Did you know that in the list of International Days and Weeks of the United Nations, today, 11.19, is World Toilet Day?

In 2017 St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and School began in Martel, Haiti. Prior to 2017 this rural community had no school. They started with 35 students grades K-2, and they met under a tree.

The school is funded by a collaboration of parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of New York called the New York Haiti Project. In 2019, they partnered with St. Luke’s and their priest Father Jean Berthol Phanord to build a small one-person latrine for the school. The latrine was destroyed in an earthquake in 2021.

Thanks to a Sustainable Development Goals grant from the The Episcopal Diocese of New York, and in partnership with the Red Cross, St. Luke’s Episcopal School now has a new latrine. They have a cistern for drinking water and another for hand washing. They also have three classroom buildings and a hall that doubles as the Sunday worship space. We hope these will serve the school and church for years to come.

Today St. Luke’s Episcopal School serves 226 students, kindergarten through 9th grade.

Thank you to the Rev. Sam Owen from the The Haitian Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan for sharing this great story with us!