St. Remy Haiti Mission Group

In the fall of 2004, the St. Remy Parish Council was seeking a twinning relationship with a Catholic parish in Haiti and asked for volunteers from the parish to travel there. A husband and wife volunteered and what they found was so shocking that they didn’t know where to start. No electricity, few, and very poor roads, 80% unemployment, very little health care, a poor and ineffective government, few had any means of transportation, and only 3% had an education. This was just some of the problems that were found in this semi-rural area of Balan, Haiti. After much deliberation it was decided that the only place to start was in helping to educate the people of Haiti.

The mission statement for this endeavor became: "Help these people to help themselves by providing support for education and some basic health care."

With help from St. Remy Parish, the school at Our Lady of Victory Parish in Balan, which is near Cap-Haitien in northern Haiti, has more than doubled in size. Members of St. Remy's are currently sponsoring 87 students in this school!

Here is a picture of the old school in 2005 with four crude walls and a roof.

　

This is the school in 2008 with a second story added, improved restrooms, finished and painted walls, and chalkboards.

In January of 2009, St. Remy's Haiti Mission Group started to build a medical clinic. They had the walls up when the Order of Malta in France discovered it and wanted to help improve it by making it "bigger and better," with birthing rooms, a pharmacy, and quarters for doctors and nurses. Tufts University from Boston, has also become involved in this project. A language barrier between the contributing groups and the contractor is slowing the completion of the building.

St. Remy's Haiti Mission group's future plans are to start an agricultural school to teach the people of the area how to sustain themselves through farming. Land has already been purchased next to the school for a land lab. This project will not start until the medical clinic is complete. The people of this area are excited and enthusiastic about the progress that they are seeing. They are very thankful for St. Remy's generosity and pray for them everyday!

Anyone wishing to travel to Haiti with the St. Remy group is welcome. One hundred percent of all the funds donated by the members of St. Remy's go to Our Lady of Victory Parish, in Balan, Haiti. Travel expenses are paid for by the travelers, and there are no administration expenses.

January 2012: