September is always a very busy month in Haiti. The final preparations for school usually fill the first week, including delivery of new school uniforms, finalizing school shoes for everyone, getting haircuts, purchasing and laminating the last of the school books, loading and distributing school backpacks, and planning routes to get all the kids to their various schools on time. By the time September rolls around, the kids are often ready to return to school…and so are the staff!!
We’re very glad that Hands and Feet Project was able to hold a business conference for our older kids. We had business owners and leaders come to our Ikondo campus in Grand Goave to teach business skills and to share how to start, lead or contribute to a successful business. It was a great opportunity for our kids to learn and begin implementing business plans as they plan for the future. We also have mentors that have agreed to walk alongside our kids to help them be successful. We’re excited about how this can have a positive impact for these kids and their communities.
This year, as September approached, we started hearing rumors about potential protests being planned to prevent schools from starting. Unfortunately the rumors turned into reality. Over the summer, Haiti dealt with ongoing fuel shortages, lack of city power, occasional food shortages, businesses and government offices being closed, and hospitals without full staffing. On top of that, there’s a growing dislike for the current president because of his silence and perceived inaction regarding the ongoing challenges that people face.
Protests in Haiti often involve roadblocks. Some are creative and others are just a pile of debris from the neighborhood. Sometimes people can walk, ride a motorcycle or even drive a car past roadblocks, but others times nobody is allowed to pass. It’s not unusual to have the side roads blocked either, making it very cumbersome or impossible to reach your destination.
School started in early September, but protests have blocked roads so that our kids have only been to school a few days so far. The roadblocks are often obstacles to our staff getting in to work as well. We have so much work that we can’t complete due to the protests and roadblocks. Many of our kids are anxious for school to start and look forward to having something to do.
So far we’ve been able to purchase food and fuel before we face critical shortages, and we’ve been able to keep the lights on with our solar equipment and generator. We’re so blessed that this equipment is all working well! We’ve even been able to help out other ministries as they’ve faced equipment failures and some supply shortages and have been unable to get to Port au Prince during this period of unrest.
Please continue to pray for Haiti…for spiritual revival, for Christians to come together and encourage others, for leaders to implement plans to help their constituents, and for people to respond in a more peaceful way that doesn’t contribute to and exacerbate the problems. Please also pray for safety for those that are in the country to assist in various ways.
We continue to get updates from people around our city and across the country so we can monitor the situation. World news doesn’t seem to say much about conditions in Haiti. To see Haiti news from a variety of sources, visit https://www.haystack.tv/tag/haiti and watch the news reports shown there. Here’s an interview that gives some history and background to the protests: https://www.haystack.tv/v/fuelling-protests-haiti-inside-story.