Heads Up: Haiti Report Coming

The U.S. bishops’ delegation that visited Haiti earlier this summer, led by Miami’s Archbishop Thomas Wenski and Brooklyn’s Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, will soon publish a report on their fact-finding mission along with several recommendations. Over the next few days, we will highlight some of the main findings ahead of the release. In the meantime we want to draw your attention to progress reports by some of the agencies involved in the visitation.

Though there are tremendous amounts of rubble still lying around in and around Port-au-Prince and the lack of heavy machinery available has slowed its removal considerably — sometimes to a frustrating point — the process of moving thousands of Haitians from tent camps to temporary housing certainly has begun. Catholic Relief Services (CRS) offers some pictures along with some first-hand accounts of the work accomplished in the last 6-7 months sprinkled with some interesting facts and financial stats.

The mission included staff representatives from Migration and Refugee Services and the Office of International Justice and Peace of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc (CLINIC), and Catholic Relief Services.

Father Juan Molina, Policy advisor for the International Peace and Justice Office, who travelled with the delegation, weighs in on our Haiti page on what he saw and heard the local people say about Haiti’s upcoming elections in November:

“The upcoming elections are important for the stability of a democratic government,” many people said, but it seems they want more than the power to vote. They want to create a future together. People want a transparent electoral process. But they also want to move beyond that to a process of dialogue that can help Haiti and its government find solutions to the challenges of good governance, development, and inclusion.

Read full article here.

More on Haiti’s recovery efforts and how Haitians are enduring soon. Stay tuned.