Locals continue to support Haitians amid violence in capital

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

While violence, chaos and poverty have long tormented Haiti, major concern is currently in the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince, according to Catholics in the Worcester Diocese who are hearing from Haitians they support.

In early March, more than 4,000 inmates escaped from prison after being freed by gangs attacking state institutions, including police stations and Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture Airport in Port-au-Prince, which remains closed, according to reports from the Associated Press.
 
“Pray for peace in Haiti,” begged Pauline M. Aliskevicz,  director of Haitian Outreach, with her husband, Deacon John J. Aliskevicz. They serve at St. Bernard Parish at St. Camillus de Lellis Church in Fitchburg.
 
Haitian Outreach, a local volunteer organization founded in 1998 to support the education of Haitian children, works with people in and around Port-au-Prince, where gangs have attacked people and blocked roads, Mrs. Aliskevicz said.

Some members of the Worcester Diocese who support institutions in the Les Cayes Diocese, nearly 100 miles from Port-au-Prince, report the absence of gangs in that region. Others here do not have information or are not willing to share it because of safety concerns.

Mrs. Aliskevicz said that, with donations from people in the Worcester Diocese, and other states and countries, Haitian Outreach sends financial support and material goods for the Daughters of Mary Queen Immaculate of Haiti and students in their 10 schools in the Port-au-Prince area.

“I hear every single day from someone” – the religious sisters, convent workers or students and their families, who send text messages – she said.  
The sisters and students are safe, but their schools closed about three weeks ago as the violence makes travel unsafe, she said.
 
Gangs looted a seminary then lit it on fire, displacing 35 seminarians, including one sponsored through Haitian Outreach, she said. That seminarian returned to his mother’s home in Port-au-Prince and is studying at a Jesuit university that is not a seminary.

“Everybody’s inside,” Mrs. Aliskevicz said. “The gangs ... once in a while they go inside a home,” loot and burn it, sometimes killing the residents. There is a 6 p.m. curfew for everybody to be indoors.
 
“Food stores are open certain days and times, but the prices have doubled,” and food and water are scarce, because of blocked roads, she said. Haitian Outreach has increased its financial support by wiring money to help those it serves to buy food.
 
Outreach staff in Haiti received last September’s shipment of backpacks for sponsored students, and additional supplies for other children and the sisters, on Dec. 24, she said. They took items to two schools before stopping deliveries due to violence and blocked roads.
 
Haitian native Father Jean Robert Simbert Brice, associate pastor of St. John Parish in Worcester, said his family in Haiti is safe. He said they live in the mountains, and don’t know what is happening elsewhere, because gangs destroyed the means of communication. He tells them what he learns from news outlets here when he can get ahold of them.
 
Joseph LaFleche, chairman of the Haiti Committee of St. John Paul II Parish in Southbridge, said their parish continues to support Fraternite de Juenes, a boys’ home in Les Cayes overseen by Father Alfred Charpentier, a missionary of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
 
“So far, everything is as calm as it can be,” said Mr. LaFleche, noting that he and Father Charpentier exchanged emails last weekend and a few weeks ago. He said schools in Les Cayes are still open, so the boys go out to classes.

“They have a well on [the] property, so water is not a problem,” and the home finds ways to get food, Mr. LaFleche said.

“We give whatever we can” – about $20,000 per year in contributions from parishioners – covering most expenses for housing and educating about 15 boys ages 6 to 16, he said. They send money when Father Charpentier expresses a need.

In addition, committee members and interested people used to take needed items to Haiti at least annually, Mr. LaFleche said. But, he said, the past few years he has mailed food and powdered drinks to Florida, and a missionary mail service flies them to Haiti.
 
“Father makes a list and we do our best to fill it,” Mr. LaFleche said, noting that Father Charpentier received a package sent about a month ago, and a financial contribution from a few weeks ago.

“They need our prayers,” he said of the Haitians. Father Charpentier’s “big thing is, ‘Pray to St. Jude.’”

“We’re praying for Haiti every week in our prayers of the faithful,” said Father William C. Konicki, pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Hopedale, which supports St. Gerard Parish in Pont Salmon. The pastor, Father Claude Elysee, is safe, he said. There are no gangs in Les Cayes, Father Konicki said, but there are shortages of food and fuel.
 
St. Gerard has received the $900 per month that Sacred Heart is sending, the same amount as before the current crisis, he said.

“They’re using the money to keep the parish running,” buying whatever supplies they can, and Father Elysee continues his ministry, Father Konicki said. He said St. Gerard has not asked Sacred Heart for anything new. 
The parish’s school is closed, mostly because of the elimination of school breakfasts and lunches, for which families short on food send their children to school, he said. He said Catholic Relief Services cannot get supplies, and therefore cannot provide schools with food.
 
Msgr. Thomas J. Sullivan, pastor of Christ the King Parish in Worcester, said the school they support – Notre Dame du Lourdes, of Immaculate Conception Parish in Les Anglais – is not closed.

He said he and the pastor, Father Pierre Gérard Sincère, an Oblate of Mary Immaculate, email each other. Father Sincère told him gangs around Les Anglais were dissolved, or killed by the people, he said.

Christ the King sent $176,000 from parish savings and the Legacy of Hope Capital Campaign to rebuild the school after earthquake destruction and continues to fulfil its ongoing commitment of $700 per month, he said.

“Education is the key in Haiti,” Msgr. Sullivan said. “It’s the answer to a lot of their problems.”