Haiti Update

A letter from Rotary's Past District Governor, Dick McCombe.

Things have been quiet since our last communiqué, but I wanted to update you on a couple of points. We are continuing to address our priority for the mid term which is to provide relief in the youth and education areas. We have purchased 10 large heavy duty 30’ wide x 48’ long x 16’ high Tents for additional classroom space in 10 communities. Additionally we are providing sufficient material to build 900 desks and Chairs to be constructed in Haiti by the refugee community in a number of regions giving them jobs for the short term. Additionally we are trying to get cash contributions to assist with the school fees for the many children that have been orphaned or displaced and whose parents are not in position to pay the fees. This is necessary as in almost all instances the school fees includes at least one meal which may be the one meal a day the student gets.

Your continued compassion and support is necessary and as always cash allows us to make the best contribution possible at the time the needs are identified. We have also agreed to fund $50,000 towards the Seed Program run by one of the Clusters overseen by the United Nations. I will keep you posted on that, as it seems to have a few levels of bureaucracy that we are not familiar with.

We continue to work with the Post Disaster National Assessment Committee and hope that the outcome of this committees work gives us some guidance going forward.

That’s it for now.

PDG Dick
Richard McCombeDistrict 7020