Help with Food
The children and the elderly are always hit the hardest.
Could Haiti get worse?
Headline word excerpts from the media include gang leader barbecue, violence soar, protesters demand resignation, blockade, armed action, weapons, cholera, transportation denied and on and on.
Today I got in touch with our project leaders Tony and Myrta, it was just lucky, “Mark we just climbed up on a mountain to see if we could get the cell phone signal and you called, how did you know?” Just luck.
I called wondering if they might have any good news whatsoever, and to just touch base,
I had not spoken to them in a long time.
Tony was fast to give a report and informed me that they were now on another 10-day curfew, he and his wife and Star of Hope’s Country director Myrta were outstanding on the mountain talking about infrastructure “telephone access through the cell network is limited all over the country.
Myrta sounded so happy we could finally talk after so long of silence.
Tony says “At our home, the cell network is in disarray, broken, Digicel the carrier will not send service people out as it is too dangerous so there is no internet and there is no cell phone, we are isolated.”
Tony continues “the country is paralyzed everything is closed, the schools are closed, public schools and all Star of Hope schools with one exception of one, all closed”
Tony reports all the back-to-school work is done, purchased school supplies, prepared the bags for students, new desks and benches and supplies are ready and waiting in storage.
He continues, “… all is in storage because there's absolutely no travel possible to any schools with the exception of Boise Negresse, yet that is too dangerous even for me and my special ways and Bois Negresse was open for two weeks and they had an 80% occupancy, they might be open now but there are no visitors allowed because of the transportation block, communication is hard to secure, I pray they are all OK.”
Tony tells me he can only find one gallon of gasoline at a time because the prices are extremely high, and he said simply what can you do with 1 gallon of gasoline
I asked Tony about food security, and he told me because they are in the countryside, they can get food from the farm or even local rural produce. The people in the city are having trouble finding food, they are at much higher risk for food insecurity, and their economic class does not matter because of the zero-travel policy, they cannot go get food and it cannot be delivered. Those people are food insecure”
He continues “here at the farm we can get corn, plantains, potatoes, and vegetables but, unfortunately, we cannot sell produce because we can't get it to market. …of course, the reason is the roads are closed and the gangs have control of most of the routes in and out of Port of Prince. They control the capital. Gangs!”
Tony also states “…the airport is open but it's almost impossible to get there”
Tony's very proud and mentioned several times that Haiti is the first all-black nation, but he says it's impossible for them to regulate themselves and help is needed. Yet every time there is help it doesn't work out either he says we can't fix it ourselves it's like a stalemate
Some good news, the banks are working they're not all open for foot traffic but by using online services Tony's able to send budget amounts for the different projects (if he can find the internet). The bank will call the project leaders and say you have a transaction come and get it. Out in the country, they can do that in Port-au-Prince you cannot step foot inside the bank.
“Without internet banks, all our Star of Hope kids and we would simply starve, so thanks to the sponsors and the donors we will be ok for now, please pray for our country!”
Tony and Myrta
Mark Presson says, "one thing you can do right now is to help families with seeds and tools. See below and make a commitment to help just one family.
