Author: ayitiweb

While in Massachusetts water falls in excess this season, in Haiti water is scarce and potable water is yet scarcer. Long hoped for the pit and pump for potable water was installed at St Matthew’s recently thanks to Food for the Poor

>>>>CLICK HERE TO SEE THE WATER FLOW>>>

Despite appalling news from Haiti: assassination of President Moïse, dysfunctional politics, and a surge in Covid-19 that has carried off the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Rector and Vice-Rector of the Episcopal University, the sinews of civil society in Haiti show an admirable resilience. Here, in our new multipurpose space, report cards are distributed to parents and trophies to grades 3 and 5 for an interclass competition during the year now completed.

School ‘directeur’, Clibert Massillon has even gone as far as to hold summer teaching sessions to forestall the “summer slide” and as something of a substitute for our erstwhile summer camps.

The structure, there in the right hand upper corner ↘︎

The interior –coming along nicely click here to see!

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Next: books, more books ….. you’ ll want to contribute !

News from Haiti is often grim. Deterioration in security –kidnapping for ransom of ordinary citizens– has dominated recently.

First, check here for an outline of the state of education, the stage.

Then, applaud our actors, the children and teachers of St Matthew’s, on stage, who have steadfastly stayed in school and have just completed the third ‘controle’ according to the habitual calendar, outpacing the revised calendar.

Applaud too the directors Pr Dieque, priest, and Clibert Massillon, directeur, builders of a fine institution

And thank too the producers, generous and loyal donors, and join them for a sustained run

Each year we offer scholarships for the next stage of their education to select graduates of St. Matthieu. Happily we are able to add two more to this roster of promising students:

Each scholarship requires a sponsor to meet the cost. Opportunities remain open for further sponsorships/scholars. Could that be you? Contact Bonnie at bvigeland@gmail.com

The current socio-political situation is well reported here in the New Yorker and it is dispiriting. Now copy/paste this Geo Plus code into Google Maps and click on satellite view to alight at a bright spot where Haiti works

FCC6+CV Fond More, Haiti

– St. Matthew’s

Mindful of the past hurricanes, the 2010 earthquake, cholera, chikugunya, Dengue, the seemingly endless afflictions which the Haitian people have suffered, John Stifler points us to an assessment in the Florida newspapers, with some surprise, of the impact of Covid -19

Exchange rate gyrations steadying. Earlier this year there was a damaging fall in the value of the gourde against the dollar (115:1). The Bank of Haiti stepped in to fix the rate substantially below (55:1) the free market rate. The value of dollars sent home from the Haitian diaspora, about one third of national income, plummeted. The central bank has yielded to this distress by raising the reference rate to a level (70:1) near that which pertained before the turbulence began.

Clibert Massillon, director of the school, has been central to the development of St Matthew’s. Here, Meg Holladay writes an appreciation in Grace’s news letter.

Skilled teachers are not always to be found residing in the villages around St Matthew’s. Here’s the transport fleet to bring them from the nearby city of Gonaïves.

Number three recently added