Haiti trade school to get federal funding

A Haiti trade school to be built in honour of Sgt. Mark Gallagher is getting some funding from the Canadian government.

Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda announced  $29.9 million for Haiti from the Canadian government on Thursday—$789,134 will go to the school.

Gallagher, a Moncton-area RCMP officer, died in the January 2010 earthquake.

Gallagher was in Haiti training new police officers as a part of a UN peacekeeping mission.

The school will offer 15 programs targeted to all 13 communes within Carrefour, a suburb of Port-au-Prince.

The earthquake-resistant school will admit 500 students to contribute to the reconstruction of the country and sustainable development of Haiti.

The school, to be built in Riviere Froide, will replace one destroyed in the earthquake that killed 150 people, 144 of them children.

"It is fitting that a vocational school will be built in his honour. His dedication to the Haitian people will not be forgotten," said Oda in a release.

The school will be built by L'Association québécoise pour l'Avancement des Nations Unies—a Quebec-based charity, Friends of Sergeant Mark Gallagher and The Little Sisters of St. Thérèse.