Earthquake Update

The University Students, Port au Prince, October, 2009

The Crosby Fund for Haitian Education, a registered non-profit organization, provides scholarship support to Haitian students at the high school and university level.   Our office is in Deschapelles in the Artibonite Valley (a large agricultural area 90 miles north of Port au Prince ), and we were not directly effected by the earthquake.  Our staff, board members, and 121 high school and technical school students were unharmed.  Our concern was for our 2  board members and 24 university students who live in Port-au-Prince.  The day after the earthquake, we found the 2 board members, Yves Stanley Joseph and Jean Baptiste Vaudy, and they began a search for the students.  As of this writing, we have found all but one student, Antonio Alphonse (see photo at left), who appears missing.  Witnesses have told us that Antonio was in the University Leconte the afternoon of the earthquake, and that was one of the Universities that collapsed.  He was a fourth year engineering student.  Four university students were injured, one quite seriously and we thought his legs would have to be amputated, but the Hospital Albert Schweitzer was able to save his legs.  All students should make a full recovery. Our organization through some relief gifts will cover the expenses of these injuries, along with support to each surviving university student, who lost everything in the earthquake.

We are so proud of our 5^th year medical student, Helene Clervius, who stayed behind in Port-au-Prince to work with doctors to save lives.  I remember clearly 6 years ago, our first year of operation, when she came to us wanting to finish her high school education. 

She said then, “I have a dream to become a doctor, but I have no possibility. Can you help me?” 

Quisqueya University, where she was studying, has collapsed and many of her professors and classmates have died.  We are trying to figure out with our board members how each university student will finish their degrees.  Some had only one semester to go.

We would like to start a university fund in honor of Antonio Alphonse. The fund would be used to assist in the housing of the university students who live in Port au Prince.  In the past, we covered their full tuition and fees and offered a book allowance of $550 a year. Students have struggled with living expenses (rent and food), and this new university fund would offer them a living stipend.  If you would like to support this Antonio Alphonse memorial fund to support living expenses of our students, that would help them tremendously.  Please earmark your check “Alphonse Fund.”

There is a great influx of families from the Port au Prince area to the Artibonite valley where we work.  This will financially strain the already desperately poor families in this area and will put an added burden on our organization to try to provide more scholarship support at the high school level.  Our budget is already stretched tight due to the economic slow down in our country.  So aid to our high school scholarship program is always needed.

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