$25,000 challenge grant for Haiti/Zafen!

The Vincentian Family will match your support up to $25,000.  Provide children displaced by the earthquake a safe home, regular meals, education, and extra-curricular activities such as embroidery, music lessons, and sports. Make your $1 contribution count for $2!

The House of Children and Hope for Haiti is a home for displaced, abandoned, or orphaned children whose families lost homes in the January 12, 2010 earthquake. These children were living in a tent encampment in Carradeaux, Tabarre. Father Fredy, a Vincentian priest for the Congregation of the Mission, started working in this area following the earthquake. He identified the children as minors who were either orphaned or abandoned by unfit parents. The house serves 25 children: 13 boys and 12 girls. Over the last two years the children’s lives have changed dramatically. Father Fredy secured housing in a four-bedroom home in a gated community.  The children’s lives have slowly been transformed. They have been attending school, receiving three meals a day, and learning music, sports and crafts skills.

Fr. Fredy oversees the house, with a staff of 5 (2 cooks and 3 persons who work directly with the children). He would like to hire people to provide regular music and manual arts lessons. Such lessons are currently given irregularly by a volunteer.

The three personnel in charge of the children are a House Director and two monitors. The kitchen oversees the provision of three healthy meals per day.  All staff is full-time. The House Director is equivalent to the Mother of the House.  As director, she is not only the operations manager (maintaining food stock, ordering, paying bills on time), she also acts as the children’s parent, managing the parent–teacher relations for the 25 children. She is on-call 24 hours per day in case of medical emergencies, coordinates all activities for the children and liaises with outside staff for further education of the children. The two monitors work throughout the day to supervise the children, prepare them for school, assure their well-being and provide support to the House Director.