affected in some way. He said no assistance of any kind has arrived.
Johnson listed some of the needs: water; primary care drugs; Clorox to treat rainwater;
toiletries; clothes; rice and peas and oil. He noted that a small bag of rice that sold for $150 Haitian dollars before the disaster now goes for twice as much. The price of a bag of water has soared.
He wrote: "Thank you for your prayers and solidarity." Les Palmes is twinned with St. Mary of Coventry, CT.
In other news Wednesday, Haitain Ministries learned that Enock Michele is unharmed. He reportedly is considering a move to Les Cayes, in the southwest of Haiti.
IN EARLIER REPORTS:
Jean Baptiste, the mission house manager, and his family are uninjured but living in the street outside a motorcycle stop. They are not staying in their house for fear of a collapse, and they do not have any food and very little water.
Jane Wynne, who lives in the Kenscoff community in mountains above Port-au-Prince, said that she is fine but people are escaping the city and moving in all directions to find safer places to stay. Many have headed toward the town where she lives, but there is little food and water there. She said she is extremely worried about the growing emergency.
In the seaside community of Mariani, just west of Port-au-Prince, there is much destruction, according to Max Beauvoir. There is only one doctor in the area to treat thousands of injured. People need water, food, medicine and fuel. No one has seen representatives of the government or humanitarian non-profits, he added. The nearby city of Leogane is about 80 percent destroyed, he said.
REPORTS FROM TWINNED PARISHES:
In Lillivois, Fr. Horelle reported that he is safe, as is his mother. There is some damage to the school and church hall. Horelle is the pastor of St. Therese in Lillivois, which is supported by St. Patrick's in Collinsville. He was the pastor in Fond Baptiste, a parish twinned with Church of the Holy Family in Hebron. No reports on Fond Baptiste have been received.
Fr. Frixner at St. Genevieve in Zoranje said no one was killed there, but some people who were in Port-au-Prince on visits died during the earthquake. Some homes in the rural community of Zoranje, which is northeast of the capital, were destroyed. The back part of the church has collapsed, he said, but the remainder of the building is OK. The rectory is alright.
People who don't live in Zorange are coming into the community to seek help, according to Frixner. The community needs food and medical supplies for its clinic. The road down the mountain to the main highway leading to Port-au-Prince is open, he said.
St. Genevieve is twinned with St. Patrick-St. Anthony in Hartford. In Solon Springs, WI, the churches of St. Pious, St. Anthony and St. Mary are also twinned with St. Genevieve.
Fr. Brene at St. Jude in Mon Opital reported he is safe and uninjured, but his youngest brother, who lived elsewhere, was killed. No one in the community was killed or badly injured, he said, but many of the small houses were destroyed, and people are lining up outside the clinic and school. The church has some damage, he reported, but the school building and the rectory/guesthouse are alright.
Water and food is scarce in Mon Opital, he added. He said he does not know about the students whose tuitions are paid by parishioners at St. Patrick's in Grand Haven, MI.
The situation is "very, very bad," said Frixner, who plans to head to Port-au-Prince on Tuesday. He wants to ask the owner of a nearby sand mine if his bulldozers and trucks can be used to clear the road leading down the mountain to the capital.
St. Jude is twinned with GESU in Milwaukee.
Our Lady of Seven Sorrows in Gran Boulage, a parish recently twinned with Sacred Heart Church of Southbury, reported no deaths or injuries, according to a cousin of Fr. Tristant. The church and the rectory were damaged but are still standing. The buildings are not being used because of the damage.
The priest at St. Pierre in Ganthier reported some damage to the rectory. The parish is twinned with St. Matthew in Tolland.
IN REPORTS FROM LAST WEEK:
Two students in Haitian Ministries' education program in Port-au-Prince were killed, according to Dominique Georges, the assistant director of Norwich Mission House.
Madame Samson, who operates a meal program for 60 children in her slum neighborhood, is safe and uninjured, as is her son Dr. Wilkens Gilbert.
Dominique George has worked at the Haitian Ministries' mission house for more than 10 years. He was one of three staff members who dug by hand for hours to free Jillian Thorp and Chuck Dietsch from the rubble of the collapsed building in the early morning hours on Wednesday. Frank Thorp, Jillian's husband, arrived from the north of Haiti to join in the final hour of the rescue. All three Americans are now in the United States.
Dominique, who did not live at the mission house, has been left without a place to live nonetheless, because his apartment building collapsed..
Although helicopters are now dropping food kits in the city, he said, fighting over the emergency packets sometimes breaks out. The city is not safe at night, he added, and 95 percent of the homes are vacant because people go to camps for safety and sanitation.
Dominique said he has been in steady contact with Milor, who is also a mission house staff member and helped to free Jillian and Chuck. Frantz Borno and Jean Marie Brutus, who both work on the grounds of the mission house, are alright.
The conditions of about 140 other students in the education program (Tierney-Tobin Scholarship Program) were not available. All these students live in the neighborhood of Norwich Mission House and reside with their parents, relatives or friends. The program pays for their private school tuitions and their emergency medical care. (There is little public education in Haiti, so most education is through private schools.)
A brother of Jean Andre Constant, who once taught Creole in Hartford, CT to people involved with Haitian Ministries' work, was killed in the earthquake, according to another email report on Sunday. Pierre Junior Constant was at his house in Port-au-Prince when it collapsed. (Jean Andre Constant is now living in the United States.)
Einstein Albert, a renowned Haitian craftsman who makes elegant wooden bowls, reported that he and his family are safe, according to an email he sent to Haiti's Back Porch. His bowls and other art and crafts made by Haitians are sold at the non-profit Haiti's Back Porch shop in Middletown, CT.
Anne Hastings, the CEO of Fonkoze in Haiti, reported by e-mail late Saturday that her loan institution is not operating. (For more information in her email, click the tab on the left of this homepage labelled NEWS/FEATURES.)
Hospice St. Joseph -- another ministry in Port-au-Prince under the wing of the Diocese of Norwich -- reportedly was badly damaged, but there were no reports of injuries or deaths. Three staff members, however, were unaccounted for as of Thursday morning.
According to reports, the orphanage L'Arc-en-Ciel did not sustain damage, and the children are alright. The Penette family also has reported they are safe and uninjured.
Norwich Mission House staffers Jillian Thorp and Chuck Dietsch arrived back in the United States Thursday night after being med-evac'ed from Port-au-Prince. Frank Thorp, Jillian's husband, was with them.
Jillian Thorp is the acting director of the Norwich Mission House, and Chuck, of Southbury, was living and working at the mission house as a management consultant for Haitian Ministries. Both were trapped when the mission house collapsed. They were injured but have been treated in the United States and report doing well..
Lanitte Belledente, who has been the cook at the mission house for more than 20 years, was also trapped and badly injured. Although her condition has not been confirmed, it was reported that she might have lost at least one leg. One report said that she was taken to a hospital by medical students from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who were visiting Haiti.
LOS ANGELES TIMES ARTICLE ON REBUILDING HAITI
By Mitchell Landsberg
January 26, 2010
Reporting from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti - The first e-mail went out within hours of the Jan. 12 earthquake, calling together some of Haiti's most prominent architects, engineers and urban planners. The next day, 50 people showed up at a house in the hillside suburb of Petionville and went to work.
They have met every day since, gathering around a table in a courtyard under the shade of a spreading almond tree. Their goal is simple. It is also audacious. They want to plan a new Haiti.
And not just new buildings. A new economy, a new political culture, a new way of thinking. And yes, a Haiti that would look very different from the one that existed before the quake.
"We don't want to talk about rebuilding," said the group's guiding spirit, industrial engineer Jean-Marie Raymond Noel. "We want to talk about a new project, a new vision. . . . We can't hope to be in the same situation as before the quake. It was not good."
The structural losses that Haiti suffered in the magnitude 7.0 quake are incalculable. The National Palace is in ruins. So is Parliament, the nation's highest court, the Roman Catholic cathedral, virtually all of the downtown commercial district, the city's biggest and most modern supermarket, countless schools, banks, hotels, churches and, of course, homes in what is the Western Hemisphere's poorest country.
No one wants to talk about the disaster as an opportunity, exactly. To begin with, it seems insensitive, considering that more than 150,000 people died in the quake and many of their bodies remain entombed in the rubble of the buildings that collapsed.
In addition, no one knows where Haiti will come up with the money to rebuild, or how much it will cost. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive launched that effort Monday when he appealed to international donors in Montreal for money to recover from the quake.
But one way or another, this country will have to build a new capital, or at least a big chunk of one. There is talk of moving it somewhere else, starting fresh, but that seems unlikely. And so the people who plan and build are starting to dream.
They look to the way Japan and Germany were reborn out of the rubble of World War II and think: Why not Haiti?
"We want another country," said Marie Daniele, a Port-au-Prince architect who attends the daily meetings in Petionville. "Everyone here wants another country, with rules, and a strong government to apply them."
By rules, Daniele was talking in part about a building code. Sitting a couple of seats away from her at a planning group meeting Monday was Leslie Voltaire, Haiti's special envoy to the United Nations. He scoffed at the mention of a code.
"There is a two-page building code," he said dismissively, "that nobody used."
The architects began murmuring in dissent. Voltaire corrected himself. "The professionals used it," he said. "But the professionals build 5% of the buildings."
Anyway, Voltaire acknowledged, the building code really wasn't made with earthquakes in mind. Hurricanes were the big fear here, and with good reason: Haiti has been pounded repeatedly by devastating storms, including four in 2008 alone.
So people built with cinder blocks and cement, the heavier the better. Most builders lacked the money for substantial reinforcement. When the quake hit, multistory buildings collapsed into single-story slabs of compressed rubble.
The planners would like to explore using other materials, perhaps bamboo. Steel probably will remain too expensive for most Haitians, they said. But some kind of change is necessary, and it needs oversight and enforcement.
"This is the big challenge," said Daniele. "Change the mentality."
That is just one of the challenges, of course. There is also the cost of rebuilding, which by anyone's estimate is far beyond the country's means. There is the daunting physical challenge of demolishing the thousands of buildings that are damaged beyond repair and cleaning up the rubble. And of course there is the challenge of resettling an estimated 700,000 people left homeless in the Port-au-Prince area.
Noel said the planning group grew out of an organization he leads, the Committee for Support of Municipalities. It had about 100 members and its weekly executive board meetings used to involve the nine board members and perhaps a few others.
But right after the quake, "We made a call for architects, engineers and urban planners to come together and try to bring an appropriate and adequate response to this tragedy," he said. The response was gratifying.
That first day after the quake, he said, people gathered in the courtyard they are borrowing from a physical therapy center and began to talk. It was loose and informal: Members would drift in and out as they went to search for loved ones missing in the quake.
But they kept coming back, day after day, arriving in the late morning, sometimes staying until 5 p.m., forming committees and preparing proposals, the first of which they plan to send to the government today.
That proposal is more technical than visionary, dealing with how to mobilize the country and solicit international aid.
But the group is kicking around some far-reaching ideas, and although it has no official standing, it has captured the ear of the government, including Voltaire.
The envoy participated in planning that led to a blueprint for a new Haitian economy, built around sustainable agriculture, tourism, technology, textile exports and perhaps further development of port facilities. Voltaire envisions a less centralized Haiti, with more urban dwellers moving back to the countryside and taking some pressure off Port-au-Prince, which had a population of 2 million before the quake.
The architects and others in the planning group agree. They also envision a new Port-au-Prince that might bear only a passing resemblance to the vibrant but teeming and chaotic capital that existed before the quake.
"I see Port-au-Prince not with big buildings," said architect Winifred Galvan. "I see Port-au-Prince with the central palace and those things, but . . . with less people than it had before."
Galvan sees townhouses built where larger apartment buildings once stood, and collapsed buildings replaced with parks and social service offices.
She sees a seaside promenade and imagines tourists flocking to a place that once was a regular travel destination, but has long been shunned by the Caribbean getaway crowd.
She knows this isn't likely to happen for a long time, if ever. But it seems as good a time as any to dream.
mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com
DODD, LUGAR TO INTRODUCE LEGISLATION TO SPEED RECOVERY
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) announced plans Thursday to introduce legislation to speed recovery in Haiti. The International Red Cross estimates that the earthquake affected up to three million individuals in Haiti.
The legislation will instruct the Secretary of the Treasury to work with other nations to relieve Haiti of their outstanding debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), including debt incurred through the end of 2011. This legislation will also help to spur economic activity in Haiti by promoting trade between the United States and Haiti.
Dodd is a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of its Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, and Global Narcotics Affairs.
Lugar is the Ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
HOUSE OK'S ACCELERATED TAX DEDUCTION FOR DONATIONS
Taxpayers making monetary contributions in early 2010 to help Haiti after the Jan. 12 earthquake might soon be able to claim a tax deduction on their 2009 federal tax returns.
The House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill on Jan. 20 to allow taxpayers to claim a charitable deduction on their 2009 returns for qualified Haiti disaster relief contributions made after Jan. 11, 2010 and before March 1, 2010.
The Senate is expected to approve similar legislation.
An e-mail message below from ANNE HASTINGS, on Saturday, January 16. (She is CEO of Fonkoze in Haiti.)
Dear friends, partners and family,
Thanks to every single one of you who has sent your messages since 12 January, the day of the horrific earthquake. Today is the first day that I have had access to internet, except for 1.5 hours when my Blackberry was working.
I know that you all want the news:
- I am personally fine, as is the rest of the leadership of Fonkoze.
- We have only one confirmed death among our 750 employees, but many, many of them have lost family members.
- Of our 3 buildings in Port-au-Prince , one is completely destroyed (Bizoton), one is uninhabitable (Headquarters), and one we are hoping we will be able to repair and reopen ( Port-au-Prince ).
- Most branches in the provinces have been spared from serious damages, but not all.
That is where Fonkoze is. But it doesn’t tell the whole story:
- Food is scarce. The majority of grocery stores are not open, nor are the informal markets.
- Fuel is even scarcer. For instance, I have two inverters – one is my own to run my refrigerator. The other is the landlady’s. Both will run out in a matter of hours, at best days. There is NO source of power to recharge these. The government power company will take months to restart. My building has no generator. Those that have, have no gas to run them. Almost no one has solar power (those in my building were stolen several years ago).
- Most people are sleeping in the streets – literally. They have no homes left or if they do, they are afraid of the aftershocks, which have not stopped yet. Everywhere the people are singing and praying that God will spare them. Many of them have had no food or water for days.
- It is impossible to distribute anything – food, water, cash, fuel -- because as soon as any of them appear, throngs of people arrive and fight over whatever is there! It will only get much worse in the days to come.
The country is in much, much worse shape. Many government buildings were destroyed, including the palace, the ministry of justice, the parliament and many more. The U.N. forces headquarters collapsed killing the head of the forces, as well as his assistant, a very dear friend of mine. The archbishop, a great supporter of Fonkoze, was killed. The prison collapsed allowing all prisoners to escape! In effect, the entire leadership of the country is very, very fragile.
The problem is how will the country ever rebuild? This is SO much worse than the worst hurricane, because in Haiti , hurricanes bring flooding but they do not often DESTROY buildings.
At the moment, it is next to impossible to distribute anything … drinking water, food, gasoline, cash – because as soon as any of them appear, throngs of people arrive!
At Fonkoze, we are trying to reassure everyone that their money is SAFE, even though it is not immediately accessible. We are doing everything we can to reopen as quickly as possible. But we cannot reopen without cash liquidity, security and employees – all of which are difficult to find in these days. And those three elements are only the start – we also need internet connectivity, fuel, transportation for our employees, etc. Some of our branches in the provinces escaped with nary a blemish – but even they cannot function without cash. So while we are doing everything we can to reopen, we don’t how long it will take.
What we know is that our website – www.fonkoze.org – will be the best source of information internationally and for those who don’t have an internet connection, the radio stations locally will carry our news.
Our clients and our employees are going to need our support for many months to come. We hope you will be with them in your prayers, in your solidarity, and in your giving. We will NOT give up, and we hope that you will not either.
With sincere thanks,
Anne H. Hastings
CEO, Sèvis Finansye Fonkoze (SFF)