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Please See the "Haiti News"
Link Below for Earthquake updates!
Haiti Ministry Events 
October 23 -Pasta Dinner and
Basket raffle, visit from Fr. Johnson from Les Palmes
November - Craft sale at
Holiday Fair (St. Mary’s Coventry)
Sale of Crafts from Haiti’s Back Porch (20% of profit goes to Les
Palmes teacher salaries)
Also we will be hosting the
coffee hour after mass 2nd Sunday of the month with the exception
of June, July and August.
Meetings well be held the 1st
Monday of the Month and otherwise as needed.
Any changes will be noted on
www.stmaryscoventry.org
e-mail and church bulletin.
New York Times - Editorial A Plan for Haiti's Schools
August 16, 2010
A plan to build a new education system in Haiti is one of the most
encouraging things to emerge from the rubble of the
Jan. 12 earthquake. It
is expected to be endorsed at a meeting this week of the Interim Haiti
Recovery Commission, the joint Haitian-international body created to guide
the country's rebuilding.
Talk and promises have been far more abundant than visible improvements in
the lives of struggling
Haitians. After a frustratingly slow start, the
commission is finally confronting a range of urgent issues, including
housing and
debris removal. It is right that this meeting - only its second
- is immediately tackling
education reform head-on, since the current
system's failures are at the root of the country's thwarted potential.
Nearly all
primary schools in Haiti today are private; parents, eager to
give their children a better life, pay dearly. Judging from Haiti's high
illiteracy and
dropout rates and dire lack of qualified teachers, the system
needs a complete overhaul.
The plan to reinvent the education sector is hugely ambitious but relatively
simple. It does not try to build entirely from scratch - many schools will
still be privately run. But the government, with international help, will
provide generous subsidies to parents who choose to send their children to
schools that accept new layers of oversight and accountability, including
government accreditation, a modernized
national curriculum and teacher
retraining. These schools will also have to be certified as structurally
sound.
The goal is to provide universal free or nearly-free education for
kindergarten through 12th grades in accredited schools, with eventual
government financing. The full transformation is expected to take 20 years.
The first, five-year phase is expected to cost $500 million. Half of that
would come from the
Inter-American Development Bank, which has helped design
the program. The rest is expected to come from other donors. The plan is to
build at least 625 new primary schools and triple the number of publicly
financed schools. It would also retrain 90 percent of the country's teaching
force - 50,000 people - to teach the new curriculum, and it would train
2,500 new teachers a year, many through a program patterned on Teach for
America.
Outside experts have helped develop the plan, including
Paul Vallas, who
brought ambitious school reforms to Chicago and post-Katrina New Orleans.
...
But advisers also stress that the plan, which builds on a reform process
begun by the government before the quake, has the full endorsement of
President
René Préval. ...
This education plan, built with a constructive mix of homegrown initiative
and outside help, should be a model for moving other desperately needed
projects forward. There is no time to waste.
Supplies Sought for Art Therapy for Haitian Children
A program to help Haitian children deal with their experiences
and
feelings since the
earthquake in Haiti will begin this spring through a
partnership between Haitian Ministries for the
Diocese of Norwich and
CHART,
an organization of art therapists from around the world.
Art therapy sessions for children in programs in
Port-au-Prince
connected with Haitian Ministries will begin this spring and run
regularly
for at least a year.
CHART's mission is to help in the psychological well-being
of
children and families affected by natural and human-made disasters. The
organization (Communities Healing through Art) was established in 2004,
after a team of artists and art therapists responded to the devastation
in
Thailand following the Andaman-Sumatra tsunami.
Two therapists will travel to Haiti in early May to assess
the
needs for the on-going art
therapy program. They will stay at Haitian
Ministries' house in Port-au-Prince and visit the 65 girls at Le Foyer
des
Filles de Dieu (also known as Paula Thybulle's orphanage) and the 70
children at the meal program run by Madame Samson. Children in the
Tierney-Tobin scholarship program will also be involved.
Donations and/or donated new supplies for the
art therapy
program can be sent to Haiti's Back Porch,
100 Riverview, Suite 130,
Middletown, CT 06457. (The shop is owned and operated by Haitian
Ministries. Haitian Ministries can be contacted at:
info@haitianministries.org
or
860.848.2237 ext.206)
The new supplies needed are:
n Plain white drawing paper;
colored construction paper; tissue paper
of
all colors
n Pastels; crayons; colored pencils;
water colors; markers (thin &
thick);
acrylic or tempera paint; and
paint brushes of all sizes
n Tape, glue, glitter, scissors (most for children); liquid starch
n Children's smocks of all sizes
n For a wall mosaic that children will make: sponges; tile adhesive and
grout (the dry mixes)
Haitian Dinner to Benefit Port-au-Prince Parish
A Taste of Haiti dinner at St. Mark Church in Westbrook, CT starts at 6
p.m.
Saturday, May 15.
This event features a four-course Haitian dinner by Maryce Adonis, a
Haitian
chef, and Haitian entertainment. Also, Patrick Raycraft, a newspaper
photographer, will speak about his experiences in Haiti since the
earthquake.
The event will benefit Notre
Dame de Lourdes parish in Port-au-Prince,
Haiti, which is twinned with St. Mark.
The public is invited. Tickets are $25 a person, and $50 for families.
Children 12 and under are free. For more info, contact Peg Patierno at:
860-399-6808 or 860-399-6808, or e-mail:
<mailto:patierno@sbcglobal.net>
patierno@sbcglobal.net
6th Annual 'Taste of Haiti' in Hartford
The 6th Annual Taste of Haiti to celebrate and enjoy Haitian food,
music,
and the twinning relationship between St. Patrick-St. Anthony Church and
a
parish in rural Haiti will be held
5-7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 5.
Held at the Franciscan Center for Urban Ministries at St. Patrick-St.
Anthony Church in downtown
Hartford, the event is designed to give
parishioners and the larger community of friends and guests a better
understanding of Haiti and the
sister parish, St. Genevieve, located in
the
mountainous town of Zoranje, Haiti.
Along with Haitian food and music, the event will offer an exhibit of
Haitian photography and a shop with Haitian crafts and artwork.
All the money will go to St. Genevieve Parish.
The public is invited. Tickets ($10 per person; $5 for children 12 and
under; and $25 per family) will go on sale starting
May 15. Festivities
will
start at
5 p.m., and dinner will be served until 7 p.m.
For more information, visit: <http://www.spsact.org/haiti.html>
www.spsact.org/haiti.html.
Volunteers are needed. Anyone interested should contact Father Mike at
The
Franciscan Center for Urban Ministry,
285 Church Street, Hartford, CT,
06103.
860.756.4034.
Haitian Ministry Links
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