And, for 2012, we have already received two new gifts that have humbled us as well. In January we had two friends of the Partnership go onto the website and set up a monthly “giving stream.”  Oh yeah, that thing. We knew we had that capacity when we set up the website last year, but nobody had ever done it and we had been so busy doing what we do that none of us had  thought about it.

The first one came in as a gift of $25 a month. Now, that doesn’t sound like a huge gift in the scheme of things, but I began to ponder what we could do with $25 a month.  Well, here is just the beginning of what it would do:

Treat one child with severe malnutrition for a month

De-worm 50 children to help prevent malnutrition for 6 months

Provide half a month’s salary for a Community Health Worker

Provide goat medicine for the goats in one village for 3 months

Provide an Adult Literacy educator for one village for 1 month

About the time we began to get our mind around what a huge gift this really was we got another one. This time for $50 a month, giving us three times the ability to provide the list above.

The fact is that $25 a month ends up being $300 at the end of the year. For an organization that prides itself in having no over-head costs that is an enormous gift.  So, at the close of this post, I intend to go online and begin my own giving stream gift. With a monthly gift of what many spend weekly stopping for coffee on the way to work I can make a real difference in the lives of the people on La Gonave.  That is a simple, generous gift. It makes me wish I had back all the monthly payments I have made for gym memberships that I never used.

Enough said.

https://secure.piryx.com/donate/gkMizOx2/LaGonave-Haiti-Partnership/

Deb Griffin

For the Partnership

First Presbyterian Atlanta Haiti Trip January 2012

Friday 1/13: Travel Day –Traveling from Atlanta were, Rose Emily Bermudez, Jean Russ, Vic Cavanaugh, Laura Calk, Dushawn Andrews, Selma Ridgeway, Becky Sigmund, Nancy Ike, Steve Feagin, and Norma Feagin. Claire Berry joined us in Miami, We arrived in PAP and were met by Pere Soner, Gretchen VanEss (Emory Masters in Public Health and Masters in Divinity Graduate Student),  and Michael Ritter (Emory MPH and MDiv Graduate who now lives in Haiti running the Jolivert Safe Water Purification Organization). We traveled to Wahoo Bay for dinner and an overnight stay.

Saturday 1/14: Following breakfast, our thirteen member mission team traveled by speedboat to La Gonâve. Also traveling on the boat were Pere Soner, a Haitian woman, and two boat operators plus ALL of our bags. After settling into the guest quarters at Saint Francis, we reorganized and labeled our supplies for each project.

Our yearly Childspring party began at 3:30. Following a wonderful program in our honor featuring the children and their parents, we presented gifts to each of the Childspring children in attendance. The children and parents were served dinner by our team. Rose Emily’s many years of service as the Executive Director were recognized by the families and our group that included Childspring Board Members Vic Cavanaugh, Nancy Ike, and Becky Sigmund.

Sunday 1/15: We attended Church at Saint Francis in the morning and then traveled by truck to Saint Croix where we were warmly welcomed by our Partners in Nouvelle Cité for a meaningful Communion service.

Michael Ritter addressed the church community immediately following the service concerning the importance of safe drinking water, particularly with the recent cholera outbreak. Ten families had been identified by Pere Soner to become the first participants in our point of use in-home safe water pilot project. A group including one member from each chosen family gathered in a classroom where they each received a bucket, tap, and bottle of chlorine. Michael explained the system and trained the group in the use and care of the bucket system. Ample time was given for questions.

The church community joined with us for a wonderful meal in celebration of our Partnership. We distributed sun glasses to the adults and some of the children.

Dushawn studied the roof systems of the church and school validating his impressions from his past visit and photos. He then updated his plan for a water catchment system and provided Pere Soner with a revised list of needed materials.

Monday 1/16: We traveled to Nouvelle Cité in the morning where we began organizing the health stats project at Saint Croix. Screening was partially completed with the younger students.

Claire spent time with Jean Thoney and Pere Soner discussing the goat project. She provided a supply of medicine for the goats and made plans for other needed pharmacy supplies.

Rose Emily and Steve met with the Microfinance recipients, Pere Soner, and Museau Nixère, the program’s accountant. They addressed recent, previously unseen, payment issues and discussed the future of the program. The participants were challenged to help those in arrears to honor their loan obligations so the next round of loans can promptly start.

Dushawn and Vic began organizing the water catchment project and work commenced alongside a team of Haitians led by Sonny. He and Dushawn established their own means of communication minimizing the need for the constant presence of an interpreter. Gutters (traditional metal with soldered seams and cut PVC) were to be made and attachments for these were installed for the church and school.

We had the opportunity to observe the school lunch program which now operates three days a week. The cooks prepare the food outside and use the building for serving plates and storage as well as an eating area for students.

Tuesday 1/17: The Health Screening continued. Teachers brought classes in one at a time. Cards were either found from the previous year or new cards were made. We recorded the height and weight on the cards and when possible determined the progress of each student. While we again saw progressive growth in the students, a few showed minimal signs of malnutrition prompting discussion of “de-worming” given the prevalence of infestations in the pediatric population. This aspect will be investigated.

After each card was completed, the student moved to station # 2 where individual pictures were taken. These will be attached to the cards to help identify the child in the future. Following the picture, the child moved to station #3. Once the students in the class were all present, an interpreter showed the children the proper way to brush their teeth. After cleaning their teeth with their new toothbrush and toothpaste, a fluoride treatment was administered. The students returned to their classroom.

The water catchment project continued with guttering for the long roof sections of the sanctuary and those spanning the classrooms. The downspout systems were assigned to divide the captured water between the two cisterns at the facility.

Wednesday 1/18: Part of our team traveled to the market in Palma. There they visited a Microfinance recipient in her booth and later purchased buttons, thread, and needles from another vender. Upon our return to Nouvelle Cité, the students were invited to visit a sewing station where any needed uniform repairs were made. Our group enjoyed spending time with individual children while making needed repairs.

Eye screening for reader glasses was provided at Saint Croix with fitting for appropriate strength glasses. The clinic staff and teachers were screened along with adults from the community. Upon our return to St. Francis, women participating in an embroidery group were also given the opportunity for screening. They were very grateful for glasses to help with needle threading and close work.

At the request of Pere Soner, Gretchen met with Jean Thoney to explain an idea for a future agriculture project. This project uses old tires to hold good soil for the planting of small gardens in areas where nothing has been successfully grown in the past. Pere Soner was excited about the possibility and he plans to try this at the Rectory. We hope that it eventually can be used at the school to supplement the lunch program, possibly aiding our plan to eventually serve lunch five days a week. If this project proves successful, families in the area could be taught how to build their individual gardens.

Led by Ishzunel, the water project community leader/monitor, Gretchen, Rose Emily, and Steve visited homes of three families in the new safe water project. All systems had been properly set-up and were in use. Neither the women nor their children had complaints about the taste of the water. Questions were answered which primarily centered on the duration that the treated water would be safe for consumption.

Work on the water catchment project continued until dark and plans were established for completion by the Haitian members of the team. Hopefully, the cistern between the school and lunchroom and the one below the school will be filled when the rainy season begins. A pump provided by Covenant Presbyterian will tap the upper cistern for the lunch facility.

Thursday 1/19: We returned by ferry to Port au Prince early in the morning.

We checked into Le Plaza Hotel. Vic, Steve and Dushawn visited Herbie’s home to film an interview with his mother concerning Childspring’s impact on their lives. Movie footage was obtained documenting the destruction of their home resulting from the earthquake and the subsequently constructed smaller replacement structures.

Rose Emily coordinated a guided walking tour to see the collapsed former government Palace, Holy Trinity Church, the Episcopal Cathedral, Saint Vincent School for the Handicapped, and the surrounding areas that were intensely damaged.

We enjoyed a cool rain as we gathered together at the hotel restaurant for our final evening in Haiti.

Friday 1/20: We returned home, richly blessed by our visit, bringing with us special memories of the week we spent with each other as we joyfully shared God’s love with our friends on La Gonâve.

Note: Each evening following dinner, members of our team took turns leading devotionals with scripture readings and reflections on the spirituality and meaning of our mission in Haiti.

Rose Emily Bermudez and Norma Feagin

After we cleared our tears (during the thunderous applause she got from her neighbors) we vowed to help them learn to read. Thanks to a quick response from our friends (like you) we had the program up and running in less than 6 months. And now, our first report card. We feel like kids again!

I am very pleased with the prospect of meeting you next month, as you have requested.  Today we had a meeting of the Education Agents at the officce in Port au Prince.  I was enchanted with the reports that Robert, gave on the work going on in Lagonave.  He is very satisfied with the collaboration he receives from Pere Soner and others from his Congregation, and it turns out your program is the best in attendance and commitment from both participants and monitors.  Congratulations on a well motivated group of beneficiairies in your program.

And, a huge thanks from the people of La Gonave. They are finally learning to read.

Lee Wilder

For the Partnership

Last summer at a partnership meeting in Charleston we began a conversation with Dr. Laurie Harrell from St. Phillips in Charleston.  She is a radiation oncologist by training but has a long history of medical mission work in Honduras.  She raised the subject of soil transmitted helminths (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16679166) and their effects on the health of the affected people.  She had used this treatment in Honduras and, after a trip to La Gonave, became interested in bringing this treatment to the people there.

After our discussion I returned to La Gonave in the fall to monitor our new Medika Mamba program. In the course of attending a number of MM clinics over the 3 weeks it became clear to me that many children did not need the full 8 week treatment cycle of the peanut butter medicine and that, in fact, once they were treated with Albendazole, the de-worming medication that is part of the protocol of Medika Mamba, the children were able to make use of the nutrition available to them and quickly gained back to their target  weight. Sometimes in as short as 4 weeks.

(This is where I extol the joys of collaboration)

How easy it would be to miss what was going on. After my initial shock at how quickly some of these very malnourished children were recovering I began to ponder why that would be. My conversation with Laurie came back to mind and I discussed the possibility with a nutritionist that was on the trip with us, Laurie Sauerwein, and we surmised, correctly, that many of these children just needed to be de-wormed.

We knew the amazing results from the Medika Mamba. That had been documented. It would have been easy to stop there and ramp up the MM program. But, as happens over and over on La Gonave, because we are always talking to the people there, as well as seeking out other who are attempting to do the work we are doing, we made another connection that has a huge impact on the folks there.

Because of this, and with the help of Dr. Harrell, in six weeks we will launch a program to enhance and parallel our newest Children’s Nutrition Program initiative, Medika Mamba.  We will begin by administering clinics to treat soil transmitted helminths at two of our partnership schools on La Gonave.  We will treat 500 children and try to pass out shoes for as many of those as we can as shoes are one way to limit exposure to worms and parasites.

This new addition, which is the next step in children’s health, will endeavor to reach all the schools in the partnership so that they can be de-wormed twice a year (with the Albendazole that means only one dose every 6 months) to ensure that they can get the nutrition from what their families can provide. It is our hope that we can eventually expand that program to treat child-bearing women.

Unfortunately, during our monitoring of the Medika Mamba program in October, some of the saddest cases we saw were of infants who had lost their mothers in the first few months of life.  And, while we are not sure that it was due to mal-nutrition or worm load issues, this is how we move to the next thing that seems to be part of what we are already doing.

Our motto has been “don’t start a project unless it touches something we are already doing.” This has served us well and it keeps up focused on the needs of the people and makes best use of our resources. This motto has led us to believe that the de-worming project is the next best thing to be doing and we see a need for more comprehensive maternal health on the horizon.

These are exciting times and we are every grateful that you are accompanying us on this journey. Thanks again for your year-end giving. Your generosity was over-whelming to us and we are ready for the challenges of a new year.

Deb Griffin

For the Partnerhship

What we have to offer is a friendship of 20 years that has proven over time that we will be with the people of La Gonave no matter what.  And not that we will just show up, but thanks to many of you, that we will show up with new programs to educate the adults as well as the children. That we will listen and show up with programs that address their need to have a way to earn money to educate and feed their children. That even when we can’t meet all their needs, we will never quit showing up.

Aid in times of disaster is important, but good development means the ability and will to accompany folks towards a fundamental change in areas of human justice: food, healthcare, education and economic development. It means sharing success as well as failure. Sharing meals, work, heartbreak and political upheaval.

This year has made us more aware of how important this commitment is to the people of La Gonave, Haiti. The success of our new Medika Mamba program that is now providing state of the art treatment for malnourished children has brought light to the eyes of mothers and their children. In six short weeks children are healthy and active once again. Mothers report it as if it were a miracle. What we have discovered is that the anti-parasite medication, part of the protocol for the program, is crucial in decreasing the worm burden in each child and allowing that child to fully use the nutrients from the food they eat. For this reason in the coming year we will begin an island wide program to get this treatment for all the women and children in our communities. This is the gift of long-term commitment to a community.

This year, acting on a request from a community of women high in the mountains, we have developed a program that provides sewing jobs to women who have precious few opportunities to earn money for their families. By connecting these women with Laura Martin of Ties That Matter they are developing products that are of interest to the Caribbean Craft Council and has the possibility of allowing the community autonomy in the marketing of their goods. This is the gift of long-term commitment to a community.

This year we heard the pleas of adults who work hard to educate their children, but cannot read and write themselves. Through the generosity of our friends we were very quickly able to respond to this plea and we now have 10 communities with Adult Literacy programs funded though the first year. Two to three times a week people flock to the churches and schools with their homework in hand to study, sing and rejoice in an opportunity that before this year had seemed almost impossible.  This is the gift of long-term commitment to a community.

This year we visited a village that was two hours from a city over very difficult and sometimes impassable roads. We were there for a goat clinic.  This was one of the first communities to benefit from our goat project and they have had an active program for over eight years. People came leading five, six, eight goats of all ages, telling exciting stories about how their goats support their families, stories about sharing their goat’s off-spring with neighbors  who had less.  More than a hundred villagers abuzz with joy and stories of successful goat farming. This is the gift of long-term commitment to a community.

So, for all of you who have supported the work of the La Gonave Haiti Partnership this year and will continue to support our work in the years to come, savor these stories of success for it is the results of your long-term commitment to our community. Without you none of this would have been possible. The people of La Gonave, Haiti work hard to be worthy of your commitment and they are full of appreciation.

Happiest of holidays and a new year of blessings for those less fortunate.

The Gift of a Goat

In early November, I had the privilege of traveling to Lotorre with Jean Thoney, the administrator of our partnership’s goat project.  He was conducting a veterinary clinic for the farmers of that community.  After a torturous and, seemingly endless, ride in the back of a pick-up trip, we arrived at Lotorre and set up shop in a shady area under the trees.  Within minutes, people began converging on the area with strings of two, three, four goats.  Several farmers had five or more goats.  The partnership starts each participating farmer out with one pregnant doe and training.  Some farmers never advance past that first goat but others are able to build a business of raising goats, and we were happy to see that Lotorre is a real success story.

Jean Thoney gathered the community under the trees and introduced us a representatives of the partnership.  He explained that the money they would pay for this clinic did not cover all expenses and the partnership provided long term financial support.  We received a touching and warm round of applause and thanks.

Over the course of the afternoon, Jean Thoney vaccinated and treated over 50 adult goats and examined countless kids.  We had the opportunity to talk to several families to find out what the goat project means to them.  We were routinely told that goats allowed families to feed their children needed meat, that goats could be sold at market in order to purchase other foods and that goats could be sold for medical expenses or for school tuition.

The most humbling moment of the day was when we followed a woman named Monique to her house.  She has four healthy children yet lives in a tiny, decrepit house.  Monique told us that raising goats was the primary source of income for her family and that one time she was able to give a goat to a poor friend.  Monique, who has virtually nothing, gave a goat to another needier person.  In tears, we were able to comprehend the true meaning of the goat project.  Having goats  IS economic security in Haiti.

Jean Thoney

With a huge duffle bag of donated ties, scissors, thread and imagination they created Haitian dolls in lovely silk dresses. Each with a personality of their own, sewers and dolls alike, the room was filled with joy and learning. Heads tied in iconic silk scarves the dolls lacked only a big basket of plantains or mangos to be real.

The women listened and learned. They know all too well that their options are limited and they have children to raise and educate. It is humbling to see what women will do to give their children the basic necessities of life, especially when one comes from a nation that takes much of that for granted. And, there was no doubt in this room that this day represented the possibility that hard work and cooperation could make a difference.

It is easy to stand at a distance and think that all people can have what you have if they work hard enough. It is harder to stand in a room full of women and realize that they would do anything to have a better life. But, it is an easy way to make friends for whom you would do anything just to help them realize their dreams.

See for youself!