e-Newsletter

• Makaya Water Project Update
• "Twinned" Schools
• "Skip a Lunch, Save a Child"
• St. Antoine School Photo Project

Makaya Project Water Project progress update

Infrastructure (including access to markets via the Fondwa road, improved access to water, energy, and "Radyo Zetwal", the community radio station) is a key component of the Fondwa community-based model of sustainable development. Among these water has a high priority since Haiti is ranked as the "most water poor" country in the world. With major support from the Sisters of Charity in the US, Partners in Progress (PIP), in collaboration with the Association of Peasants of Fondwa (APF), initiated the Makaya Water Project over a year ago in order to provide convenient access to water for residents of the Tomb Gato neighborhood of Fondwa including the students and staff of the University of Fondwa 2004 (UNIF). Actual construction has proceeded slowly to allow for greater community involvement in the project and to allow time for tree-planting and other steps necessary to protect and preserve the three natural springs that comprise the Makaya sources. Difficulty in getting building materials to the construction site caused additional delays. A major piece of the project was completed recently with the construction of the cistern that will collect the water! Construction of the pump house and purchase and installation of the pump is expected by mid-May and APF will make a concerted effort to employ area residents to install pipes before the onset of the rainy season in April-May.

U.S. churches "twin" with the St. Antoine school in Fondwa

Partners in Progress (PIP) together with North Carolina-based Family Health Ministries (FHM) provides general support for the St. Antoine school in Fondwa and special support for a school lunch program currently serving children in pre-school through the third grade. When the school year began in September the pre-school students returned to classrooms that had been plastered and painted thanks to PIP and FHM! PIP's support for the school is based largely on contributions from Sacred Heart parish in Pittsburgh, PA, St. Margaret Mary parish in Lower Burrell, PA and Holy Trinity School in Ligonier, PA.

Recently PIP executive director - Rich Gosser - delivered special greetings to the children of St. Antoine school from their counterparts in Lower Burrell and Ligonier! The children of Holy Trinity school sent class photos, hand-crafted storybooks and songbooks written in French and a cassette recording of songs in French - much to the delight of the children in Fondwa! The St. Antoine students were eager to examine photos of their Holy Trinity counterparts and copies of the photos were given to the St. Antoine teachers to post in their classrooms. Photos of the St. Antoine classes will be presented next month to the Holy Trinity children for display in their classrooms too! The St. Margaret Mary Youth Group have also initiated a relationship with the children and youth of Fondwa by sending "friendship bracelets" that symbolize the story of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The bracelets were distributed to several groups including one APF "member group" of young Christian women who were invited to use the bracelet to share the story with their peers and relate the experience of sharing at the next group meeting

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"Skip a Lunch, Save a Child" helps pre-schoolers in Port au Prince

Most of the work of PIP in Haiti focuses on sustainable community development in rural Haiti. However, unable to survive any longer in their rural communities, tens of thousands of people have had to take up residence in the slums and "bidonvilles" of Port au Prince. Once such area extending from the Port au Prince airport to Delmas 31 is served by the St. Louis de Montfort parish staffed by Fr. Nicolas Gerard, Sr. Helen Ryder, and Sr. Eileen Davey. Sr. Eileen directs a "head start" program that provides daily nutrition and early education for more than 70 pre-school children. The PIP sponsored "Skip a Lunch, Save a Child" fund provides a portion of the general operating budget for the program. Created by PIP supporter Marlene Shaw of New Salem, PA after visiting Haiti on a "reverse mission pilgrimage" sponsored by PIP's faith-based division - the Rich in Mercy Institute, this fund invites donors to contribute a minimum of $5 a month - about the price of lunch at McDonald's! In February PIP executive director Rich Gosser delivered a check for $1500 to Sr. Eileen whose program, in spite of space and resource limitations, keeps expanding to include more children. Click here to donate to the "Skip a Lunch, Save a Child" fund!

St. Antoine school "Photo Project"

Part of PIP's mission is to educate Americans about the efforts of Haitian rural communities to assume responsibility for their own futures and address the problems they face. One way of doing that is to encourage communication between young people from rural Fondwa and their counterparts in the US, but differences in language pose formidable barriers to communication. Students at the St. Antoine school in Fondwa are very eager to learn English and long-term volunteer Becky Newlin of Pittsburgh, PA has been teaching English in the school since September. Becky first visited Fondwa on a PIP sponsored "reverse mission pilgrimage" to Haiti and is taking a sabbatical year away from her teaching at Oakland Catholic HS in Pittsburgh, PA to work in the St. Antoine school and to assist the Sisters of St. Antoine in their formation program. Becky teaches four classes of English at the Fondwa school. Her students work hard, but learning English - for all them their THIRD language (after Kreyol and French) - is a challenge. To help motivate the students and to give them a way of communicating that is less dependent on language, PIP is sponsoring a "Photo Project" for Becky's tenth grade class of 18 boys and girls. Six groups of three students each were given disposable cameras and invited to tell a story about their lives in Fondwa through photographs. PIP executive director Rich Gosser will deliver prints of all the photos in March and the students will use them to compile a scrapbook of "Life in Fondwa". The "Life in Fondwa" scrapbook will be shared with student groups in the US to encourage awareness and understanding of life in rural Haiti and the work of PIP collaborators in the Association of Peasants of Fondwa (APF).

PIP invites YOU to become a “dollar-a-day”, sustaining partner!

PIP’s donors are both very loyal and very generous! A simple “mesi anpil” (“thank you VERY much”) never seems adequate as a response to the continuing support PIP receives from its donors. Your support is essential if PIP is to have the resources needed to carry out its mission of promoting and supporting the Fondwa community-based model of integral sustainable development in rural Haiti. We know that the great majority of Haitians living in the rural provinces subsist on incomes of less than US $1 a day and PIP invites you to become a sustaining partner by contributing just a “dollar-a-day”. Just click here to make a tax-deductible, secure, online pledge of $30 or more a month! Sustaining partners will each receive a copy of the 20 minute DVD “Road to Fondwa” edited by Justin Brandon and produced by Fondwa long-term volunteer Brian McElroy. Don’t delay -- make YOUR gift today!