Making a Healthplan for Life for Haitian Children

The title of our report this quarter matches perfectly with GlobalGiving's Spring Campaign "Little by Little" scheduled for April 9 - 13th in which small donations will be matched at 50%.  This quarter we are reporting on small steps for our organization as well as some of our children.

Crista, who had a club foot and underwent surgery in November, had a severe post-op infection. A short time later she had more surgery to amputate a portion of her foot. Fortunately she kept a part of her foot including her heal. She was then transferred to another hospital to manage her wound care and ensure there were no further complications.

During our trip ther ein February we were happy to hear that she was scheduled to be release at the end of February, and PoumonTEK will be bringing her to the Dominican Republic for a prosthesis fitting. She will soon be taking small steps without any assistance. We hope that our donors and friends will consider donating to the Little by Little Campaign to help us offset the costs of her surgery, prosthesis and physical therapy.  More to come on this.

Our team took another small but significant step forward when we met with the owner of Tecina, the General Contractor who is building the Sho-Ping Clinic for Healthcare and Education, and is also the father of one of our Board Members.  Small, but fun details were discussed to wrap up the design phase. Haitian iron work will be added and serve a dual function of design and security. The children's art work will be incorporated into the building using their rainbow colored designs on the louvers. And the walls will also allow for actual murals to be painted by the children in the waiting area.

We visited Fondation Montesinos as well, where some of our staff played against the children in Basketball. The children not only beat us, but they have been winning in a league that Father Charles has set up for them. They play in the New Sports Arena nearby and have already collected many trophies. Basketball is played by both boys and girls and is integrated into the Sports Medicine and Nutrition program. We also brought hundreds of eye glass frames collected by one of our Board Member’s children in the USA to Mission of Hope Optometry Clinic in Titanyen.

Our Water Engineer has been researching new technologies and recently reported that he found a way to save us enough money so that we can now afford to put in a pipe that runs down to the roadside building. Fondation Montesinos can sell water to the community thereby making our system a sustainable installation with income covering the costs for electricity, filter changes and routine maintenance.

And finally we completed the last steps to becoming a registered Foundation in Haiti which will be called Enkourage Sante Pou La Vie.

Back in the US we met with several other small non-profits operating in the Boston area supporting Haiti. We all agreed to take the first steps toward forming a consortium which will support all the organizations and allow us to share resources such as a car in Haiti as well as container shipments. Our first fundraiser, Flowers for Valentine's Day, was an exciting first step for our fledgling group. 

For those in the Boston area, we hope this latest storm will not keep us inside too long and soon we will be hearing and seeing signs of Spring, So… Happy Spring to all.