Above: Haiti (Photo: JP/HRO)
By the Caribbean Journal staff
Sean Penn’s J/P Haitian Relief Organization has signed a grant with Haiti’s government for an $8.75 million project to help residents in J/P HRO-managed camps to return to their neighbourhoods.
Haiti’s government is managing the grant through its Bureau de Monetisation des Programmes d’Aide Du Developpement, with financing through the World Bank provided by the Haiti Reconstruction Fund.
J/P HRO, which also recently helped complete the demolition and clearing of the ruins of Haiti’s former National Palace, manages two camps for displaced earthquake survivors in the country.
Its stated goal is to “support the camp residents and their neighbours in surrounding areas as they transition from temporary shelter to durable, sustainable and prosperous communities.”
The project will allow internally displaced people from the Petion-Ville and Cite Maxo camps to leave and return to neighbourhoods of their choosing, according to the organization.
Some of those residents have been living on the site of the Petionville Club Golf Course
When J/P HRO first began activities in March 2010, the combined population in the two camps was about 60,000 people.
The programme will be able to help 14,000 people find “safe, permanent housing,” the organization said.
J/P HRO’s engineering and construction programme will work to build and design 45 new housing units in the Delmas 32 neighbourhood.
Stakeholders in the new project are Haiti’s BMPAD, the Unit for Public Housing and Building Construction and the World Bank.