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Food
Following the quake, Episcopal Relief & Development worked closely with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti and other partners, including the Episcopal Diocese of the Dominican Republic, to get food to people in need as quickly as possible. Through the end of Phase I, it is estimated that CEDDISEC assisted at least 13,700 individuals with 217 tons of food. This includes 800 individuals assisted with wet rations (hot meals), and 12,900 individuals (equivalent to 2,150 families) with dry rations. Just over 50% of the food provided was purchased in Haiti.
During the months of January and February, CEDDISEC offered hot meals once daily to around 800 individuals living on the grounds of College St. Pierre in Port-au-Prince. A typical meal would consist of locally-sourced rice and beans, and periodically meat.
CEDDISEC also supported food needs through several distributions of locally-sourced dry rations (i.e., rice, beans, pasta, cooking oil, sugar, smoked herring, canned milk, and dry milk). These supplies were distributed by 12 Episcopal parishes in Port-au-Prince, Carrefour, Léogâne, Bainet, and Grand-Goave.
Additionally, during the initial weeks after the quake, when roads were impassable, a series of food drops were made by helicopter to six rural mountain communities in Léogane. Each food drop included 216 pounds of rice and 204 pounds of beans. Donkeys were also used to make food deliveries to other rural communities near Léogane that were inaccessible by other means of transportation.
From the initial relief phase through mid-March, the Episcopal Diocese of the Dominican Republic transported food supplies from Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince twice a week for distribution by CEDDISEC. Ultimately, with support from Episcopal Relief & Development, the Diocese of Haiti was able to purchase two trucks to continue these and other transport activities.
The Haitian Government ceased mass food distribution in April 2010, hoping to boost the local economy by encouraging people to buy from local vendors. However, there remained pockets of continuing emergency need. During the months of May and June CEDDISEC conducted targeted food and non-food distributions, with support from Episcopal Relief & Development. As per CEDDISEC’s plans, this included distributions to areas directly impacted by the destruction of the quake in the Department of the West, as well as areas impacted by the outflow of displaced persons from Port-au-Prince and other destroyed areas.
CEDDISEC’s distributions were conducted through 35 Episcopal parishes and institutions that identified the households and individuals to be assisted. Using local suppliers in the Port-au-Prince market, CEDDISEC procured 87 tons of food (fish, rice, and oil) that were distributed to 2,760 families in over 35 communities.
School Canteen Program
To assist Episcopal schools in the provision of hot meals to their student populations, CEDDISEC, with support from Episcopal Relief & Development, has launched a school canteen program.
The objectives of the school canteen program are:
- To improve students’ capacity for concentration and overall level of academic achievement.
- To improve overall attendance (frequency per child) at school, and thus reduce in the number of students who abandon school.
- To increase the number (frequency per child) of hot meals students eat within a week.
- To reinforce local agricultural production through the purchase of food products that were produced in Haiti
CEDDISEC, in collaboration with Episcopal parish priests and school committees, is supplementing existing school feeding programs through the purchase and distribution of a variety of food that is Haitian-produced (e.g., rice, corn, peas) or otherwise locally procured (e.g., herring, salmon, spaghetti, oil, tomato paste).
Since January 2011, over 2,600 students and 13 Episcopal schools and institutions throughout the country have benefited from CEDDISEC’s one-time supplemental food distributions. At the heart of the Phase III canteen program, though, are six Episcopal schools in which an estimated 1,500 students benefit from three hot meals a week. These six Episcopal schools are: Ecole St. Matthieu and Ecole St. Luc in Matthieu-Léogâne, Eocole le Bon Samaritain in Carrefour, Ecole St. André in Cazale, and Ecole Ascension in Béraud-Torbeck.
