The Connecticut-Haitian Connection: Development and Educational Exchanges between the Caribbean and New England. Area Studies Resource Guides Number Nine.

The Connecticut Haitian American community has recently become large enough and sufficiently well established to develop programs to assist economic and educational development in the Republic of Haiti. Southern Connecticut became a destination for large numbers of Haitian emigrants and political refugees in the 1950s, in 1964, and again in 1971. Data on the number of Haitians in Connecticut are difficult to compile because many are unregistered aliens, but communities have developed in the urban areas of sufficient size to have an impact on the public schools and Catholic Church in Stamford, Norwalk, and Bridgeport. Recently organized Haitian American community projects include the following: (1) Hunger Relief and Development, Inc., designed to provide direct food, medical, and educational aid to the disadvantaged in Haiti; (2) the Haitian Ministries Office, a Catholic Church-sponsored organization designed to provide services to the poor in Port-au Prince, Haiti; (3) the Connecticut Haitian American Society, Inc., designed to educate Americans about Haiti and to preserve Haitian culture in the United States; and (4) University of Connecticut programs, designed to provide colloquia on Haitian affairs, field trips to Haiti, and training for health care personnel in Haiti. Two maps and a short list of references are included. (FMW)