About our Twin Parish in Haiti
The Church of St. Michael and St. Peter committed to become a twin parish in the spring of the year 2000. Parishioner Ligory Fernandes contacted the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas to be matched with parish in Haiti.
The Church of the Immaculate Conception was built on land given by the community in the area called Chauffard, in the mountains south west of Port-au-Prince. The Church, Rectory, and school were built there. The parish is made up of Chauffard, and six other villages with chapels and smaller schools tucked away in the mountains around Chauffard. The villages include Laval, Procy, Malanga, Bois d’Homme, Berly, and Masson. There are no real roads among the villages, just trails.
The parishioners of our twin parish live simply; without running water, plumbing or electricity. They cook their meals outside over wood or charcoal fires. They collect water from streams for their many needs. Most families are farmers. The children are always in clean uniforms for school and everyone dresses in their best to attend mass on Sunday.
Education is very important to the people of our twin parish. The $1,000 a month we send during the school year for the salaries for the 35 teachers and school lunch cooks helps retain good staff from year to year. Families want their children to grow up healthy for useful challenging careers just as we do.
The children of our twin parish are deserving of a good education and healthy meals. The simple meal of rice and beans or pasta and dried fish that we provide through the school lunch program is their best meal of the day. Since 2014, the World Food Program stopped sending food supplies to religious schools in southern Haiti. It has been a struggle to raise $5,000 a month to pay for a healthy hot meal at lunchtime for every student in the 7 schools of our twin parish during the school year.
Our medical mission volunteers celebrated the dedication of the new Chauffard clinic with the community in November 2018. The clinic, like the church, was originally built in the 1950’s and was is poor condition. It was rebuilt over a number of years thanks to donations from parishioners of St. Michael and St. Peter's Church and friends. Since April 2018, the clinic is staffed with a licensed nurse and lab technician. For nine Novembers, with the help of Haitian translators, our medical mission volunteers joined with Haitian medical professionals to serve hundreds of patients a day in the clinic. Those visits are a wonderful personal connection between our parishes.
The area served by our twin parish, the Church of the Immaculate Conception, suffered greatly from the terrible 2010 earthquake and sustains hurricane damage just about every Fall. Generous donors have given funds to build 14 sturdy new homes for families. Natural disasters took their toll on the Chauffard church building as well and it became unusable by 2020. The Church of the Immaculate Conception (Chauffard church) was reconstructed through funds unselfishly given by parishioners from the Church of St. Michael and St. Peter's and our many friends and reopened in 2021.
Here in Syracuse, we host fundraisers all year long to fund the school lunch program, salaries for teachers, lunch cooks, and other staff, and various projects. In past years, we collected school supplies for the 5 schools in Chauffard each Fall and basic medical supplies/toiletries to send on a sea container shipment to Haiti each Spring. Right now, we are not collecting donations of supplies or planning a medical mission. We continue to raise funds for the school lunch program and salaries. In our twin parish the school is functioning as usual and people are going to the clinic and church. The parish priest, Father Raymond, receives the money we send at a small bank like a credit union and purchases food for the school lunches.
Life is precarious in Haiti right now. The protests against the government in 2018 grew into greater lawlessness including increased kidnappings, murders, violence against women, and robberies. Haiti has no army to protect its citizens. Since the assassination of the president, gangs have gained more and more power until now they run roadblocks demanding tolls, stop and loot humanitarian convoys of food and medicine, control the fuel depo, have cut off access to the airport and port, continue attacking and murdering citizens, have released criminals from the main prison, and other similar atrocities. There is no functioning government in Haiti. The Haitians of our twin parish have nowhere to turn to but the Church of the Immaculate Conception and Father Raymond. They need our prayers and support now more than ever.
We welcome your volunteer service and donations at any time. If you have questions or want more information, contact Kate McMahon at afrikate@aol.com or 315-214-1569.
