Three Weeks on La Gonave
Dear folks,
You should all share in my sense of joy over what the partnership is supporting on La Gonave. When I decided to go for three weeks to see what and how the programs were progressing, it was with some sense of trepidation. One never really gets a feel for how the programs work in just a weeks time. It is with a full heart that I report to you that amazing and joyful things are at work there. God’s blessings are all over the island.
I will send full reports on each project, but the week began with an initial visit by Trinity Presbyterian from Atlanta. They are in a period of discernment about partnering with St. Francis. I went down with them as their guest to introduce them to the partnership, show them around St. Francis and help them gather information to take back to their congregation. This was the culmination of work that Jim Ingvoldstad started several years ago. I am happy to say that the week was one of blessings and joy. They left with full hearts and a determination to get Trinity partnered with St. Francis. While they were there they met with the vestry and found that the two churches have much in common and the fit seemed good. We will await their formal decision with eagerness. They will be a welcomed addition to our partnership!
The second week brought down Sandy Chai and her wonderful work with Beatitudes and Pwoje Fanm, Laura Martin from Ties That Matter (to work with Sandy and the women from Nan Mango) and Laurie Sauerwein. Laura Martin is a friend of mine from Central Presbyterian Church here in Atlanta (and another potential new partner) who makes beautiful items from recycled silk ties. Laurie Sauerwein is our new best friend from Washington State, a student of the London School of Tropical Medicine and Disease. She came to our attention from an add that Sydney Schneider sent to me that she found on the internet. Laurie and I entered into an internet “relationship” nearly a year ago and she later volunteered to go down and help us with a nutrition plan for our clinic and community health workers. What a huge gift both of these woman bring to our program. I cannot begin to tell you all the wonderful things that came from these new friends, but will attempt to do that in my follow up.
The last week Lee Wilder, Laurie Sauerwein and I went around to visit some of the communities served by the Goat Project and to continue to work with Miss Ester at the clinic on the nutrition program and the Medika Mamba program. Both programs are doing an incredible job of serving the people and Jean Thoney and Miss Ester are doing an amazing job on very tight resources. The people of La Gonave benefit daily from their work and our support.
And last, but certainly not least, the new Adult Literacy program is up and running and in every community we visited the folks were showing up, with an eagerness that was so humbling, to learn to read and write! Books in hand, homework done, they came, they sang and they learned. We lost count of all the people who hugged us, showed us their work and thanked us for bringing this program to La Gonave. Every community in the Partnership now has an Adult Literacy teacher. On your next trip down make a point to seek them out and observe the program. You are not likely to miss it as they will show up mid afternoon, dressed in their finest with books in hand. They will be they ones with big smiles on their faces.
Thanks to all of you for all you do to support us and make this Partnership work. Your hands are all over this island and your friends there appreciate you. Pere Soner’s vision and hard work, the blessings of God and the people of La Gonave give us much to be hopeful about. I return with a humble and thankful heart.
Peace,
Deb Griffin
Adult Literacy Training
Hope has paid off! We have a group of newly trained Adult Literacy Educators and we have had a good response to our funding requests. Just four short months ago the women of Nan Mango came to us and said of all things the needed learning to write and read was on the top of their list. We were so moved by their sincerity and hunger to learn that we made it a top priority of ours as well.
Today we received news from Pere Soner that the first group is trained, they will be commissioned at the Feast Day of St. Francis in Anse-a-Galet this Sunday and he will begin to make placements. There were 14 women and men trained. Ten will move on to be teachers and of those 10 2-3 will be selected at the end of the 4 months to go into Port Au Prince and receive further training.
Pere Soner had the nicest things to say about how well the Fonkoze trainers had done their job and he is encouraged about the long-term growth and sustainability of this program.
Congratulations to our friends on La Gonave and to all of our friends here who are helping to make this a reality. We are truly humbled.
Lo Torre Clinic
The Lo Torre Clinic on La Gonave, Haiti
The Community of Lo Torre
Lo Torre is situated on the southernmost crest of La Gonave Island at altitude of ~2000 feet. As the crow flies it is actually closer to Point a Raquette than Anse a Galet. Lo Torre consists of approximately 11 neighborhoods all with limited access to water, healthcare or medication. There is a local community health worker (CHW), Yvenia Saint Cyr who is funded through the La Gonave Haiti Partnership (LGHP) at Bill Rice Clinic. There is no electricity or system of sanitation. The character of the area is very rural. There are minimal opportunities for employment; most income is earned through farming and local commerce. It is a 2+ hour drive west, then south from Anse a Galet.
History of the Partnership and Clinics
The St. Francis church of La Gonave has partnered with All Saints Anglican church of Pawleys Island SC for 20 years to establish and maintain St Barnabus church and primary school in LoTorre. The clinic for LoTorre evolved as an outreach of this partnership. Every four months a multidisciplinary team coordinated through All Saints travels to the community and sets up a 3 day clinic in the school’s classrooms. A fully staffed clinic will treat approximately 700 patients on a trip. A Haitian physician and nurse from the Bill Rice clinic travel up with the American team. The local CHW as well as other young adults from the community are employed during the clinic days to assist with patient care including lab testing, equipment management, registration, translation and cooking. Over time the clinic effort has developed into a truly Haitian/American team.
Each clinic trip provides a pediatric clinic, a dental clinic and an adult clinic. Because there is no access to over the counter or prescription medications the American team purchases all medication in the US, packages them in per-patient bags with instructions in Kreyol. Patients register with the church lay minister and pay for care on a sliding scale. Medications are provided free of charge. All supplies, including food, water, gasoline, sleeping bags, dental chairs, etc. are packed and transported up the mountain in the aging “ambulance” and supply trucks. It is a physically demanding effort for everyone.
Patient Care
The dental clinic is coordinated by Dr. David Grabeman of Pawleys Island SC. He is assisted by 3 members of the Lo Torre community who provide cold sterilization of equipment and manage patient flow. When a second dentist travels, the clinic is able to run 4 chairs at a time. Care is limited to extractions and management of abscesses, fluoride treatment and teaching. Patients are treated with local topical and injected anesthetic and provided with antibiotics and pain medication to take home as needed. American volunteers assist by preparing trays and equipment for the dentists and comforting patients.
The pediatric clinic is coordinated by Dr. Amanda Drosieko of Pawleys Island SC. She is assisted by a translator and an American nurse or other volunteer. The clinic provides episodic care, as well as treatment for malnutrition, parasites and chronic conditions such as asthma and anemia. Mothers are provided with medication for fever, pain and vitamins if needed. Children receive immunizations through a clinic coordinated by WorldVision and nutrition assessment through the Medikamamba program.
The adult clinic is coordinated by Dr. William Fairey of Pawleys island SC. It is the highest volume clinic and sees 300-500 patients per trip. Patients are registered by Haitian staff and vital signs are obtained by the Bill Rice Clinic nurse and the CHW, Ms. St. Cyr. Patients are seen by American and Haitian doctors, American nurse practitioners and registered nurses from both the US and Bill Rice clinic. Basic finger stick glucose and hemoglobin testing is provided by Lo Torre employees. All patient meds and diagnoses are entered into a database stateside to provide information for inventory, follow up and efficacy of the efforts.
Veterinary Clinic
Once a year a Haitian/American veterinary team is provided to the community which augments the day to day care for livestock provided by the LGH Partnership through Jean Thoney. Veterinarians and technicians provide immunization, deworming, castration and emergency care at the St Barnabus school and out in other gathering areas of the community. There is always a great deal of excitement and energy when the vet team is visiting. The school’s “parking lot” is filled with donkeys, pigs and goats to awaken us each morning.
Long Term Goals
The team has formed a 501(C)3 called “Logos LaGonave” in order to channel funds raised in a transparent manner. We hope to purchase land and construct a permanent clinic in the Lo Torre community. The excellent reputation of the Bill Rice Clinic in Nouvelle Cite inspired us to dream of a clinic staffed with Haitian doctors, nurses, agents and technicians to meet the day to day health needs of the community. We envision augmenting care with American specialty medical teams until the Haitian medical system can one day supply adequate specialists of their own. Our novel system of mapping patient houses using GIS and house addresses has enabled us to develop not only an adult patient medical database, but the beginnings of a community census that allows visualization of population density by neighborhood, using a GoogleEarth overlay; this will aid us and other groups in choosing advantageous sites for clinic buildings and water systems. We hope to add pediatric and dental patient information to our database in the coming year. This will allow us to follow the health of the community across the lifespan.
Needs
- Financial Donors- to purchase medications for each clinic (approximately $ 7500 per trip for meds and baggage charges), to assist patients who are referred to hospitals for care, to assist the LGH Partnership in purchasing/maintaining transportation for teams and supplies, to build a permanent clinic.
- Health Care Providers- especially optometrists, ophthalmologists, family practice/emergency physicians and nurse practitioners, dentists, pediatric physicians and nurse practitioners,OB/GYN physicians and nurse practitioners, farm animal veterinarians.
For more information please contact team member Leslie Jordanger : jordangers@gmail.com
Adult Literacy
“You gotta have hope…musn’t sit around and mope.” So goes the old song from Damn Yankees and we decided to take this seriously. With only half the money promised we decided to go ahead with hope and the response has been encouraging. We engaged Fonkoze to train a person this week so we could begin our program next week. We were able to use funds available to make this happen and that is also where the hope comes in.
We are hoping that all of you believe that literacy for all is an important part of economic development and justice for all. We are hoping that all of you will be willing to make a contribution to see to it that this program is fully funded and sustainable. With our faith and hope we have told Pere Soner to go ahead and tell the people who will be our new teachers to show up next week and begin their training. We are committed to funding this program so that the people of La Gonave will have the opportunity to become educated and take their place in the economic development of the island.
In four short weeks we will be on La Gonave to meet with these Adult Literacy groups, to observe the training and to be sure the program is on the right course. We are sure that the money we need to make this happen will come and we will be happy if we can tell everyone “this program is fully funded.” Please show us that this hope is not in vain, for we truly believe what Fredrick Douglass once said: “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
To donate use the button to the right of this page or go to our website http://lagonavepartners.org/ and under Education you can find the Donate Now button that will specify your gift to further Adult Literacy.
2011 Haiti Partnership Meeting
The annual La Gonave Haiti Partnership Meeting was held in Charleston on July 29th and 30th at St. Phillips Episcopal Church. In addition to representatives from partner churches in Arkansas, Georgia, and South Carolina we were joined by Pere Soner Alexander, the priest in charge of La Gonave as well as Pere Kesner Ajax, Partnership Program Coordinator, Diocese of Haiti. It was a time of renewal, new friends and much hope for the work we are doing on La Gonave. Programs were reviewed, needs assessed and new programs such as the Adult Literacy Project due to begin in September were announced. It was the official kick off of our new website (which you have found if you are reading this!) We are all please to be able to show you why we are so passionate about the work we do with the people of La Gonave. During break-out sessions we discussed the needs of healthcare, education and transportation. Our trusty ambulance that has taken us on so many trips around the island has become a liability this year. It is not a traditional ambulance, but one equipped with bench type seats for the transport of people. This one has served us well, but it is time to retire it. We will begin a campaign immediately to raise funds for a new one. Many of our communities, actually ALL of our communities, are a long way from the lead church, St. Francis, in Anse-A-Galet. Each day we are there there are trips over unpaved roads to reach the clinic, schools and churches we serve. This demands a suspension found in a specialized Toyota made for travel in developing countries. The costs of this vehicle will be $39,700, but it is the way we get the medicines and doctors to our clinic, the priest to his churches and all of us to the work we love. This year, more than ever, as we expand our Children’s Nutrition Program, develop a new outreach clinic and expand our women’s sewing project we will need dependable transportation. All that on top of our regularly scheduled visits. Please help us solve this need by donating online or contacting us if you know of anyone interested in helping. This is the lynch pin of our work on La Gonave and we need your help.
International Exchange
For the last year the French students at Westminster School in Atlanta, GA under the leadership of Becky McKnight have maintained a learning relationship with the French students at St. Francis School in Anse-a-Galet on La Gonave. They have also set up a website to facilitate learning.
The website is a result of a new partnership or scholarly exchange between The Westminster Schools and the College St. François d’Assise in La Gonâve, Haiti. In 2010, twelve scholars from La Gonâve partnered with twelve juniors from Westminster to build a website both to market the school among the Haitian population and to provide a vehicle for joint scholarship. The spring semester brought the exchange of ideas and essays based on L’Enigme du Retour, the novel by Haitian author Dany Laferrière. The Westminster students also participated in a fund raising campaign to benefit their peers in Haiti. During the 2011-12 school year, the exchange will continue with a planned visit by one of the professors from St. François as well as the continued literary forum, this time concentrating on Laferrière’s earthquake story, Tout Bouge Autour de Moi.
Please take time to visit these sites. The students are very proud of this on-going experiment in learning.
St. Francis School website: http://collegelagonave.org/En/America.html (English) and http://collegelagonave.org/index.html (French)
Welcome!
We are happy that you have found our new website. With the wonderful guidance and help of Stacey Wright at www.wrightcreativelabs.com and Covenant Presbyterian Church we now have an interactive site with new features. It will be easier to file trip reports, update programs and get your name on our distribution list. We are linked with Facebook so be sure to look us up and “like” us.
Another very exciting feature is the ability to donate to the La Goanve Haiti Partnership online and to be sure that the donation goes directly to the program with which you have the most interest. We are now linked to Piryx and by going to the website page of the program you are interested in, and clicking on the donate now button, your donation will go directly to that program. All other donations can be made on the homepage and will go into the general fund.
This online opportunity has not come without costs to us. For the first time we have had to agree to incur administrative costs which is new to our 20 year program. In the past, as now, all our work is done by volunteers who pay their own way as well as support the programs they are involved in. That will not change, but in order to have the ease of donating online we will be paying a 4% fee to the collection site. We feel that this is a necessary expense, but we want you to know that it is our only administrative costs.
If you are able, please help us offset this costs by adding to your donation. We appreciate any and all donations we receive and promise to continue to be good stewards of the gifts we receive for the people of La Gonave, Haiti.
Next week will be our annual meeting of the La Gonave Haiti Partnership in Charleston, SC. There are many exciting things underway and hope you will come back for our full report. And, be sure to pass this site along to anyone you think may have an interest in our important work.
Welcome
Anse-a- Galet
