Thoughts on Healing a Hurting World

Wednesday was a rich day filled with visits to communities engaged in cash-for-work programs.

One of the big challenges that large-scale disasters bring is the breakdown of the routines of work, school, and family life.  In addition, basic human dignity is often undermined by the loss of homes and livelihoods.  The landscape of destruction after an earthquake or other major catastrophe adds to the sense of hopelessness.

In response to all of these challenges, the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti, with support from Episcopal Relief & Development has launched a cash-for-work program focused on clearing up rubble and debris and using these materials to rebuild roads.

This program not only carries out important and necessary work for rebuilding, but also creates jobs and gives people an opportunity to earn a living. It enables them to put their lives back together with dignity and a sense of control over their futures — a feeling that had been destroyed by the earthquake.  Demand for jobs is incredibly high, so in order to allow more people to earn income and support their families, the cash-for-work jobs are on rotating 20-day assignments.  Even though the need is great, this system ensures that more people are able to work, freeing them from dependence on handouts.

Many of the people we met today were using their new wages to send their children to school.

As Haiti recovery efforts continue, one of the real strengths of our church-based model is that we not only are responding by helping provide long-term solutions to the physical or material needs of those we seek to serve, but also to the human dimension of healing.