Archive for the ‘Haiti’ Category

Sunday, March 10th, 2013

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

Linda-Hard to believe I am back in Port-au-Prince for the fourth time since the big earthquake in January of 2010. I am grateful to be part of a Rose Charities sustainable project to facilitate a neonatal resuscitation course, as previously requested by many health care professionals in Haiti. On my trip last year I saw firsthand the need for neonatal support, as 5 babies died on my unit in a week at the hospital. Even though the care there was excellent, financial resources are limited, and the staff can benefit from supportive education, equipment and facilitation of resources. Rose Charities is building upon several other trips of surveying Haitian doctors and nurses, networking and teaching certification classes to now offer another day of certifying several trainers, and two full days of teaching a standardized neonatal resuscitation course to approximately 70 nurses and doctors from various hospitals in Haiti to improve care for infants and neonates in Haiti.  I am thrilled to have my 15 year old son Andrew with me filming a documentary about this project, and he is very excited to be here (it is great he speaks French!).  My heart was warm as we flew in today, and I was pleased to see that the airport has been completely renovated since I was here last April, further evidence that positive change is possible and it is real.

Monday, March 11th, 2013

Andrew - Today was “preparation day” for the big week ahead. I have to say it feels weird staying in an almost resort-looking type of place, when there’s so much else outside these gates that I am blind to. I was expecting to arrive at a dirt airport, then drive over to some small house to sleep on the floors. As  per usual in life, nothing is as expected. First of all the airport had a baggage system similar to ours with air-conditioned rooms and even a duty-free store, and considering I was expecting rubble, this was a huge difference. My mom said there have been huge renovations since she was here last, which seems like a good thing. Living in this… Resort/Hotel/Lodge… When there is so much poverty outside, feels wrong. I would feel so much better if I wasn’t so secluded from everyone, I wish I could live with the people rather than safely here. I have to say today was very relaxing though, it gave me a chance to rest from travel before the interviews ahead. I am so relieved to finally be able to stay in this beautiful country of Haiti, however even here, I am still facing first world problems and sometimes don’t realize that I am making them. Things like ” no wifi ” and ” uncharged electronics” really make me feel bad when I see people who have hardly anything living in tiny tents and sheds. I am excited for the week ahead and can’t wait to see and explore more of this amazing country.

 

Wed, March 13, 2013

Linda-the teaching has begun and we are bursting at the seams, having had to turn away many doctors and nurses from this neonatal resuscitation course. The first day was “training the trainers”,  11 doctors and nurses who are assisting with two full days of teaching fresh students! This was a crazy day…on a break we were getting a tour of the hospital and happened upon a 27 week old premie that was blue and in severe distress. Our team sprang  into action and got that baby’s little heart beating again!  Sadly, the baby will not likely make it as there are many other complications, but it was a good team effort, and reminder of what is possible with adequate education and equipment.

Today was a full day of teaching doctors and nurses the NRP course, and we put to good use the trainers we taught on the first day.  The students are so keen and appreciative of the course it is a joy to facilitate!  Andrew and Michael interviewed the head of Pediatrics along with a nurse and 2 pediatric residents, who they had very distinct and insightful observations about health care in Haiti and how best to support it (stay tuned!).

Tonight I ate giraumon (pumpkin) soup, a Haitian specialty dish, and it was delicious! Although I am not a beer fan, I am loving the Haitian beer Prestige in the heat after a long day! My sister and nephew tried to order the Haitian delicacy of cabrite, or goat, but alas they were out .  We also met up with Einstein Albert, who brought his beautiful Haitian bowls to sell. My new friends Doctors Marie-Josee and Genevieve from Montreal have been amazing instructors of the NRP course, and on top of keeping me in stitches have improved my French immensely!

Friday, March 15th, 2013

Andrew- this week was great. Tuesday, started us off filming at Dr. Lerebours’ office at Hopital Communaute Haitienne, where my mother worked right after the earthquake. Had a great interview with her and it was awesome to see her perspective. She also brought in a family with a Down’s syndrome child for me to interview. After about an hour we went with Jackie LeBrom on a tour around the city. Having lived in Haiti for around 15 years as a tour guide, she really knows her stuff. It was really awesome to see how much history that the country has, and yet very few realize it or even appreciate it. Haiti really is more beautiful than people realize. It is also a country with so any opposites, like poverty and beauty, people in desperation and people with hope. The sights, smells and sounds are also very intense and contradictory, like the smell of delicious food at the same time as rotting garbage piled high on the sidewalk. I kept thinking there was a fire outside every day until I realized it was the coal they cook with as so many of them do not have ovens, let alone homes. I watched a group burn tires as an act of protest. I thought that in a country with a culture so unique to the rest, even the protesters were different from any I have ever heard of. I had a good interview later with Jackie, especially with her outside perspectives.

     The next day we spent filming RoseCharities’ neonatal resuscitation program interviewing students and doctors all around. It was an experience unlike any other to be able to feel progress almost as if it were tangible, mainly because the impact is so lasting, and the students in theclass were so appreciative. I am also so thankful for our healthcare here in Canada. I have to say it is crazy to be able to watch this develop as we are educating future pediatricians and doctors to actually be able to save babies’ lives when it wasn’t always possible before.

     Now we are in Wahoo Bay, enjoying the ocean’s wind and the marvellous sunset, here is truly one of the places where Haitian beauty is easily seen.

Sincerely,

     -Andrew Warner

Monday, March 18th, 2013

Linda-well, we took the weekend off to thoroughly enjoy the beauty of Haiti and the turquoise sea at Wahoo Bay! Beautiful gardens, fresh seafood, friendly people, Haitian music and lots of time to relax! Unfortunately, Andrew had gastro for half of the weekend, but my little filmmaker has been a real trooper! Wahoo Bay is about an hour from Port-au-Prince, and the resort is part of a rebranding program for emphasizing the positive facets of Haiti, for which there are many. As we have traveled through the streets, I am thrilled to see so much improvement and development since I was here following the earthquake three years ago! Many foreign countries have been frustrated with not seeing immediate change in response to a lot of donations, but in a country with little infrastructure one needs to have patience, and more importantly, faith. The people here have such a desire to participate in change, but it takes time, money, education, facilitation of skills and equipment, and above all, it is important to ask the Haitians themselves their priorities and needs, instead of a multitude of well meaning NGOs storming in with contradictory ideas and assumptions. It’s all about empowerment. The philosophy with Rose Charities has been focused on “a hand up, not a hand out” and “teaching a man to fish”, based on a needs assessment survey to the Haitians themselves, and that is why I am proud to be part of this project.

 

      

Tuesday, March 19th, 2013-Lespwa

Linda-these are the faces, the hearts that haunt my soul…the reason I come back to Haiti…again, and again, and again, and again. Since visiting the beauty of the sea on the weekend, we have traveled to film at several hospitals in Port-au-Prince. We interviewed nurses, pediatricians and medical directors, along with families whose children have conditions that are usually treatable, fixable, or preventable in Canada. We wanted to assess the greatest needs for health care according to the people of Haiti, and to gain insight as to how we can best support that as a country, as a charity organization, and as fortunate human beings that are blessed to have just been born in a different place.

As much as my friends back home have nicknamed me “the Icewoman” for rarely shedding a tear back home, I cannot say the same is true in Haiti. It broke my heart to see children with hydrocephalus (swelling on the brain) that could have been easily prevented with access to a neurosurgeon, to see babies with disease related to malnutrition simply because they were starving, children with typhoid or other vaccine preventable diseases, and babies that didn’t survive simply because the doctors and nurses who are keen to learn do not have the training or the equipment to save these lives. The little baby I hold in the photo above has spina bifida, and his surgery was delayed for over a month because Haiti has no pediatric neurosurgeons. The worried mom was overjoyed when I told her my beautiful 17 year old niece Katie also has spina bifida, and has a wonderful life, playing sports and doing well at school with a gazillion friends, and that she even just got her driver’s license with an adapted car! Our discussion gave this mom hope, which in Creole is “lespwa”, and that is the basis of survival for this nation.

KIDS MAKING A DIFFERENCE -Andrew Warner, aged 15, will be travelling to Port Au Prince with his mom (one of Rose Haiti Project organizers and a pediatric nurse) in March 2013 to film a documentary on sustainable giving from a teenager’s perspective. The project he will be filming involves the neonatal resuscitation course Rose Charities supports for health care workers in Haiti. Andrew speaks French and has always been interested in humanitarian work, and produced a homelessness documentary when he was 12 years old. He has been working as a tutor and madly fundraising to support this trip, from craft fairs to games nights, to slam poetry/music night fundraisers. Attached is the link for a humanitarian poem he wrote that recently won him First Place at a Youth Poetry Slam contest. If you would like to donate, please click on the Haiti project to direct your funds to this project. http://youtu.be/WG1N1JEzBbM

Sri Lanka:   Young Women’s Clubs –  8 villages,   Girls sports programs ,  Women’s University Scholarship Program,  Women’s Livelihood Groups (Women’s Support and Women’s Vocational Training.     www.rosesrilanka.info

Pakistan:   Frontier Primary Health Care support of  Traditional Birth Attendant training program   www.hmef.info

Cambodia: ‘Access for All’  program for disabled womens education, support and vocational training   http://rosecambodia.org

Afghanistan:  Tabish-Rose Charities Training Women’s Health and Computer training program’s  www.hmef.info

Guatemala:  Safe Motherhood women’s birth attendant and women’s health programs   www.safemotherhoodproject.org

Zambia:  Womens income generation programs   http://malambograssroots.ca

Haiti:  Women’s neonatal nursing training  www.rosehaiti.info

World Birth aid pack saves countless lives

We also wish to laud the women’s programs Rose  has been privileged to have supported, partnered  or planned with, in the past (and perhaps the future too!)  including  the Lumbini Program for training of Women Village Eye Screeners  www.lei.org.np   and the remarkable  ‘WBDI’ Organization in Samoa,  www.womeninbusiness.ws  the One in Three Women Organization (Seattle)  www.oneinthreewomen.com and  World Birth Aid (Seattle)  www.worldbirthaid.org

Haiti Cholera Relief 2010. Dr Amy Osborne

The organizers of Rose Charities also pay tribute and gratitude to the professional women volunteers (nurses, physicians, counselors, logisticians etc) who have contributed over 50% of involvement, organization and sustainability of emergency relief and ‘post-relief’ operations Rose Charities and close partners AMDA have played over the years.  Their magnificent work has helped tens of thousands of victims in many parts of the globe.

Hurricane Katrina 2005 R.N.Kirsten Reems

2004 Asian Tsunami Sri Lanka R.N.Mary Spencer

Japan Eathquake/Tsunami 2011

On Jan 5 2012, the first graduation ceremony, since the earthquake, took place at the State University School of Nursing in Port-aux-Prince Haiti.
As each graduating student stood up to receive her award she honored five of her class mates who had lost their lives when the school collapsed.

Over 200 students were killed that day and the school completely destroyed. Just weeks later, in an act of extraordinary courage and perseverance, the surviving students and staff reopened the school in tents and carried on as best they could.

The graduation ceremony was a moving tribute that all the students, staff and dignataries from the Ministry of Health felt honoured to make. The loss of so many young women and health professionals in a country that needs them desperately, was felt by all. Rose Charities was mentioned by Mme Nazaire in her gratitude to all who helped them over the last years.

Rose Charities was able to assist by organizing counseling for the surviving nurses, sending new textbooks, teaching maniquinnsand a container of equipment for the teaching lab.

We would like to honor the dedication of the staff and students and wish them well in their future careers

Haiti for me was an emotional rollercoaster. A land of despair, poverty, mayhem but also a land of hope, optimism and pride. These last 3 sentiments are what stick with me as I reflect on my experience. After all, it is the people that leave an impact on you.

The ‘BC Place’ Sadium formed an impressive backdrop to the meetin

The 2nd Rose Charities Canada Project Presentation Forum held at the Creekside ‘Olympic Village’ Community Centre in Vancouver attracted around 80 persons and represented a spectrum from those with close Rose involvment to those just curious to know more about Rose projects. Food was ‘pot-luck’ which resulted in a groaning table of delicious food and an drinks were available at a small donation bar.

Topics demonstrated the wide range of Rose Charities Canada involvment areas, both geographical as well as sectorial. Sadly, time, and the quantity of projects permitted only short 5 minute presentations, but this tight schedule also allowed a mid period for refreshments and all-important networking .

Rachel Greene (Rose Charities NY) presents on Social Networking

Special guests were Rachel Greene and Clare Seekins of Rose Charities USA, who presented the work of Rose Charities NY with their digital art program for reservation youth in Idaho, as well as a talk on social media. 

The evening was deemed interesing and enjoyable by all.

Presentations consisted of ..

• Rose Sri Lanka (Mike Ramanaden) http://rosesrilanka.info

Rose Charities Canada’s Louise Aaronson and Pricilla Yogendran take refreshments between presentation

Rose Charities Canada is supporting the re-establishment of nursing training in Haiti. Nurse trainers are working there now and equipment has been sent.  Support has now been extended to assist with the cholera outbreak and third year nurses are being supported to assist with the relief efforts