Get Your GOAT and be the G.O.A.T.!
We are raising funds to purchase 100 goats (at $100 each) for our Haiti Notre Dame d'Altagrace families -- 50 families will each receive a male and female goat; male and female offspring will be given to another family in the community.
Be the Greatest Of All Time and help us with this wonderful cause by making a donation today!
M A K E Y O U R
Donation
M E M O R A B L E
Please listen to this message from Elisson Adrien. His love for and dedication to his local community has inspired so many of us to get involved with the I C Haiti Outreach Ministry.
Show How Much You Care
Welcome to
I Care - Haiti Ministry!
About Us
As part of the Twinning Program of the Americas (PTPA), IC-Haiti Outreach Ministry supports education, health, and economic improvement efforts in Notre Dame d’Altagrâce parish in Haiti’s Central Plateau. Since 2004, contributions from members of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
in Memphis, TN, several grants, and numerous fund raisers have enabled us to provide educational, medical, agricultural, and economic resources to our brothers and sisters in rural Haiti. Volunteers make regular trips to Haiti to assess the needs of the parish, and also continue to work to create an awareness at home of how our efforts are making a difference.
Village of Layaye, Haiti
Our Mission
The mission of our Ministry is to fulfill the mandate of Christ to love one another, especially God’s most vulnerable children, the poor and suffering. We strive to fulfill Christ’s call by reaching out in solidarity to our sisters and brothers in Haiti and work with them to foster human dignity, peace, and justice in their lives and ours. We work to facilitate interaction with the people of Notre Dame d’Altagrâce Parish, and by providing an opportunity for others to grow spiritually through ministry and service.
Notre Dame d’Altagrâce in the village of Layaye
About our Sister Parish
The parish of Notre Dame d’Altagrâce is located in the village of Layaye in central Haiti, approximately 7 miles from Hinche, the department seat. Approximately 30,000 people live within the parish boundaries. In addition to the main church in Layaye, Notre Dame d’Altagrâce parish includes eight chapels in Bwadum, Zabriko, Régalis, Abriot, Salmori I, Bourouk, Rincon, and Desidet. Each of the chapels are accessible only on foot or by mule.
Why Haiti?
Before the Ministry’s formation, members of Immaculate Conception were searching for ways in which the Cathedral parish could reach out in a meaningful way to the neediest and most desperate members of our human family. Through much reflection, reading and prayer, we identified Haiti as a place where we could turn.
Haiti is a small Caribbean country of some 8 million people and is approximately the size of Maryland. While a country of great physical beauty, Haiti is burdened by staggering poverty. Indeed, Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and one of the poorest in the world. The tragedy of this poverty is further magnified by the fact that Haiti is only a short 90-minute plane ride from the United States, a country replete with wealth and natural resources.
As we learned then and can still attest to today, Haiti finds itself at the top or nearly so of many lists for poor socioeconomic indicators. Here are just a few examples:
Haiti, the third largest country in the Caribbean, is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and one of the poorest five countries in the world.
Haiti has an unemployment rate of 40.6%.
Haiti is the most water-poor country in the world according to the international water poverty index
The per capita expenditure for health care in Haiti is only about 1% of that in the U.S. Only 40% of Haiti’s population has access to basic health care.
The average per capita income in Haiti is $480 a year, compared to $33,550 in the United States.; the average rural Haitian subsists on just $1 a day.
The infant mortality rate in Haiti is over 10 fold higher than that of the U.S
Over 250,000 people in Haiti have HIV/AIDS, compared with 900,000 in the U.S. a country with a population 37 times larger than that of Haiti
Only 25% of Haiti’s roads are paved; fewer than 5 out of 1,000 Haitians own a car.
Our Accomplishments
The Ministry provides much needed support to meet administrative, educational, health care, economic, and emergency needs of the members of Notre Dame d’Altagrâce parish. Since its establishment in 2004, the Ministry has:
Supported K-13 Education
In Haiti there is no free public school system and the adult literacy rate is only 48.7%. The IC Haiti ministry provides scholarship funding for village children to attend grades K-13. Grade 7-12 funding is supported through a joint venture with St. Maximilian Kolbe parish
in West Chester, PA.
Established Monthly Medical Clinics and Provided Ongoing Medication Assistance
Since 2011, IC Haiti Ministry has funded a monthly medical clinic in Layaye staffed by a local physician, Dr. Noel Georges, and nurse as well as a medical dispensary staffed by a medical assistant two days per week. The Ministry also provides deworming medication and vitamins for children that are distributed by a trained community health worker. Additionally, the Ministry leads medical, dental, and optometry missions to the village. It is the goal of the Ministry to operate the dispensary on a full-time basis.
Established a Trade School for Young Adults
Young adults have inadequate opportunity for economic gain in rural Haiti. The IC Haiti Ministry built and now funds a trade school to allow young men and women to acquire skills (sewing, tailoring, carpentry, cooking, and sign-making) that allow a path to financial security. Students and graduates have begun creating decorative greeting cards that are available for purchase from Etsy
through our website.
Click Here to Purchase Greeting Cards from Etsy
Provided Clean Water to ~800 Households
Access to clean or improved water systems is lacking for most rural dwellers in the Central Plateau. Contaminated drinking water causes countless cases of intestinal distress, Cholera, and even death. The Ministry has responded by providing a several types (biosand, charcoal/chlorine-based
and micron fiber filters) of home-based water filtration systems to about 800 households. The Ministry supports three water technicians who build and maintain the systems as well as educate the community about their use.
Conducted Training and Education for Farmers
In 2017 the ministry began funding an agronomist, Myriel Fanfan, to work with local farmers. Working in a class setting or one-on-one, he teaches the most efficient farming methods, crop optimization and, sustainability techniques. His work has resulted in a tree nursery that supplies the community with many varieties of trees (mango, papaya, coconut, lemon, avocado, moringa) that can be planted and used to improve household nutrition and provide produce to sell at market.
Installed Two Solar-Powered Grain Mills
The IC Haiti Ministry purchased, assembled and installed two solar-powered grain mills
in two remote parish chapels. Farmers now can avoid the costs (fees and fuel) associated with milling their grain before it is taken to market.
Success Stories
The Amazing Story of Elisson Adrien
Today he is a medical student at Haiti’s Quisqueya University
intent on returning to Layaye as a doctor, but he was 13 when Debra Bartelli and three other IC parish members traveled to his village, Layaye, to establish a sister-parish relationship.
Elisson was their guide, cheerfully leading them along donkey paths, through cornfields and up and down mountains.
He was 16 when Bartelli returned with her nephew, John McGreevy, an Elon University freshman who became his biggest advocate.
He was 17 when both of his parents died and he and his three brothers were orphaned.
By then, Elisson was walking 10 miles a day to attend what passes for a high school in rural Haiti.
Over the next several years, Elisson also survived a bloody coup, a food crisis, several hurricanes and tropical storms, and the massive 2010 earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands of people.
In 2012, Elon University offered Elisson a full-tuition scholarship. Bartelli’s family and other IC members told him they'd help him pay for room and board....
Future Projects
- A fully stocked and staffed medical dispensary
- Fully encased latrine (outhouse) system