Quixote Center continues to provide cash assistance to displaced families resettling in Gros Morne, Haiti. Gang violence has forced 1.4 million people in Haiti to internally displace, about 11% of the population of the country and the highest percentage of displaced persons by population in the world. Some have ended up in Gros Morne. Gros Morne is also receiving some deportees from the Dominican Republic, which has been deporting 30,000 Haitians per month since the beginning of 2025.
Quixote Center has so far assisted 350 families with cash to pay for rent, food, clothing, school supplies, planting a garden, or starting a small business. About a third of the disbursements went to supporting livelihoods (livestock, garden, and small business) while another third went for housing. We have also paid first quarter school tuition for an additional 100 displaced children. Children are especially vulnerable, with many schools closed due to gang violence, and up to half of new gang recruits are children. Our program takes advantage of the fact that schools remain open in Gros Morne.
The local LaChandle parish community is operating the cash assistance program with a committee of volunteers who locate the neediest families and oversee disbursement of funds. The committee writes:
We continue to thank the Quixote Center, and all the other donors who are associated with it, who have allowed the Lachandlè parish charity to find money to achieve this great record in the Gwomòn (Gros Morne) commune during the holy Jubilee year of 2025. May God's grace always prevail.
Thanks to our donors, Quixote Center will continue this project into 2026, to enable displaced persons and deportees to fully resettle and integrate into the Gros Morne community.
