Dear Haiti Friends,
Updates from Mirebalais and the surrounding area continue to be grim.  Partners in Health has been able to move its remaining patients out of the beautiful University Hospital in Mirebalais to surrounding hospitals and clinics including places like Boucan Carre, Cange, and Hinche.
Here’s information about the hospital from better days.  It has been since its building and opening one of the finest hospitals in the Caribbean, and received and treated patients from all over Haiti.
Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais

We’re thrilled that Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais, in Mirebalais, Haiti, is open. The 205,000-square foot,…
Its loss is an incalculable blow to medical care in Haiti.
The even more immediate humanitarian crisis is the flood of refugees taking shelter in the hills and towns and cities.  Most fled with no notice, taking nothing with them — some barefoot or partially clothed.  The Mirebalais area had already been receiving a steady stream of refugees from Port-au-Prince (St. Pierre school in Mirebalais had doubled in size, taking in refugee children and straining their facilities to the utmost.)  Now many of those same families are refugees again, along with the long-time residents of the area.  One small orphanage in Mirebalais walked its children to Hinche to safer quarters.  That’s forty miles over mountains.

 

The local Episcopal Church is attempting to provide aid for the people taking shelter in its churches and in the homes of local people.   The Rev. Jean Phillippe Alphonse from St. Pierre in Mirebalais is coordinating relief efforts, gathering information about needs and numbers.  However, the resources are nonexistent at this time.  Aid agencies have not been able to get into the area.  If you want to help, particularly if you have a partnership that’s being affected by the influx of refugees, funds can be sent as usual through the Partnership Program, earmarked for Mirebalais area relief.  Pere Alphonse will be able to arrange for transportation of food, clothing, etc. to different areas based upon numbers of people and degree of need.  The Partnership coordinator, Pere Gracia, and Pere Alphonse have asked that the church have permission to distribute funds to help people without regard to their church affiliation, and of course I know that will be amenable to you.

 

I am attaching a letter to the Partners from Pere Gracia, along with the instructions and protocols for fund transfers. Please note that it’s very important to provide clear information as requested about where the funds are intended to go.  Please also note that, although Pere Gracia’s letter mentions specific items such as shoes, that’s intended for local folks.  It is very difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to ship anything to Haiti, and it is not possible for anyone in the Central Plateau to get to the port in Port-au-Prince to pick it up.  If they have funds, they can buy what they need in the markets north of the area.

 

I also bid your prayers for the repose of the souls of so many in Mirebalais, Trianon, and Saut d’eau, some of whose names are now becoming known to us, and some of whom may never be identified.  The sadness in messages from friends is palpable.  The losses to the people of our local partnerships and to us are grievous.

 

Below my signature is a note from the Smallholder Farmers’ Alliance with some better news from the far Southwest.  This is an area which has remained relatively peaceful, and with typical Haitian resourcefulness the people of Les Cayes and surrounding areas are attempting to keep lifelines open with an expanded airport and shipping port.
Yours,
Serena
Serena Evans Beeks
Canon Serena Evans Beeks, D.Min.
US Coordinator, Haiti Episcopal School Partnerships
National Association of Episcopal Schools
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Dear Serena,

Planes, Ships and Potatoes Arrive in Haiti
Three new arrivals in Haiti offer a respite from the steady stream of media coverage about gang activity in and around the capital of Port-au-Prince. Last month planes began landing at the newly opened Antoine Simon International Airport in the southern city of Les Cayes (photo top left), making it the country’s third facility for international flights. In January cargo ships began arriving at the new international port in nearby Saint-Louis du Sud (photo bottom left), opening a new and much needed route for the import and export of goods. And a new variety of potato has arrived to help in Haiti’s fight against malnutrition and food insecurity (photo shows transplanting of potato cuttings).
The orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP), a vibrant cousin of the traditional sweet potato, is at the forefront of a quiet but powerful transformation rooted, quite literally, in the soil.
 
Unlike the more common white or yellow varieties, OFSP is rich in beta-carotene, which the body converts into vitamin A. This essential nutrient plays a crucial role in immune function, vision, and childhood development. In a country where vitamin A deficiency remains a serious public health concern, OFSP offers a practical, affordable, and locally grown solution.

At the Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA), OFSP isn’t just viewed as a crop, it’s part of a holistic, farmer-led strategy for resilience. Through our network of smallholder cooperatives, farmers are growing OFSP not only for their families, but also as a means to diversify income, improve nutrition, and restore degraded soils. Its ability to thrive in challenging conditions, with low water requirements and relatively short growing cycles, makes it particularly well-suited to Haiti’s increasingly fragile climate.

But the impact goes beyond the fields. In rural kitchens and community centers, women are rediscovering and reinventing OFSP. It appears in porridge for children, in bread and flour, and even in innovative small-scale products like chips or juices sold in local markets. The spread of these practices is driven by peer-to-peer learning and the pride of transforming a simple root into something powerful and nourishing.

One farmer, standing proudly beside her freshly harvested rows of OFSP, shared that she never imagined such a modest plant could bring such change to her household. Her children have taken well to eating it, and she was even able to cover some school-related expenses with the income from selling a portion of her harvest. While it’s still early to fully measure nutritional impacts in this new context, experiences from other regions of Haiti suggest that OFSP contributes to improving maternal and child health by reducing anemia and shortening malnutrition treatment periods.

Through OFSP, we see a new kind of resilience, one that begins with the land, grows through knowledge, and blossoms into opportunity. It’s not just about growing food. It’s about restoring dignity, autonomy, and hope. And for the record, OFSP is an open-pollinated, non-hybrid, non-GMO variety as part of our commitment to implementing regenerative and agroecological practices as the new gold standard for sustainability.

At SFA, we are honored to walk alongside these farmers as they lead the way forward, one sweet potato at a time.

This project is the result of a partnership with U.S.-based Global Institute For Transformation (GIFT), which facilitated the initial introduction of vine cuttings into Haiti in collaboration with the Steele Plant Company and with approval from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Regards,
Smallholder Farmers Alliance | 9 bis Rue Francius | Gonaives, HT
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