Education key to Haiti rebuild
By Sheila Dabu Nonato, The Catholic Register
TORONTO - Fr. Sauveur Content remembers the day of Haiti’s devastating earthquake last January. One year later, he says an investment in education will help Haiti rebuild from the tragedy that destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, including a Catholic university in Jacmel serving the “poorest of the poor.”“Even before the earthquake, the situation in Haiti was terrible. Now, after the earthquake, Haiti is on its knees,” the dean of the University of Notre Dame in Jacmel told The Register through an interpreter during a late December visit to Toronto.
“We realize that if there is something we need in Haiti, we need to focus on education, the education of the youth. They can provide the new generation of leaders in Haiti.”
Content was in Toronto to thank volunteers from the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board and Woodbridge’s St. Peter’s parish at a Dec. 28 dinner fundraiser at St. Christopher’s parish in Mississauga. The event raised funds to help rebuild schools in Jacmel, north of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
Maria Masucci, a 19-year teaching veteran with the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, organized trips to Haiti in April and July where teachers, former students and a doctor and dentist from St. Peter’s parish helped in the relief efforts. Another group is planning to visit Haiti in July.
The first two Haiti mission groups raised $20,000, brought $60,000 worth of medical supplies and set up a medical clinic in one of the camps serving as temporary shelter. More than one million people were left homeless by the disaster.
Content said the earthquake severely damaged the university which housed the nursing and business management departments. Tents have been serving as temporary classrooms.
“There is no infrastructure, so when it rains, it’s terrible,” he said.
Being a Catholic university, Notre Dame’s mission is to help “the poorest of the poor.”
“It’s not there to make money. That’s the reason why there are so many problems now,” he said.
The university’s goal is to raise $860,000 to rebuild a larger building to accommodate more students. Currently, there are 350 students. Books and a lab for nursing students and teachers are also needed.
Fr. Stanley Rousseau, also from Jacmel, said Haiti’s future lies in investing in the education of its young people.
“Rebuilding Haiti is not only about building houses. You can build houses today and tomorrow there is another earthquake,” he said. “Rebuilding Haiti is about rebuilding human beings, rebuilding mentality. There’s no way to do that without education.
“(We) need to invest in people who can bring change,” Rousseau said, adding that the country’s past leaders have not invested enough in education, seen in the fact that 55 per cent of Haitians can’t read or write.
There’s a growing gap between the haves and have-nots in Haiti because a majority, especially those living in the rural areas, can’t afford to go to school, he added.
“When a majority of people don’t have access to education, how are you going to build a country like that?”
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