History of Fondation Enfant Jesus
In 1985, Mrs. Lucienne Duncan (now an eighty-one year old widow) was known to the surrounding villagers as the founder of Church Enfant Jesus. The principle headquarters are located in the region of Lamardelle, a small village community with a population of about 20,000. It is located near the town of Ganthier, which is close to the Dominican Republic border. Manmie Lucienne, who is also an resident of the area, decided to bring the people together to promote faith and moral values within the community, which was left in disarray through multiple conflicts within the area. Lucienne Duncan donated ½ acre of land where the Church Enfant Jesus was built. For the past twenty-five years, many of the locals have benefited from the church’s services. Community members run the church with periodic assistance from the priests of other dioceses.
Because the majority of the farmers and their families were illiterate, Manmie Lucienne felt it was important to focus on educating the rising generation. Therefore, in 1988 she built on her residential compound the School Enfant Jesus, which started out with fifty children. Eighteen years later, the school’s attendance rose to four hundred fifty children – a majority of those children being from local farmers. There was a schoolmaster along with fifteen staff members. After two years of operating, she realized the need to incorporate a canteen, which would provide two meals each day – a light breakfast and a hot lunch – within the school program. As projected, this significantly decreased absenteeism and poor attention span created by malnutrition.
The complete operational budget of the school has been entirely funded by Mrs. Duncan since it was established in 1985 up until 2003. However, understandably, as the program has branched out and the number of students within it has increased, the foundation is dependent upon outside donations to perpetuate its continued vision and operations. The FEJ has designed a sponsorship program of financing the schooling of children through the contributions of generous donors as well as other volunteers.
The Foundation Enfant Jesus is a non-government, apolitical organization that was founded in 2003. It was established in order to contribute to improving the material living conditions of orphans and destitute children. It also aims to participate, along with other organizations, in the rehabilitation of rural life.
FEJ also oversees youth by allowing them to attend the elementary and middle schools. Currently, there are over 462 students attending the institution.
The founders, perpetuators and staff believe in and promote education and strong family values. They are involved in numerous facets that enable the surrounding community to help themselves through education, training and the application of such skills through hands-on work.
They have also established a clean drinking water program. And they are working to generate and maintain electricity. FEJ has many areas of education for the children and families within the community with a particular focus on nutrition, health, hygiene and finance. They also have a successful agricultural program, where nutritional information is key with aiding the surrounding communities on improving their health habits and standards.
One of the main programs which FEJ has established, is adoption. They have taken in and placed numerous children that have been abandoned, orphaned, placed for adoption due to extreme poverty and/or who are HIV positive.
The foundation has done a phenomenal job in bettering the populace by pulling people from the surrounding community to work at the crèche, thus providing jobs, skills, and therefore self reliance for the surrounding residents.
The foundation has also recently established a brand new post-earthquake recovery program that is already underway. Much thought and planning has already gone into this program, and many efforts have already been made to bring this program into a full-working fruition.