Aid to the Church in Need: ACN trip to Haiti reveals urgent need for help

ACN trip to Haiti reveals urgent need for help

Posted by Press Release on 20/12/2007, 10:38 am
Message modified by board administrator 7/8/2008, 2:07 pm

ACN News: Thursday, 20th November 2007 – HAITI

Do not despair

ACN trip to Haiti reveals urgent need for help

MASSIVE support is desperately needed for Haiti – amid reports that there is no end in sight to the people's devastating poverty and sheer helplessness.

Such is the urgent message of Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need after a three-week fact-finding and project assessment trip revealed a people suffering a humanitarian and moral crisis almost on a Biblical scale.

Immediately on their return from a country recognised as the most underdeveloped nation in the Western Hemisphere, the ACN aid workers reported that the work of the Catholic Church represents one of the only glimmers of hope and that huge injections of aid were required.

Staff from the charity for persecuted and poverty-stricken Christians amassed more than 60 aid applications – including solar panels to provide power in a country deprived of electricity, construction of churches, chapels and church education centres and even a hospital maternity unit in the capital Port-au-Prince.

A priest with ACN-funded solar panels in Fort-Liberté diocese, north-east Haiti

The Church is desperate to provide hope in a country where up to 75 percent are below internationally-recognised poverty levels.

Up to two million of the population – 20 percent – have fled abroad for a better life in countries such as Canada, US and France and according to some medical research nearly 40 percent of people are infected with HIV.

ACN Latin America Projects Head Javier Legorreta said: "The only way you can begin to help the people in Haiti is to share in their suffering. Only that way can you begin to love them and to understand their needs."

He added: "Speaking to so many people – bishops, priests, sisters and lay people – the message we received was the same – they feel completely forgotten, and even rejected by the world."

In an indication of the scale of people's suffering, Mr Legorreta explained how the devastation of forests by timber merchants meant it was cheaper for ACN to support projects to import wood from abroad to support key schemes such as benches for new chapels.

ACN is also promising key support for Haiti's 300 seminarians, which in a nation of eight million Catholics – many of them not practising – makes the country one of the world's richest for vocations.

Fr Richard Estiverne, during his ordination ceremony in Les Gonaives Cathedral. The priest, who was ordained alongside a number of deacons, was trained with funding from ACN.

Mr Legorreta stressed the collapse in moral values in a country ravaged by poverty and continuing political and economic upheaval, saying that he was shocked by the lack of basic social graces, including table manners and polite behaviour.

He added that for the bishops on-going formation of clergy was a priority, adding that their spiritual needs were frequently overlooked in the struggle to provide for their daily needs.

Underlining the importance of the trip, Mr Legorreta explained how a poor postal service, telephone service, and shortage of basic computer and other office equipment meant that visiting the country provided the only means of receiving project requests.

Mr Legorreta said: "After three weeks constantly travelling around the country, I can honestly say I only saw four sets of traffic lights that were working."

In 2006, ACN provided more than $870,000 in aid for Haiti.

To help this cause please donate on line at www.aidtochurch.org or contact the Sydney office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148.

ACN Editor's Notes

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named "An Outstanding Apostle of Charity", the organisation is now at work in about 145 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative's launch in 1979, 45 million Aid to the Church in Need Child's Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For further information please contact the Sydney office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web:www.aidtochurch.org

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Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org