International
On the Spot: Newsletter from the Americas – November 2021
Our bi-monthly e-newsletter On the Spot highlights important updates from our programs and from our organizational network. If you’re already signed up, it’ll be in your inbox, if not, you can sign up here! Thanks for reading.
Abaco Strong: Progress in the Bahamas
Hurricane Dorian struck The Bahamas with tremendously powerful winds in September of 2019, leaving many of the islands destroyed, and about 10,000 students displaced and unable to attend school.
Abaco is still in the process of rebuilding and scars of the storm’s impact are hard to miss over two years later.
MI Americas established a partnership with Disaster Relief NGO All Hands and Hearts shortly after the hurricane and have supported their efforts to rebuild schools with support from local and international volunteers. In addition to the original two schools – St. Francis de Sales (a Catholic school), Every Child Counts (ECC, an educational facility for children with special needs) – we have added a third school to our project, Little Darlings Academy (LDA), a kindergarten in central Abaco.
We caught up with some of our partners on the ground to see how the recovery process was going.
Malteser International Executive Team heads to Colombia
At the end of October, Malteser International (MI) Secretary-General Clemens Graf von Mirbach-Harff visited our programs in Colombia along with MI Program Director Annette Wächter-Schneider, and Malteser International Americas (MI Americas) Program Director for Latin America Jelena Kaifenheim.
And Still, Haiti Goes On
Yolette Etienne has now lived and worked through both of Haiti’s most violent and damaging earthquakes in recent history. And still, “tragedy”, “misfortune” and “catastrophe”, are not words you will find in her lexicon.
Having lost her mother in the previous earthquake, she has since channeled her energy into a deep-seated drive to help those around her as a humanitarian expert. As an MI Americas’ Country Coordinator in Haiti, we had the privilege of interviewing her a short time after the August earthquake that took so many lives.
Highlights from the Sovereign Military Order of Malta Event at the UN Mission in New York
Last week, at the Sovereign Military Order of Malta’s Mission to the United Nations in New York, H.E. Dr. Ambassador Paul Hereseford-Hill, CBE, KM, hosted one of his first in-person gatherings as Ambassador with many distinguished guests from the UN mission core, the Order of Malta’s Sovereign Council, as well as members of Malteser International Americas’ (MI Americas) board and staff.
