VOLUNTEERS FROM COMMUNITY OF JESUS BEGIN HUMANITARIAN AND EDUCATIONAL MISSION TO HAITI

CONTACT: Christy Haig
508-255-1094 ext. 3509
508-237-0247
christyhaig@communityofjesus.org

Three groups of volunteers from the Community of Jesus in Orleans will travel to Haiti to work with Restavek Freedom (RF), which seeks to help Haiti’s many children escape and rise above issues such as gender inequality, poverty, illiteracy and violence. The first group of volunteers from the Community of Jesus, Sisters Victoria MacNeil and Marianne Wiersbinski, will spend two months in the south of Haiti, helping at a transitional home for girls at risk.

“I am very excited about meeting the girls who will be in our care and look forward to spending time with them in their culture and sharing anything I can of what I have learned, although I imagine I will learn more from them,” said Sister Victoria. “I have been attempting to learn some of the Creole language in preparation for our time there.”

“I have been preparing for our trip to Haiti by trying to learn Haitian Creole and get up to date on current events,” Sister Marianne said. “I have done five other mission trips including four with Mercy Ships in Africa, and one trip to Kerala in South India, and I am excited and hope to draw on my experience for my first mission to Haiti.”

The sisters will be working at a transitional home designed to house 16 girls. While living in this home RF staff, volunteers and the teams from the Community of Jesus will help cultivate a caring and secure environment, providing opportunities that will allow the girls to heal, develop socially, and gain tangible educational and vocational skills to become economically self-sufficient. Two additional volunteer teams from the Community of Jesus are also scheduled to leave later this year for missions. Each team will spend two months in Haiti.

Another part of the Community of Jesus’ mission in Haiti is free e-books for children. Paraclete Press, the publishing house for the Community of Jesus has donated free access to more than 160 Paraclete Press e-books, available to those in Haiti, through a partnership with Library for All. The program was initially started in Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake. Now 1,200 books are offered in a cloud-based, digital library platform. These free e-books from Paraclete Press are also available, through Library for All, in Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo.