Let’s save the work of Dr Harold May in Haiti.
Haiti Mission trip opportunity
October 31 – November 7
Community Mission for hope will be leading a team to Verrettes, Haiti to do repair work on PROVIDENCE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL. The team will also conduct community counseling, home visits and outreach. For more information on how to be part of this trip click on conctact us or call (239) 601-5052.
Let’s save the work of Dr Harold May in Haiti.
The 2010 Haiti earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010 caused more than 200 000 deaths with the number of people injured measuring over that number, and either partly or completely destroyed thousands homes and hospitals with the main damage occurring in the Haitian capital and Leogane the south part of Port-au-Prince according to the figures reported by the Haitian government. While the international community has been providing emergency disaster supplies and assistance since the earthquake struck, due to the amount of damage caused and the need for more assistance in these areas, almost all the support was focused only to Port-au-Prince. Meanwhile the vulnerable cities that used to receive some support from international or local organizations are being completely abandoned. As a result some basic needs for education water or nutrition for the most vulnerable are jeopardized and in some cases shut down. This is the situation of the “Providence” school in Verrettes a little town in northern part of Haiti. Situated at about 100 miles from the capital, this Christian school was a gift of an American Physician Dr Harold May from Massachusetts to the community he had served for more than 15 years of his life as a medical doctor.
Dr. Harold May has spent a lifetime saving lives and transforming communities. We all applaud him for his commitment to the advancement of the disadvantaged in under developed countries and beyond. Dr. May’s life story winds through the hallowed halls of Harvard, the ranks of the Tuskegee Airmen, and missionary service in Haiti, where he opened a school (the Providence School) and served as Chief of Surgery at a an understaffed hospital (Albert Schweitzer Hospital of Verrettes) for 15 years. It continues back to Massachusetts where he most recently was the Medical Director at Wrentham State School, retiring after 19 years from a medical center that bears his name
In his career and in his life, Dr. May has been concerned about the needs of urban youth. Disturbed, by stories of teens and violence in places, like Verretes, free of drugs. He quickly realizes that the most effective intervention in the life of a teen was to give him access to a good education. He committed himself to finding a way to break the cycle of poverty and crime that plagues urban communities. Dr May is an inspiration to this community of Verrettes and the Providence School is a live testimony of his work for them. Verrettes is today the safest place of Haiti, with about 62000 people and sometime an empty jail.
Today desperate in the fight to keep the school opened to serve the community of Verrettes, and to honor the wishes of Dr May to contribute to the education of those of underdeveloped countries, the staff of the providence school has transformed part of the soccer field and other play areas into land farm, rented to pay the teachers ‘salaries already behind by two months. The physical structure of the buildings have deteriorated (rusty cage, painting, cracks in the building structures etc.), the school is unable to replace the broken seats, or maintaining its landscape etc. At this point the ultimate decision would be to completely shut down its activities as an elementary and junior high school but to keep for a while the professional teaching for cuisine, sewing and nursing assistant classes in order to pay the teachers pass due.
Community Mission for Hope during our last support visit to Haiti to help save lives; have met with the staff of the Providence School and some community leaders interested in keeping this school opened to serve the community. As a result, we have come up with this project of rehabilitation of the providence school. This project aims to rehabilitate the educational facilities of the providence school (classrooms, kitchen, conference rooms, bathroom etc) at a highest priority, in order to rehabilitate the function and capacity of public services to at least pre-disaster levels.
The scale of rehabilitated facilities shall be sufficient enough to provide at least the same level of function and capacity as pre-disaster conditions. As a direct effect of this project, the providence school (10 classrooms, 1 conference room including the library and the administrative offices and toilets) will be rehabilitated, providing a safe and suitable education environment to approx. 550 students. The drainage system around the Providence school will also be rehabilitated.
Furthermore, as an indirect effect of this project, the rehabilitation of educational facilities will improve the safety and the functionality of the providence school. It will also improve the capacity of the people to come together to address the problem of their community, and finally improving the effect of education. On top of this, improvements are expected to be made on the management strategy to build institutional capacity for planning, to stimulate efficient use of fiscal resources to make this school a self sustainable institution to prevent it in the future to scale back in this situation, and to assure quality of learning outcome. In other words, this project will contribute in providing hope and a sense of well being to the local community by lessening the extent of damage caused to this community indirectly in times of disaster.
Restructuring Status: Active
Restructuring Type: Level 1
Last modified on date : 06/14/2011
1. Basic Information
Project ID & Name School Rehabilitation
Country Haiti
Location Verrettes
Task Team Leader Pastor Solange Joseph
School Director Daniel Lundy
Community coordinator Haiti Ing Rosemond Pierre
Community coordinator US Marie Rochasse
Current Closing Date 08/19/2011
Organization / Group Community Mission for Hope
Category Non for Profit
Website www.communitymissionforhope.org
Contact HT (509) 3713-7858 Haiti
Contact US (239) 692- 2232
Project Development Objectives/Outcomes
The Project’s development objective is to assist Verrettes Community in restoring and improving access to basic education in selected destroyed or impacted primary schools.
As required by our new strategy, community Mission for Hope will take care of all activities that need to be done in order for the Providence school to open next year. No money will be given to the school, but together with the people of Verrettes we will rehabilitate the school. We appeal to all students that attended the Providence school in the pass to come forward to help, to all the Haitian community in USA or anywhere in the world to join, to anyone that is interested in making this world a better place, to those willing to support Dr Harold May’s work in Haiti, and finally to those that care enough about children and want to provide them with the means for an education. A special call is also addressed to handymen and people with construction skills to be part of the team going to Haiti this summer. Please sign up on our website by living a comment to this post. To all of you that prefer to donate materials instead of money can do so by giving one of these items listed below:
Teacher chair (20 needed)
Teacher desk (10 needed)
White board (10 “ “ “ )
Generator 16+KW (1)
School supplies
Kitchen supplies
Paints (Blue and white)
Tiles, enough for at least 600 sf.
Lawnmower (1)
Water pump (1)
Pressure pump (1)
Please contact: Marie Rochasse (239) 692-2232 (English) or Ana Patino (239 352-4099 (Spanish) for donation of materials or to sign up to be on that trip to Haiti. Any other donation can be made securely online at: www.communitymissionforhope.org or PO BOX 12195 Naples, Fl 34101.