What we found in St Louis d'Ayiti: resources!
water from a spring-fed well
Never before have we seen this in Haiti!
6 public restrooms
Built by a Haitian non-profit's grant, for which Pr. Ronald Lefranc applied. We've never seen this in Haiti before either.
Beautiful Church, well maintained and decorated
They obviously take great pride in the building and keep it as nice as possible. During the days, the school meets there, but since there is so much going on in this extremely remote location, the building would better serve as a community center.
vision!
The most impressive resource we have in SLA is leadership with vision. We saw their church and we saw their school. We asked how they could teach without materials. After some discussion, our translator shook his head and said, "There's really no English word to describe how they can do it." As the discussion progressed, we discovered the principal, Michel Paul, was looking for visual aids on the walls--like lettering charts, graphs, geometric displays and maps; a library; teacher training; small businesses; incentive to keep successful people from moving away! This kind of vision is rare and delightful to see in Haiti. We look forward to working with the the St. Louis community into their unique future.
Meanwhile, they need a completed school building
where teachers and students utilize proper rooms dedicated to each grade. Without it, discipline and steady progress become very difficult.
In answer to this need, Christ Church of Hamilton and Wenham members and friends from the community are investing in three ways:
School sponsors give regularly to support reliable teacher salaries.
North Shore Packathon for Haiti brought 550 volunteers together to pack and provide 100,000 school lunches for the SLA students through 2021. Nothing boosts attendance like school lunches, and nothing boosts achievement like regular attendance!
In addition to buying food, North Shore Packathon also raised money to build the first floor of St. Louis d’Ayiti’s new school! Now we need to raise $40,000 more to complete the second floor, with six additional classrooms.
