Haiti orphans to get new home
Haiti orphans to get new home
By JESSICA MURPHY, QMI Agency
MONTREAL – A Quebec-run orphanage in Haiti that was reduced to rubble in January’s devastating earthquake will be rebuilt bigger and better than before.
Oxfam-Quebec announced Wednesday it managed to raise 60% of the funds needed to reconstruct and expand the Espoir d’enfants Orphanage and School near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.
The development organization is optimistic it can raise the rest through individual donations before construction begins later this year.
The $1.4-million project was kick-started by Mylene Beliveau, a Quebec woman of Haitian origin desperate to help children who lost parents in the earthquake that ripped through the Caribbean country earlier this year.
Beliveau contacted the Jacqueline Lessard Foundation, which has run an orphanage in a suburb of Port-au-Prince since the 1990s.
“It started with a lot of will, a lot of heart, a lot of work,” said Marquis Giguere, head of fundraising for Oxfam-Quebec, which is overseeing the project.
The reconstruction project has since received backing from convenience store chain Couche-Tard, construction giant Pomerleau, Air Transat, Scotia Bank and others.
Not only will the orphanage be rebuilt, it will now house 100 children - up from 60 – and offer free education to 400 youth in a suburb of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.
“For the generations to come, in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the area, they will have the chance to learn, math, reading, writing,” said Giguere. “It’s the first thing we have to give these kids.”
The original orphanage was founded by 84-year-old Lessard, a Quebec woman who travelled to Haiti in 1994 following the death of her husband.
She fell in love with the country but was shocked by the poverty and overwhelming needs of the local children. She eventually established the home with donations and profits from her blueberry farm.
The orphans who lived in the building before the tremor are now surviving in tents, with little access to food, running water and toilets.
The multifaceted project will be built in partnership with both Quebec and Haitian workers according to Canadian norms, and will include safe sources of water, electricity and food in case of future emergencies.