Covenant participates in the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta's 15-year partnership with the Episcopal Church of Haiti. Ongoing projects include assisting with a community health center, a children's nutrition program, and further development and purification of their water and wells. More recent projects include helping facilitate a new goat project and agricultural education.
Covenant sent another group to Haiti in March, 2009. Check out all of the pictures in the Gallery.
Covenant has adopted the community of Nan Mango and is committed to raising funds for scholarships for all 145 children (it costs only $125 per child for a year of schooling!) and the church building ($40,000).
Haiti Update
It has been a year since Covenant first visited Nan Mango. While several Covenant members,
notably Jim Ingvoldstad and Brent Adams, have been going to Haiti for many years,
our affiliation with the village of Nan Mango, at the request of Pere Soner, began just a
year ago.
What have we accomplished?
- We have raised enough money to fund scholarships for the school children for a
year. - We have raised enough money to finish the church which has now been expanded
from the original plan. - We have completed three mission trips.
- We have begun to map the community using GPS technology and door-to-door
surveys. - We have delivered 50 packs of seeds to farming families, over 150 pairs of sunglasses,
hundreds of pounds of clothing, vitamins, soap and school supplies.
What have we learned?
While the needs are overwhelming, a relationship based only on the delivery of donated goods is not the answer. A true partnership is not one-sided. Our goal is to partner with the people of Nan Mango so that they may improve their lives. Because of this, typical mission trips to build a school or repair homes are not the ideal model. Our partnership has two main goals: public health and sustainable economic growth.
Public Health:
Jim Ingvoldstad’s frequent trips to the Bill Rice Clinic are a key component of our commitment to public health. More importantly, he is leading an effort to collaborate with the Wesleyan Hospital in Anse-a-Galet to coordinate medical care on the island of La Gonave. On our walks through the village, we are assessing the public health needs of families and compiling data on immunizations and participation in the Children’s Nutrition Program.
- We have provided vitamins to the school at Nan Mango so that every student received daily vitamins.
- We are reminding the students of the importance of hand washing and tooth brushing and have delivered ample supplies of soap and toothpaste.
- We are making sure that each family with a cistern understands that the water must be treated with bleach to kill contaminates.
Another future focus is on the issue of sanitation (human waste). We are doing a great deal of research to assess the best (efficient and low cost) latrine solution. A secondary focus is on clean water and we hope to influence the building of new cisterns and/or wells.
Sustainable Economic Growth:
The overarching goal is to improve the economy in Nan Mango. This is why mission trips to build schools are not a long term boost to the community, rather a feel-good opportunity to us. It would have been quicker for us to finish the church in a few trips but we have used donated money to hire members of the community to build out the church. The money earned by those masons will stay in the community.
Most of the residents of Nan Mango are farmers, many with only family plots. On this most recent trip, we learned that most people have to buy seeds so our ability to provide 50 families with packets of seeds for multiple vegetables was a highlight of the trip. This simple gift will allow farmers to feed their families for months. We intend to expand this program in the future.
Our future focus will be on the development of economic opportunities either through microfinance or through the formation of women’s groups. We have identified a group of women who have learned how to crochet and will meet with them next trip to explore the possibility of a women’s co-op so they can earn income. We are also exploring the purchase of treadle sewing machines to establish a sewing operation in a room of the church building. All the school children wear uniforms and we hope to set up an operation so that women can make the school uniforms for their own community.
The challenges are daunting and the needs even greater than we first realized, but the goal is to make it possible for the people of Nan Mango to help themselves. The support of the congregation of Covenant has been overwhelming and those who have traveled to Haiti have been only representatives of all who have generously supported these efforts.