Annual Report to the Corporate Board

Norwich Mission House

March 2007-March 2008

Nicholas Kocmich

Director of Norwich Mission House

Summary:

This year the Norwich Mission House has undergone many changes, especially in staffing.  I joined the Norwich Mission house as interim director in June 2007 and became the full time director in January 2008. In November 2007, our longtime Bishop's representative, Fr. Gerry Kirby, took a sabbatical and is now back in Connecticut at St. Mary Star of the Sea, in New London.  In November 2007, we welcomed a new assistant director of the mission house, Colleen Larkin.  Colleen's primary job is to help manage the daily duties at the house, as well as provide spiritual and logistical leadership to visiting immersion groups.   

Projects

Parish Twinnings

Overview:

Norwich Mission House's 13 twinned parishes continue to be the hallmark of our organization.  Through our twins, we are able to help our Haitian parishes provide educational, medical and nutritional support to their parishioners, as well as provide general operating funds for our parish priests.  With the departure of Fr. Gerry in November, I took over management of the twinned parishes program.  In the past months, I have implemented new monthly reporting polices for accountability.  In November, Emily Smack, Peter Loden, who is the chairperson of the board of directors, and I had a meeting with Archbishop Miot, of the Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince, to reconfirm our commitments to the archdiocese and to our sponsored parishes. Monsignor Miot was very excited about our meeting and stated he looked forward to a "new opening" of our relationship.

Highlights:

•Visits from five U.S. twinned parishes.

•A large housing relief project for 86 families who lost their homes in floods in our twinned parish of St. Genevieve.  St. Patrick-St. Anthony Church in Hartford is twinned with St. Genevieve in Zoranje.

•Two new possible twinned parishes.

 Foyer d'Accuiel FCCM

Overview:

The orphanage was closed down in late summer, and the resident children became wardens of the state. These 28 girls were placed in temporary shelter at another orphanage where they are being cared for and provided schooling.  Norwich Mission House is currently partnered with Save the Children, UNICEF, and IBESR (Haitian child welfare) in a social re-insertion program. The goal of this program is to place the girls back with their families, who had to give up their children because of extreme poverty.  Each family is to receive financial training and micro-credit loans to stabilize their financial situation. The hope is that this training and lending will alleviate the families' poverty, which forced them to place their children into this orphanage. To date, the family of each of the girls has been identified, and 10 girls have been placed back with them.  The remaining 18 are scheduled to return to their homes in June.

Highlights:

•Two medical team visits, consulting all of the 28 girls each visit.

•A carnival party was given for the girls on February 2^nd.

Foyer des Filles de Dieu (Paula Thybulle's orphanage for girls)

Similar to previous years, we continue to have strong financial support for Paula's orphanage.

Highlights:

•Pool party for many of the girls with an immersion group

•Numerous Norwich Mission House scholarship students evaluated and treated at Paula's Notre Dame des Lourdes hospital.

•Two medical mission trips worked with Paula and her mobile clinic.

Arc-en-Ciel (Rainbow House orphanage for boys and girls with HIV/AIDS)

Overview:

Arc-en-Ciel continues to look for funding for the construction of its new facilities.  Arc-en-Ciel's HIV/AIDS outreach program has grown in its offerings and in the number of people it reaches.  In August, Norwich Mission House was able to partner Arc-en-Ciel with Cross International, which has pledged support for 50% of the new facilities construction costs in the amount of $200.000. Cross International has also included the outreach program into a multi organizational,  multimillion dollar USAID grant.  Robert Penette Jr., who is the son of the founders of Arc-en-Ciel, Robert Sr. and Danielle,  has recently been invited as a guest speaker to Haitian Ministries' gala in New London, Connecticut in April.

Highlights:

•Numerous visits to the orphanage and outreach center with immersion groups.

•Numerous "Fresh Air" field trips with the children of Arc-en-Ciel to Jane Wynne's farm in the countryside outside Port-au-Prince.

Neighborhood Meals Program (Aksyon pou Timoun)

Overview:

Madame Samson continues to provide nourishing meals five days a week to 60 neighborhood children.  Madame Samson's son, Wilkens Gilbert, has graduated from medical school and is now a practicing doctor in the northeast of Haiti.  Wilkens' schedule allows him to help at the program one week a month, and he continues to provide the monthly reports.

Highlights:

•A recent donation will allow us to replace the old charcoal stoves with propane.  The propane is healthier for the kitchen staff and has less impact on the environment.

•Vitamins are regularly distributed to the children.

•Immersion groups are now participating in the preparation and cooking of the children's meals.  This change has increased cultural understanding and community interaction. 

Tierney Tobin Memorial Scholarship Program

Overview:

The Tierney Tobin Scholarship Program continues to be the only program run solely by and from the Norwich Mission House. Dominique and I continue to fine-tine  our procedures and policies so that we can better serve our scholarship students. Kyn Tolson and I also continue to work together to provide all donors with updates and to coordinate donations when funding is most needed. The total enrollment of the 2007-2008 school year program is 98 students.

Highlights:

•92% retention rate from the 2006-2007 school year

•51 primary school students enrolled

•37 secondary school students enrolled

•11 university students enrolled

•1 vocational student enrolled

•100% sponsorship of scholarship students

•Cross International pledged $115,000 over five years for the education program.

•Change of database system from Microsoft Access to Excel. This change makes the database more user friendly for work between Kyn, Dominique and me while still maintaining its integrity

•2 new university sponsorships

•3 parent-student meetings at the house.

•New tutoring program introduced for students

•A recent education graduate from UConn volunteered at the house in June and July.

•Dominique and I are currently interviewing prospective parents and students for the next school year

•25% expected increase for the 2008 - 2009 school year

 Partners in Haiti

Jane Wynne/Wynne Foundation for the Environment - Jane Wynne and her forest preserve continue to be a highlight for many of our immersion trips.  Jane is able to educate many of our visitors about the current environmental emergency in Haiti.  We also continue to take children from our sponsored programs to Jane's for their own education and for a chance to take a field trip away from their homes.  Jane and the Norwich Mission House are currently in the beginning stages of a partnership program to provide fruit trees to the flood victims now constructing new houses in St. Genevieve.

HELP - Dominique and I collaborate with HELP in regards to our education program.  All of our current scholarship program students graduating from high school are encouraged to apply to HELP for possible university scholarships.

Hospice St. Joseph - Hospice and Norwich Mission House support one another as often as possible and usually rely on one another for referrals when there is "no room at the inn." With Hospice's restructuring of its medical clinic, we now send our sick scholarship students and staff to Paula's hospital. Hospice's clinic is scheduled to reopen in the coming months, which will give us another option when we are faced with medical needs.  Recently we have begun talking about possible collaboration in Norwich Mission House's neighborhood feeding program. 

Cross International - As mentioned above, Cross has pledged support to two of Arc-en-Ceil's programs and has provided Norwich Mission House with a large 5-year commitment to its scholarship program.  Cross is also helping us finance the social re-insertion program of the FCCM girls.  As acts of appreciation and our commitment to future involvement, Norwich Mission House periodically lends logistical support to Cross International teams who are visiting Haiti.

Norwich Mission House Visitors

Overview:

The Norwich Mission House continues to provide many visitors to Haiti with clean, safe and affordable accommodations.  It is through these guests that we are able to network and inform many of the work we do. The house is also often used as a conference space. Below is a list of some of our visitors.

•Hospital St. Damien

•Catholic Relief Services

•Haitian Red Cross

•American Red Cross

•Beyond Borders

•Photojournalists and journalists

•UN

•IOM

•Partners in Health

•St. Boniface foundation

•Building with Books

•Many individuals from numerous other organizations

Norwich Mission House Improvements

Overview:

Maintenance and improvement to the house and its assets is an important part of the work done by the Norwich Mission House staff.  The gardeners work diligently to keep the grounds well-groomed and they are always looking for ways to enhance the beauty of the yard.  The staff in the house also work tirelessly to keep the house clean and functioning. An unfortunate fact of having many visitors is that the house gets a lot of use; it has become evident it is in need of repairs.  We are currently organizing a work team from the United States to visit in order to do some of these needed repairs. 

In the last year, the pick-up truck owned by the house became non-functional because of a broken cylinder head. We are considering options for its repair or replacement.