It is not easy deciding to whom, where, and how we should channel our resources and assistance. Few places present more challenges than the desperate slums of Haiti or the harsh, desolate villages in Haiti's rural countryside.

Every activity and project undertaken by Hands Together flows from our spirituality of compassion. Essentially, we are motivated by God's call to Love -- we recognize our responsibility to work toward liberating the poor from misery and squalor, and restoring dignity wherever people are debased. Distilled from experiences that came basically from years of trial-and-error-and-try-again efforts, our assistance philosophy and guiding concepts help us target the poorest of the poor and inject "seeds for change" whenever possible.

Guiding Concepts

• Choose projects in locations of greatest misery and poverty.
• Make education and healthcare affordable, and if wherever necessary provide free schooling, healthcare and nutrition.
• Provide spiritual/moral formation with all projects.
• Seek to empower and foster community collaboration and use of all available resources.

Neither complicated nor rigid, our mission-driven approach to helping the poor in Haiti involves: an honest assessment of need, prioritization of projects, prayer and reflection, decision, and evaluation. We allow the "Hand of God" to operate in our lives.

We do not work alone and when possible we foster collaborative partnerships with groups whose mission closely mirrors our own. Some of these groups and organizations include: Catholic Relief Services, Diocesan Caritas, Diocese of Gonaives/P-au-P/Hinche, Missionary Sisters and Brothers of Charity, Daughter's of Mercy, local peasant organizations, CARE, and others.

From this process has come our integrated approach to assistance in areas of Education, Nutrition, Sustainable Development, Emergency Needs, and Health.

Project Activities