Team Report
Read the news from our June 2015 team to Haiti:
Women in Terre Blanche have been making jewelry and other crafts to sell to team members. We are excited every time we see economic development.
Read the news from our June 2015 team to Haiti:
Women in Terre Blanche have been making jewelry and other crafts to sell to team members. We are excited every time we see economic development.
Dr. Steve Sethi, an HFH board member, traveled to Terre Blanche in May to meet with the volunteers of the Community Health Program. Read about the amazing work that these volunteers are doing.
Dr. Steve Sethi and the community health leaders.
We celebrated another group of graduates from the Women’s Trade School last month in Terre Blanche. Over the past 10 years, 46 women have completed the three-year program.
One of our volunteer medical teams was in Terre Blanche to attend the ceremony and celebrate with the graduates and their families and friends.
During their studies, the students learned skills such as sewing (they made their graduation gowns), childhood development, cooking and etiquette.
After passing a national exam, the graduates now have a certificate and skills that will help them care for and support their families.
One of the students who is still in the program is Brezil Ann Rose. She started a trade school program 31 years ago but never finished because she was busy raising her children.
One day, she was passing through Terre Blanche and a friend told her about the Women’s Trade School, in which the friend was enrolled. Brezil wasted no time getting herself enrolled and for the first time in almost three decades it looks like she might graduate from a trade school after all.
Brezil said that while she plans to sell some of the items she’ll make after graduating, a large reason she attends the trade school is to provide a better life for her family.
Sarah Jeglum, HFH team member, contributed to this article.
For M. Dieumetre, the micro-loan program funded through Haiti Foundation of Hope has been a great help to him and his family. It was once difficult to find food but now he has multiple gardens and animals.
The micro-loan program is just one aspect of the economic development activities taking place in Terre Blanche and surrounding communities.
MICRO-LOANS
M. Dieumetre uses his micro-loan money to buy seeds. He grows millet, a corn-like grain common in Haiti. He has a garden near the river, and others on the hillside. He sells the millet at the market in Gonaives.
Along with the loan of money for small businesses, participants in the micro-loan program receive education on money management.
AGRICULTURAL TRAINING
Another economic development activity taking place is agricultural training. Haiti Foundation of Hope recently held agricultural training for 30 people. Part of the training included learning how to use drip irrigation. Each participant was given a drip kit to use in their own gardens.
Those who received training are excited to use their new knowledge and to share the knowledge with their neighbors and friends.
CURRENT STRUGGLE
Many people in Terre Blanche and the surrounding communities make their living off the land – growing crops or raising small livestock. Currently, the area is severely lacking rainfall. The river that runs through the area is almost dry. For almost all the farmers, the most recent crops have failed due to the drought conditions.
10-year celebration in Terre Blanche with American and Haitian team volunteers.
One team member commented that our time in Terre Blanche was full of celebrations.
We celebrated graduations.
We celebrated worship with our Haitian sisters and brothers.
We celebrated International Women’s Day.
We celebrated a team member’s 76th birthday.
And we celebrated Haiti Foundation of Hope’s 10 years – Selebrayson 10 ane. We took the party to Terre Blanche with six boxes of funfetti cake and frosting. I’m not sure of the exact number of guests but all 120 party plates were gone. What a joyful time and many memories made.
Written by Ann Petersen, March 2015 team member and HFH board member.
Spring is here and that means it’s time for planting and gardening. Recently in Terre Blanche, we built a model garden using a drip irrigation system. That garden has had its first harvest.
At the beginning of this month, 30 people participated in agriculture training to learn how the drip irrigation system works. The participants are excited about using their new knowledge to grow their own gardens as well as share their knowledge with neighbors and friends.
A drip kit was given to each person who completed the training. It’s their responsibility to provide a five gallon bucket to complete the irrigation system and the seeds for their garden. A key aspect of the training was using drip irrigation to minimize the water needed in the drought stricken area of Haiti where we work.
The potential for gaining food security among the villages where these volunteers live is enormous. Please pray for their success in using the training they received and sharing the possibilities with their neighbors and friends.
Some of the participants from the agriculture training earlier this month.
Dave Zollner, center, works alongside team members in the clinic pharmacy.
Written by Dave Zollner, a member of the March team and a HFH board member:
Three weeks ago I returned from spending ten days in Haiti as a part of a 19-member medical team.
This was my tenth trip to Terre Blanche. Since 2006, this annual trek has been a part of my March plans. This year I found myself wondering how long I plan to keep this as a part of my March plans?
I suppose it raises the bigger question of why do I go at all. This year’s team was made up of medical providers with decades of experience in medicine. These folks are dedicated to helping those who cannot access medical care in a country that demands payment for the doctor, bed and medicine before being considered for help. A couple of hundred people are seen on most clinic days with everything from acute medical problems from sickness and accidents to the usual chronic problems of diabetes, hypertension, prenatal care and lots of kids.
So why do I go? Every year, I inform our team leader that I am applying to go but I know that many others could do what I do and I am willing to step aside. And so, once again, I found myself at 6 am on the flat roof of the clinic watching the sunrise with a cup of coffee and pondering how I found myself here again.
I will attempt to answer my own questions with a couple of simple thoughts that resonate with me. I realized on the second day in Haiti that I had been thinking a lot about “me” and what “I” was doing here? Was I really all that valuable to this team effort?
Dave sharing pictures of his family with Haitian team members.
And then it came to me. This isn’t really about me. I have been given a sense of calling to serve others. This is a gift of grace to learn something about being “other” focused and not “me” focused. For those of us who are Jesus Followers, we know that His presence is in all things and the sooner we get outside our own self focus the sooner He can change our hearts and minds.
Secondly, I read somewhere recently about “thin places.” These are places where we get a unique sense of the space between heaven and earth as being very thin. Terre Blanche is a thin place. Life is very simple there, very basic, very dependent on hope. This is a place where “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” is being lived out daily. People who often struggle to clothe their family and give them one meal a day are living with a joy that you can only experience and not describe.
That is why I keep going back. That is why Terre Blanche is a place of grace and a “thin place” for me. This is where grace is seen in ways that I have never before experienced.
This year we organized and hosted the Fifth Annual Medical Conference at the Clinic of Hope.
Over 100 Haitian health care providers from all over Haiti spent the day at Terre Blanche, where they learned about important issues regarding treatment of patients in Haiti.
The enthusiasm for learning and the appreciation for the conference was clearly seen on everyone’s faces. Despite driving as much as five hours to be in attendance, the health care providers were excited and hungry for learning.
Continuing medical education is uncommon in Haiti. During closing comments, the Haitian attendees repeatedly stood up to say thank you for the opportunity to learn. They told us, “we will be able to share this information with people we work with and we encourage you to keep having this conference in the coming years.”
We had a party last week in Terre Blanche to celebrate 10 years of working together as Haiti Foundation of Hope.
After a day of seeing patients, we took down the exam tables and set up a cake table.
We – Haitians who have faithfully been part of our teams year after year and American volunteers – watched this video. And then we watched it again. And again.
By Carrie Petersen, team member just returned home from Haiti:
Translator Jean and volunteer Molly evaluate a patient at the eye clinic.
The plan was to blog my way through a week of volunteering in Haiti. But life in Haiti requires flexibility, and this past week, that meant living without the internet. I was able to post one update before the internet came to a grinding halt.
I made a couple more attempts to connect to the world wide web before I shut it all down and breathed a sigh of relief. While it meant that I couldn’t do any online work for Haiti Foundation of Hope, the broken internet also meant that I had an entire week of no personal or work emails, no instant messages, no news alerts, and no social media.
It meant that I had one whole week to be present. To see the three dimensional world around me. To sit without staring at a screen. And this is what I saw:
Nine graduates receiving their certificates after three years of training at the women’s trade school.
A village celebrating International Women’s Day with singing, dancing, laughter and encouragement.
Volunteers on their first trip to Haiti stepping up to teach English lessons all on their own.
A nurse making a house call to treat a toddler whose armed was burned by hot food.
Patients who could see for the first time in years after successful cataract surgery.
A graduate of the women's trade school receives her certificate.
A one-year-old girl weighing only 13 pounds but immensely loved by her father who brought her to the clinic.
Children eating healthy school lunches.
Medical staff missing out on sleep to treat patients throughout the night.
Translators whose care for the patients at the clinic was beyond measure.
Tears of gratitude.
Students studying physics into the night under the only light in the school courtyard.
Mothers of malnourished children learning from their neighbor how to cook healthy meals.
I saw love.
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