February 14, 2019

Dear Friends,

The safety of the students and staff at St. Paul's School in Petit Trou is our first and fundamental commitment. While we continue to make serious investments in community health, agriculture, and girls' empowerment through community-based organizations in the area, we have been consistent and clear-eyed about the need to prioritize the safety of students and teachers on St. Paul's Campus.

Since the earthquake of 2010 the leadership teams of St. Paul's School and CHP have together been monitoring cracks in the school structure. The question is not if another natural disaster will strike Haiti, the appropriate and sobering question is when. Over the past year we’ve hosted multiple engineering firms in Petit Trou to evaluate safety, and through a great deal of dialogue and discernment we are pleased to share the plan shown below.

Our 322 students are safe and sound and still at St. Paul's using the safe buildings on campus for school. These buildings include the church and cafeteria, and while they are a safe and passable short-term solution, they are not ideal in the long-term. The project outlined below will provide a safe and durable space for our students while safeguarding the long-term future of St. Paul's School and transitioning the campus to solar power.

Implementation will occur in two phases:

Phase 1 - Build a structure to house our Kindergarten through 6th grade classes. This building will have 7 classrooms and two offices, providing space for roughly 220 of our children and costing approximately $180,000.  

Phase 2 - Convert significant portions of the existing St. Paul's School into a one story, light roofed structure, with the goal of preserving important water cisterns and using the foundation to support safe, simple, lightweight, one story structures. Once this retrofit is complete, we will also transition the campus to solar power. Phase two cost is approximately $70,000.

To learn more about our peer to peer Safe + Solar fundraising campaign visit our crowdfunding page, here.

For more information about the plan moving forward please reach out to Wynn Walent, CHP's Director, any time at wwalent@coloradohaitiproject.org.