McKenna Technical Center
Case Statement
Maison Fortuné Orphanage
The orphanage was founded in 2000 by Lefort Jean-Louis, a Haitian from a poor peasant family who had the opportunity to study at Virginia Tech. On his return to Haiti he encountered three young children who were being cared for by a woman who was doing her best, but the three were suffering from malnutrition. Jean-Louis was able to lease a small three-room building owned by the Catholic Diocese of Hinche and took them in. Two years later he had 23 small boys at the orphanage, which by now was overcrowded.
Maison Fortuné Orphanage Foundation
Over the course of the two years various groups of visitors, mainly from Virginia (the Diocese of Hinche has a twinning relationship with the Diocese of Richmond), dropped by the orphanage and were impressed by the work being done and by the spirit of the boys there, who demonstrated that they genuinely cared about each other.
Under the leadership of several individuals from the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, the Maison Fortuné Orphanage Foundation was incorporated in 2002. Its sole mission is the support of Maison Fortuné.
Its first major project was to purchase the land where the orphanage now operates and to undertake the construction of a dormitory, an administration-guest house building, and an elementary school.
Its second major acquisition (in 2008) was a three-acre girls' campus on which a dormitory building and a dining/kitchen building have been constructed.
Besides capital construction, the Foundation is responsible for raising the annual operating budget (for the current fiscal year, $336,480). The cost per child is a under $4 a day. This year's overhead budget is only 2.6% of the operating budget. The Foundation website http://www.mfofoundation.org provides evidence of the operating efficiency of the orphanage and the Foundation (see the center of the home page under slide show).
Besides raising funds for operating and capital needs, the Foundation is currently in the process of increasing the Endowment Fund to five million dollars.
Beginning as a Hampton Roads, Virginia, foundation, the MFOF currently has a donor base of about 1200 individuals and organizations, the majority of which are outside of this area, and includes regular and significant support from Scotland and Germany. Thanks to support from these donors, the Foundation has raised over two million dollars for operational and capital expenses.
Maison Fortuné today
Currently there are about 225 boys and girls in residence at the orphanage. The number was increased to that number this year to accommodate almost 80 children orphaned by the January 2010 earthquake which devastated Port-au-Prince.
The elementary school on campus also educates at no charge well almost 150 children from the town whose families are too poor to afford even the minimal cost of attending school. Maison Fortuné also provides a hot meal each day to these day-students.
There are now over 50 employees of Maison Fortuné, which is the largest private employer in Hinche (population over 40,000). The child:staff ratio is 5:1.
Over 70 MFO residents now attend private and public secondary schools in Hinche. One has graduated and will be attending a university in the US.
Not all the older children, of course, will be able to attend universities in Haiti or abroad. We need as well to provide training for occupations which will ensure their future.
The technical center
To be called the Sant Teknik McKenna [McKenna Technical Center], this project has as its goal teaching boys and girls from Maison Fortuné, but also from the town, skills in such areas as the building trades, tailoring/sewing, auto mechanics, and agriculture. The Sant Teknik’s products and services will eventually provide income to make it a sustainable operation. It will, in addition, become an incubator for small businesses in the area.
As of August 2010, with funds contributed by the McKenna Foundation, supplemented by funds provided by the Maison Fortuné Orphanage Foundation, we are moving ahead with the purchase of about three acres of land across the road from the orphanage.
A Haitian agronomist, who will be on the Sant staff, is drawing up a budget for the agricultural component [for which a grant proposal has been submitted to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund]. An American architect is working on plans for the building.
The site of what will become the technical center
The McKenna Foundation has pledged to raise funds for a 1:2 challenge grant of $50,000 to match $100,000 to be raised by the Maison Fortuné Orphanage Foundation for construction and equipment costs.
This major initiative has been discussed with the church and town leadership in Hinche, and everyone is excited about this project in support of the Haitian government’s efforts to provide jobs outside of Port-au-Prince.
Other plans
The Maison Fortuné Orphanage Foundation is moving ahead with plans for fully solarizing the current campus (there is no electricity in the city of Hinche) and with plans for the irrigation of the MFO garden so that it can produce more vegetables and fruit for the kitchen.
We plan to upgrade the school’s computer lab (the only one in an elementary school in the whole Central Plateau [population over 600,000]). We have hired a nurse to staff the campus clinic, and we will probably hire a librarian to enhance the efficiency of the Maison Fortuné library.
To help us with the costs of this project, please see Ways To Help.