Greeting from Health for Haiti! We have many updates from Grande Saline to share with you. The gardens in Haiti are growing well and the community is harvesting many peppers and eggplants. The farmers recently used the donated farm equipment to prepare a new section of field and plant some corn. The children are enjoying the many vegetables that they are growing in their gardens and the community continues to enjoy visiting the garden and seeing all of the beautiful plants and produce.
Sewing classes are going well and the students are showing a lot of progress. We would like to thank the students for all of their efforts and the teachers for their wonderful work. Please enjoy the pictures of the beautiful shirts that the students have made. Wow. It is not easy to make a shirt! All of the students are making little bags that we are selling to help to pay the teachers salaries. You can help to support the sewing school and all of our projects in Haiti by purchasing one of these bags or a solar light here: http://www.etmsolar.com/shop/
The water system continues to be a busy place. For over three years, with your support, hundreds of families have enjoyed better health. Three years of safe, clean drinking water mean stronger, healthier families. Please be sure to see the pictures that show the river and the water before it is filtered. You can see why people walk many miles from five different surrounding towns for the water and they congratulate the operators on the great quality of the filtered water. It must be very good if people are willing to walk for miles, and half of that trip carrying a 5 gallon bucket of water! Many thousands of gallons of water are distributed to the community.
Our friend Dr. Robinson recently visited Grande Saline. He is the person who first introduced us to the community and asked us to begin working there. This community has a very special place in his heart. He has been outside of Haiti for a few years and received a very warm welcome from his friends in Grande Saline when he returned to visit. He sponsored a lunch for the children and offered a medical clinic with Dr. Gary. Dr. Robinson said that he was very happy to see Grande Saline again and see all of the great progress. The classrooms and the solar panels and all of the education programs were exciting to see. He said that most of all he was happy to see the children and the people looking so nice. He said he clean water and the food from the gardens has changed the people’s lives, and that we have done a good job serving the community.
“The water system is so important for the population of Grande Saline. You cannot imagine how many lives you are saving.”
Thank you, Dr. Robinson!! And thank you Health for Haiti! I hope all of our students and our many community supporters can take a minute to think about what your gifts have meant to this community and those who care about them. For most of us in the United States, finding clean, safe water is easy. But what a gift it is for those who are not so fortunate.
Speaking of medical clinics, we continue to partner with Dr. Gary and his wonderful staff to offer a monthly clinic in Grande Saline. In last month’s clinic, they saw 48 patients (children to the elderly), gave out nine pairs of eye-glasses, several prescriptions, and recommended some follow up care. Thank you to Dr. Gary and his staff and Pastor Berlando for all of their work in running a very nice and needed monthly clinic.
And, we cannot fail to mention the wonderful school children. Several of the scholarship children sent their thanks for all of the support. They asked me to send “big” thanks to the supporters. Ginette wrote a letter to thank her sponsor for helping her with tuition and school supplies and to say that she is doing really well. All of the scholarship students want their sponsors to know that they think of them each day and ask that their lives, their families and all that they do will be blessed. We even have some students who have moved on to secondary school and they are so excited for the opportunity to continue their education. This summer we will be completing the second phase of our science and microscopy lesson. We have an exciting, hands-on lesson coming together and we hope to help the school in Grande Saline become a site for quality science education. These kids are so eager and bright, it is exciting to see them learn and grow.
Once again, thanks for all of your support. Thank you for supplies, for donations, for inviting us to share our program with you, for encouraging us, and for being part of our Health for Haiti family.
SUNY Broome Health for Haiti 