World Bank gives $8.75 million to Sean Penn’s Haiti charity

The actor's organization will help relocate displaced Haitians

Topics: Sean Penn, Haiti, Charity, Celebrity, donation,

World Bank gives $8.75 million to Sean Penn's Haiti charity(Credit: AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

Around 14,000 Haitians who currently live in tarps in mud in the Petionville Club golf course, displaced by the 2010 earthquake, are about to get new homes. The World Bank has announced plans to give $8.75 million to actor Sean Penn’s Haitian charity, the J/P Haitian Relief Organization, which will subsidize rents and build new housing in a nearby neighborhood throughout 2014.

The actor serves as an ambassador-at-large for the impoverished nation, which years later is still struggling to recover from the natural disaster. Although at its highest, 1.5 million people were displaced, International Organization for Migration reports that more than 347,000 Haitians are still without homes.

Penn’s spokeswoman told the New York Post that the charity will “support the residents of Delmas 32 to demonstrate that something fundamentally different can come from a ‘slum’ in one of the poorest cities in the world.”

Prachi Gupta is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on pop culture. Follow her on Twitter at @prachigu or email her at pgupta@salon.com.

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