New Life for Haiti is mobilizing to help residents in the Grand'Anse River Valley rebuild their damaged and destroyed homes in the wake of the devastating earthquake. We have purchased cement and will be distributing it to residents in need over the days and weeks ahead. Residents will use this concrete to repair or rebuild walls that have collapsed. This information will be updated as the program progresses.

In September 2007, New Life for Haiti began sending teams to the village of Marfranc. Our first project was to help the church there complete its primary school building. As you can see, the building, which serves students up through 6th Grade, needed a lot of attention. With no external walls, the students were exposed to the elements, and when it rains it Haiti, it can be torrential. This lack of walls also meant that students could be easily distracted by outside events. And of course, no walls means no security, so the classrooms couldn't be supplied with even the most basic of supplies like globes or books. Additionally, the classrooms lacked decent blackboards. In Haiti, knowledge is transferred from the teacher's books to the blackboard, and from there to the students' own notebooks. With only a small, ragged, and worn chalkboard in place, the teachers and their students faced difficult challenges indeed.

By March 2008, we had completed the first phase of work on the primary school. In this phase, we expanded the foundation of the school to enable the classrooms to be enlarged. This in turn has allowed more students to attend classes. We built external walls with doorways and large window openings to allow good air circulation. We replaced the old roof that used large branches for support with one made from proper lumber. This new roof now has a sizeable overhang as well, which was lacking on the previous structure. This overhang will provide students with added protection from the sun and rain. A new feature we have added to the inside of each classroom is a painted chalkboard. This special paint was applied directly to the finished concrete that makes up the front wall of each room. These new chalkboards are durable and easy to clean. Their large size allows for more student interaction, with room for both the teacher's notes and the students' board work. We still need to install doors and security coverings in the windows before we can start equipping the classroom with supplies, but the building is complete enough that classes began meeting in it before it was even painted. This building sustained no structural damage in the January 2010 earthquake.

The construction work on all of our projects is done by men who live in and around Marfranc, with help from our work team members from the States who visit periodically. While the visiting American teams are volunteers, the local men are paid fair wages by New Life for Haiti. These wages allow the men to provide for their families during this time of crisis in Haiti.

In December 2007, we broke ground for the foundation of our supply depot in Marfranc. By providing secure storage space, this large building allows us to purchase construction supplies in quantities that afford us the best prices. This was particularly important as the price of construction materials skyrocketed in 2009 along with the price of food and gas. We are also using this depot to store the cement that is being used in the earthquake relief effort. The depot was finished in February 2008.

Marfranc is the biggest ville for miles in the Grand'Anse River Valley, but it has no secondary school. At one point, construction was started on a secondary school building there, but it was never completed. This building, shown above, never made it beyond the roof and supports; it has since sat unused. This means that families of students who completed 6th Grade faced a painful decision: send the student off to live for years with family or friends in a larger city to continue their education there, or else stop having them go to school at all.

In 2008, New Life for Haiti began an effort to replace this structure with one that will actually serve secondary school students. In the summer of 2008, funding challenges brought construction on this project to a halt with a concrete foundation and unfinished walls in place. When additional funding became available in late 2008, construction on this project resumed. If you would like to make an online donation to help us complete this school, please click here.

Steve and Joline Moore are our permanent staff living in Haiti. When New Life for Haiti was begun in 2005, we knew we wanted to focus our work on an area surrounding Jeremie, but we didn't know the exact location. Determining this location would require many trips to the surrounding villes to visit community leaders and assess needs. It was therefore logical that we initially found housing for the Moore's right in Jeremie to facilitate this search effort. The home they found was well-built and located in a safe neighborhood. It was large enough to accomodate Steve and Joline, their dog Sejan, and visiting work teams of up to about eight people. While they lived there, they made daily, 45-minute drives into Marfranc to do their work.

In February 2008, we began construction of a new staff house in Marfranc. Like their rented house in Jeremie, this house was designed to be large enough for Steve and Joline and visiting work teams, with several additional benefits:

• No more rent. In Haiti, leases are typically given in one-year increments, with rent for the entire year due up front. When the United Nations established a major presence in Jeremie several years ago, landlords raised their rent to take advantage of the influx of foreign renters. With the completion of the staff house in Marfranc, the funds we had been applying toward rent will instead be able to be channeled to other projects.
• No more commute. Living right in Marfranc frees up an hour and a half each day for Steve and Joline, since it took 45 minutes to drive from their previous home in Jeremie to the work area in Marfranc. This also means that visiting teams are now able to work longer days.
• Less fuel consumed. As it has everywhere, the price of gasoline and diesel in Haiti has been volatile in recent months. To complicate matters, their availability is uncertain in the Jeremie area since the earthquake, as the main road used by the trucks to deliver fuel has become impassable. By living where they work, Steve and Joline are now able to greatly reduce their trips along the Grand'Anse river. This of course has beneficial environmental impacts as well.
• Less wear and tear on the truck. It's a rough dirt road between Jeremie and Marfranc, and it takes a beating on the truck. In fact, vehicle maintenance costs exceeded expectations in 2008, contributing to the funding crunch that impacted other projects. By living in Marfranc, the Moore's have seen a reduction in the maintenance required on the vehicles.
• A greater presence in Marfranc. This is perhaps the most important benefit to be realized. By living right in Marfranc, the Moore's have already become full-fledged members of the Marfranc community, not just daily visitors. They have developed deeper relationships with other Marfranc residents and leaders. They are able to work closer with the project teams throughout the entire day, not just a portion of it. Visiting teams are now able to forge closer bonds to the people of Marfranc during their short stays. By living right in Marfranc, New Life for Haiti is saying to the entire community, “We're here with you, and we're here to stay.”

In October 2008, Steve and Joline began moving their belongings from their rented house in Jeremie to their new home, dubbed “Kay Bo Rivye” (meaning “House by the river”). On October 30th, they completed their move and spent their first night there, beginning New Life for Haiti's permanent presence in Marfranc.

Marfranc has no permanent medical facilities. The closest hospital is in Jeremie, ten miles away. This doesn't seem far, but if you were in a life-threatening situation, this ten miles represents a 45 minute drive—if you're lucky enough to have a vehicle that will take you there non-stop. If you're taking a tap-tap (a shared taxi that is the common form of transportation in Haiti), then expect to add time to that drive as the vehicle stops at the villages en route to pick up and drop off passengers. Walking? Riding your donkey? Expect the trip to take a couple hours. Would you do this to save your life? Yes. And so do many Haitians. Would you do this for a routine cut or other injury? Maybe not. And this is what can cause major health problems for many Haitians.

Here at home, if you get a deep cut, you might see a doctor to have it stitched up and treated with antibiotics. Within a few days, you'd be well on your way to a healthy recovery. In areas of Haiti without medical clinics, such injuries often go untreated. Untreated wounds like these often become seriously infected, and lead to all kinds of complications. In extreme cases, untreated infections have led to death.

For several years, St. Patrick Church in Kokomo, Indiana has been sending medical teams to Marfranc to conduct medical clinics. These yearly visits provide much-needed health care to the residents of Marfranc, but the teams are limited to working for a few days at a time with whatever medical supplies they can bring with them. They have no opportunity to provide follow-up care to residents as needed throughout the rest of the year.

In 2008, New Life for Haiti began work on a project to renovate an abandoned church in Marfranc into a medical clinic. On the inside, the raised altar area and railings have been removed to make one continuous, level floor. On the outside, one of the walls will need to be shored up or replaced completely. A secure room will then be built to store drugs and other medical supplies. The partially renovated building hosted its first visiting medical team from Kokomo in November 2008, and the improvements were well received. “No longer did we have to walk around the railing or old altar, nor worry about the people tripping over the steps”, said Barbara Cline, Haiti Ministry Coordinator for St. Patrick Church. “Mesi anpil! (“thanks a lot!”)”

When the medical teams from St. Patrick Church in Kokomo, Indiana descend on Marfranc, they bring their own medical supplies. They must do this because there are no secure storage facilities in Marfranc in which to store these items. With the construction of such a facility adjoining the medical clinic, teams will be able to gradually build up a more varies supply of tools, materials, and medicines. This in turn will allow the teams to provide more varied types of treatments.

The trench for the foundation of this facility has been dug out, and New Life for Haiti is coordinating with the owners of the property to determine the rest of the project plan.

In 2008, four hurricanes swept through or past Haiti, wiping out the bean crops of the farmers in the Grand'Anse River Valley. Because they practice subsistence farming, these farmers had no reserve supply of beans with which they could replant.

New Life for Haiti responded by introducing the Beans for Life program. In this program, beans were lent to farmers with the understanding that the beans had to be paid back with "bean interest" after harvest. In February 2009, nearly 3,000 cups of beans were distributed to 55 farmers, and the overwhelming majority of farmers repaid their bean loans after the May harvest. The farmers were very thankful for the opportunity to participate in a program that did not require them to pay out money to feed their family and yet let them be self-sufficient in terms of taking care of their families. New Life for Haiti plans to repeat this program again in the future as needed.