Dear Friends of Haitian Roots,
Haitian Roots believes that education is the number one way to eradicate poverty and give hope to the future of Haiti. We have always struggled, however, when we see and know that the children in our program may not be eating, having safe shelter, or proper medical attention. It is worrisome and frustrating. We are providing an education, but if the children are so hungry that they can’t concentrate in school or have other basic needs that aren’t being met , then it is likely that the education is not going to mean much. Many of you will recall that 9 of our children became orphaned in the infamous earthquake of 2010. Several of those children were taken into an orphanage run by our wonderful coordinator, Harry Mardy.
The name of the orphanage is La Maison De Nos Petits Enfants. Harry, his wife Pascale, and their two beautiful children live at the orphanage and care for the Haitian Roots children as well as 9 other children ranging in age from 4 to 18 years. The Haitian Roots children are in the process of being adopted but the situation in Haiti is constantly changing and the chance that the other children will ever be adopted is not great. Most of these children will eventually age out of the orphanage with no education nor life skills if somebody doesn’t step in to help. In Haiti, there is no government support for orphanages, rather are at the mercy of charities and NGOs. Harry has been with out any type of consistent support for a very long time. The orphanage is in disrepair and there are a lot of safety issues for the children, as well as difficulty just to provide for basic needs. This has been of grave concern to us but until now we did not have much to offer other than the scholarships for the four Haitian Roots children.
IT IS WITH GREAT PLEASURE AND EXCITEMENT that we announce that doors have opened for Haitian Roots to to support La Maison. We are so excited to be of greater support to Harry, who has been a true and faithful friend to Haitian Roots (always helping as translator and many other ways) long before he became a coordinator. We hope that the orphanage will become a very wonderful environment for these children (and others in or out of our program who inevitably will come to us needing shelter).
We will soon be putting up a page on our website about the orphanage and will keep you updated through our blog, which you will find on our home page whenever you click on www.haitianroots.com
We hope that you will support us in this endeavor! Please spread the word that we have several new children in need of educational sponsorships this Fall. We will be updating the website and Facebook page (please “like” us, if you have not already) to let you know about upcoming fundraisers and our goals. Please feel free to contact our Orphanage Project Coordinator, Deborah Wunderli (dwunderli@gmail.com) for additional information regarding the needs that the orphanage is facing at this time.
Thank you all so very much for your generous support!
Sincerely,
The Haitian Roots Team
P.S. We are still working on the details of our Summer Volunteer Trip. For now, we can tell you that the trip will be the week of August 14th and will involve a lot of physical labor. More details coming soon!