(ANS – Port-au-Prince) – More places visited, so many Salesians, youngsters and people met. Dismay and sorrow once again on this second day of the Rector Major’s visit to Haiti, but his strong message is always one of encouragement and hope.

Accompanied by Fr Sylvain Ducange, the  new Superior of the Vice Province of Haiti, and his predecessor, Fr Charles Jacques, Fr Chávez went to Cap-Haitien, and from there to Fort Liberté where he paid a visit to the Salesian centre, a vocational training school, now the only one in Haiti to have a nurses’ training course; the other was destroyed by the earthquake burying all those on the course.

He said Mass here with the representatives of the Salesian Family. Having returned to Cap-Haitien he went to the “Don Bosco” Agricultural School and chatted with the youngsters. He told them that acquiring the necessary professional skills in life “changes the desert into a wood.”

These places were not affected by the earthquake of 12 January, and the Salesian centres have been preserved as they were.
In the early afternoon having returned again to Port-au-Prince, the Rector Major visited the Gressier vocational training school, 70 km from the city and seriously damaged in the earthquake. After a structural examination it was seen that it would all have to be knocked down and rebuilt.

In Thorland, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, 12 km from the capital Fr Chávez  visited the site of the pre-novitiate. Here two walls of the large sports-hall have come down, and a three-storey block used as the youth centre has collapsed in on itself. As the centres of the Salesians and of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians were next to each other they have made their fields and courtyards available for the homeless. Thanks to the Mexican Civil Defence  services and the collaboration of the Salesians and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, a reception centre and camp for 12,000 people is now operating in Thorland.

Under an  improvised tent the Rector Major met the young people and their families. The meeting was marked by joy and sadness intermingled. Visibly moved, as at Gressier he encouraged everyone to work together to make Haiti rise again. Once again his call was, “Haiti must rise again.” Turning to the Salesians and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians he said: “I am very proud of you for all that you are doing so readily to help these people.”

Published 14/02/2010