With just over two months having passed since Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti, we’d like to share a little bit about our response and how things are going.

Our main focus has been on the island of La Gonave where our partner, Bèl Platon Community School, and a network of churches we work closely with is located. We worked with local leaders to determine the extent of the damage. While the devastation in these areas was not as great as in the Southwest, it was very bad, marked by damaged and destroyed homes, dead livestock, and lost crops.

With the community around our school, we committed to:

• Build 5 basic but sturdy, single room structures, for those in the most need–families whose homes were destroyed beyond repair. Families would participate in the rebuilding as much as they could, providing gravel, water, rocks, etc.
• Repair 15 homes that were damaged but reparable.
• Provide cash disbursements to school staff so that they could meet their short-term needs and reopen the school as soon as possible.
• Provide a goat to each student at the school as part of a sustainable livestock distribution program.

With our network of churches on La Gonave and in the Nippes regions, we are:

• Shoring up livelihoods of local families and helping the local economy by creating over 20 church-based savings and credit groups.
• Providing churches with building materials that they’re using to rebuild the homes of the most vulnerable families in their congregations.

At the Children’s Academy, we invested deeply in a single, two room home for a parent of two of our students whose previous home had never been rebuilt since the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Thank you for your interest in this work and in Haiti’s long-term development. It’s people like you who make it possible to help people with urgent needs in a way that also invests to make a long-term difference in their lives. We invite you to stay in touch as this important work continues, by visiting our blog and Facebook page for updates.

Gratefully,

John and Kent, co-directors