Hoping to be a model to the nation
Episcopal News Service – Linthicum Heights, Maryland. June 16, 2011 [061611-01]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The Episcopal Diocese of Haiti is developing the administrative procedures that it will use as it begins to rebuild, according to a report given to the church's Executive Council during its meeting here.
The Rev. Joseph Constant, the Rev. Rosemari Sullivan and Margareth Crosnier de Ballaistre each told the council June 15 that a protocol document spelling out procurement and disbursement policies as well as channels of communication is in the process of being finalized. An architect will soon be hired to coordinate and draft a request for proposals for the design and project management of a new Holy Trinity Cathedral.
Constant and Sullivan are the two special coordinators for Haiti reconstruction appointed by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Crosnier de Ballaistre is the Episcopal Church Center's director of investment management and banking and a Haitian-American.
Even as the rebuilding plans are being developed, Constant said, "there's tremendous unmet opportunity for growth" in Haiti and "there are many people waiting to hear the good news of Jesus Christ and experience the liturgy of the Episcopal Church." He told the council that "part of the diocesan vision includes planting an additional 45 churches" in what is already numerically the largest diocese in the church.
Constant said that "the leadership and presence" of a recently approved suffragan bishop will help support this effort. He predicted that the second bishop would be elected in the fall.
The magnitude-7 earthquake of Jan. 12, 2010 destroyed 71 percent of the diocese's churches, 50 percent of its primary schools and 80 percent of its secondary schools, according to details of an initial reconstruction plan that was released in November 2010.
Seventy-five percent of its higher-educational facilities must be demolished and 33 percent of the rectories, convents and guesthouses are seriously damaged and also must be destroyed. Also lost were the bishop's house and the diocese's income-producing condominium building.
Official rebuilding cost estimates will be based on plans submitted by approved architects after the not-yet-begun bidding process.
At Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin's request, rebuilding Holy Trinity Cathedral will be the first reconstruction project. To mark the first year since the quake, the Episcopal Church in January launched the Rebuild Our Church in Haiti fundraising campaign to aid that work.
Constant told the council that the next phase of cathedral reconstruction will center on preparing the request for proposals of design and project management services. The Haiti team will work with the diocese to review the draft RFP and identify qualified firms to receive it. The firms' responses will be evaluated and a short list of firms to be interviewed will be created, he said.
Among the challenges the project faces, Constant said, is one of maintaining the partnership structure that has developed with an "appropriate level" Episcopal Church and diocesan controls. Related to that concern, Crosnier de Ballaistre told the council that there will be a workshop Aug. 22 in Port-au-Prince on Episcopal Church business practices.
Duracin and others have asked in the past for such a workshop and previously scheduled attempts had to be cancelled due to political upheaval in the country, she said. Language barriers prevented members of the diocese from participating in other such workshops run at the churchwide or provincial level, Crosnier de Ballaistre added.
However, given the scope of money that will be flowing to Haiti for the cathedral reconstruction project, "it is now imperative to hold this workshop," she said.
In addition, Crosnier de Ballaistre said that "it became very clear that we needed to put in place some procedures and policies" after her office received an invoice for $160,000 for cathedral reconstruction work done by a group of architects. No one at the Episcopal Church Center knew that the work was being done, she said.
Crosnier de Ballaistre reported that Sikhumbuzo Vundla, the recently hired diocesan chief of operations, asked for a protocol for construction oversight and the one being developed addresses the financial accountability issues as well. The construction company that oversaw the last renovation of the Church Center helped design a draft of the policies and procedures, she said.
"Most importantly, the protocol spells out the disbursement process" which will "prevent the repeat of surprise invoices for unexpected work," she said.
Once the protocol is signed by the Episcopal Church and the diocese "it will govern how we work during the various construction projects to be funded by the fundraising effort."
The document also is meant to be "shared with potential donors that may be skeptical of the management of construction funds."
During the World Mission Committee meeting, Constant said that the Haiti team wants to respect the diocese's autonomy while "at the same time knowing that we are responsible to the wonderful people who are donating their hard-earned resources to the reconstruction in Haiti."
Sullivan told the committee that "our church is very much part of the nation's life in Haiti," adding that she hopes that "what we do in the church will model for the nation a way of going forward -- that good business practices, good ethics, a sense of community, a sense of hope can really be a profound influence on the nation as it reshapes its governance and moves forward as a country."
Constant told the council that the project also faces the challenge of matching the work timeline to the fundraising timeline. Later in the day he told the World Mission Committee that once that architects and structural engineers are hired "things will happen very quickly and the fundraising will have to keep up."
Meanwhile, Sullivan told the council that "the fundraising effort is going very well," although she declined to quantify the progress.
The scope of the cathedral rebuilding plan has changed from earlier suggestions. Constant said the new cathedral is slated to be built on land north of where the cathedral stood which was once occupied by the Holy Trinity primary and secondary schools. He later told council's Word Mission Committee that because the Haitian government considered the cathedral a historic site, the diocese "cannot do exactly what we want with the footprint of the current cathedral," but instead must be in talks with the government about the use of that portion of its land.
A new location for the school campus has yet to be determined.
Some earlier proposals called for the diocese to enlarge the cathedral complex using adjacent land that is currently owned by the Haiti government. The hope had been for the government to donate that land, but Constant said the "lack of systems in Haiti are such that it is just not feasible to include any government-owned parcel at this time."
Constant told the council that the Episcopal Church has "committed our resources and the Diocese of Haiti has agreed that our focus will only be on land owned by the Diocese of Haiti."
Constant told the committee that it might be nice to have the backing of the government in terms of having donated land or other financial support. "At the same time, I think that it is important that the Diocese of Haiti maintain a level of independence so that when the time comes to denounce [the historically troubled government], we can do that faithfully."