LaGonave 2011


March 2011 saw Lou Carole and Elaine on their 3rd trip to LaGonave , an island off the coast of Haiti.

We were pleased to be able to visit the children’s home and spend some time there. There are more children than ever, around 70 at the last count, squeezed into the house they use for accommodation. There is a desperate need for larger, better accommodation.

Haiti Help was pleased to be asked to join a co-operative of charities all working to help the children. The co-op is called “Okipe” (it means “to look after” in Creole) its purpose is to work with the children’s home to co-ordinate the efforts of different charities who want to be involved. You can see a lot more about the work Okipe is doing to build a new Children’s Village if you visit their website at www.Okipe.org. 






Here are a few of the reasons identified by Okipe why we all need to collaborate to move the children to better accommodation:


  1. The current building is multiple stories of concrete, the kind of construction that resulted in massive loss of life in the last big earthquake.  They live there in fear.
  2. There is virtually nowhere for the children to go outside which means their lives primarily take place inside one large building with bars enclosing them in the wrap around balconies (pictured).
  3. There is no safe drinking water supply on-site.
  4. The cooking space is unsafe and has no proper ventilation for smoke, etc.
  5. They have nowhere to dispose of waste water or garbage. The biggest challenge here is on Saturdays when laundry is done for all of them.  The water must simply run off which causes problems with neighbors. They have to pay someone to remove the garbage to another location in the town.
  6. Wherever they rent housing, the rent steadily gets raised over time.  They are paid through the end of June currently, but expect the rent to continue to rise.

Haiti Help intends to work closely with Okipe and hopes to be able to make a significant contribution of funds towards building the new Children’s village.

One of the first tasks Okipe took on was to identify and purchase land for the Children’s Village to be built on. Haiti Help was pleased to be able to contribute 25% of the purchase price. A huge THANK YOU to all our donors and fundraising helpers for enabling us to do this. It just looks like 3.75 acres of scrub at the moment but things are moving apace.

The site has been drilled and a good source of clean water has been located. Haiti Help has pledged to give $5000 towards the $25000 cost of installing a well and water treatment house. Once this has been done building work can commence. The site has been surveyed and an architect from Scotland is drawing up plans for the new Children’s Village at the moment. These will be along the lines of a central school/kitchen/dining/recreational building with satellite houses where the children will be looked after in small groups. Okipe has a timescale drawn up for completing the first phase of this development and moving the children from their current unsafe premises. This is all dependent on sufficient money being raised. We need all the help we can get to take this ambitious project forward! Please think about getting yourself and your friends involved!

Please consider making a small but regular donation by standing order. The Children’s Home needs enough day to day money to provide for the children before money can go towards building the new premises they so desperately require. Please contact us if you need more information We would be delighted to come along and give an illustrated talk to any group interested in hearing more about our work on the island.

The Poor House

We made a couple of visits to the poor house during our time on the island. We make a regular donation of $20 a week which we are told the elderly residents use to supplement their food supply. They live mainly on rice and beans. We send the money through WISH (West Indian Self Help Group) a local charity which already organises local volunteers to look in and help the elderly residents. 

We took some clothing out to them but during our visit it became obvious to us that their pressing need was for decent shoes. We left money with one of the volunteers from WISH. He was delighted to be able to go to the market and buy shoes.

If you would like to donate money for the Poor House residents please let us know. We would love to be able to help them a little bit more.