All University of Notre Dame students, faculty and staff known to be serving in Haiti have survived the Jan. 12 earthquake and are in the process of returning to the United States.
The staff of the Notre Dame Haiti Program also has learned that all of the facilities with which the program is affiliated remain standing.
As part of the University’s response to the disaster, a Mass and a relief fund for those affected by the earthquake are being organized, with details forthcoming. Updated information will be available on the Web at http://haitidisaster.nd.edu.
Staff members, who include Rev. Tom Streit, C.S.C., program director and assistant professor of biological sciences, were informed that while the sites are intact, they are surrounded by collapsed buildings. Conditions in Léogâne, where the affiliated Hôpital Sainte-Croix is located, are particularly desperate.
University faculty, staff and students in Haiti when the 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit include Father Streit and:
- Sarah Craig, Haiti Program manager
- Logan Anderson, assistant program manager
- Marie Denise Milord, a post-doctoral student
A Notre Dame junior participating over Christmas break with a University of Miami program in Port-au-Prince also is safe.
Notre Dame’s Haiti Program is based in Léogâne, about 30 kilometers west of Port-au-Prince. The four faculty and staff members were in Port-au-Prince at the time of the quake.
The Haiti Program works in conjunction with Hôpital Sainte-Croix on a major initiative to eradicate lymphatic filariasis, a debilitating mosquito-borne disease that affects some 120 million people around the world and manifests itself as elephantiasis.