NewsLetterIssue4 April-June10.indd - RIS stories

COMMUNITY
HOPE FOR HAITI
Amid the Worse Devastation, there is Hope
RIS Unites to Help Haiti
“
Be generous in
prosperity, and thankful
in adversity. Be a
treasure to the poor,
an admonisher to the
rich, an answerer of
the cry of the needy, a
preserver of the sanctity
of thy pledge.
10 NEWSLETTER Volume 3, Issue 4
“
he earthquake that struck Haiti
Tin the early afternoon of January
12 has left more than 200,000 dead
and one million homeless. The
devastation will only add to the
poverty and hardship already faced
by the nation of 8.5 million people,
where half the people are unemployed
and nearly 70% live on less than $2 a
day.
Haiti’s quake is the worst disaster ever
confronted by the United Nations and
it devastated much of Haiti’s already
inadequate infrastructure, destroying
a third of the buildings in the capital
city, Port-au-Prince, as well as its
water and sewage system; and today,
this poor country looks to the
world for basic sustenance.
Nearly 45 percent of Haiti’s
population are children. About
half the nation’s 15,000 primary
schools and 1,500 secondary schools
were hit in the quake creating an
enormous challenge for the Western
hemisphere’s poorest nation.
Hundreds of teachers and thousands
of students were killed. Schools in and
around this devastated capital could
remain closed for months or never
reopen, according to Haitian and
U.N. education officials. That leaves
vast numbers of children languishing
in camps or working in menial jobs
as they struggle to survive. Repairing
and building schools to provide
education is a necessary component
to their recovery as a nation.