Building an Emergency Bridge
May 4, 2025
About a year ago, students in remote Baradères, Haiti, were about to lose their schools and teachers. Many of the 1,500 students—in kindergarten through high school—were about to lose their only reliable meal of the day.
That’s because skyrocketing food and fuel costs prevented the pastor of Baradères’ St. Pierre parish, Fr. Ambroise Noemi, from paying the teachers and providing lunch for the students.
On Feb. 18, 2024, we told our own supporters about the emergency in the Baradères parish schools. They responded immediately and with incredible generosity. And they told others.
As a result, Fr. Noemi was able to build a two-month-long bridge of food and education to span the gap until St. Pierre parish would receive resources from its twinned U.S. parish, St. John the Baptist Catholic Community, in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Months ago we posted photos and videos of emergency food being delivered, cooked and served at Baradères schools (here and here). But how was the emergency fund of $37,000 spent?
Three-fourths of the fund was used to purchase, transport, cook and serve lunch for the 1,500 students in the parish’s 16 schools. Food staples included bulgur wheat (1,800 lb), corn meal (6,000 lb), pinto beans (2,400 lb) and rice (6,500 lb). Also purchased were dozens of gallons of cooking oil, 2,800 tins of sardines, and local farm produce such as yams and plantains.
The rest of the fund went mainly to cover a month of salaries for more than 90 school teachers and other staff. About 5 percent covered transportation and fuel.
While we are grateful for what was accomplished, we are sobered by reality. Fr. Noemi reports that many more students are enrolled in parish schools today, as families from cities try to seek safety in rural areas. Nationally, gang violence and government paralysis continue to batter the population. Hunger, already increasing, has spiked because of the cancellation of USAID projects.
But we are encouraged by a spinoff project begun last spring by the small community of Catholic sisters in Baradères, the Petites Sœurs de Sainte-Thérèse (PSST). The project helps local farmers and gardeners grow more food.
PSST sisters have been in Baradères for decades. They operate the local health center, a vocational school, and a large elementary school. They also teach in some of the parish schools.
UPLIFT Haiti has cooperated with the PSST and other Baradères leaders on vocational learning, health education and medical clinics, and other locally inspired projects for 15 years.
The next medical clinic is scheduled for June, and we have just begun funding a nursing scholarship. The sisters and our other Haitian partners are not quitters, and neither are we, thanks to your generosity. You can make a tax-deductible donation online.
© UPLIFT Haiti