Grande Saline Projects in Motion!

Greetings from Haiti!  It was a very full day for our 2019 Health for Haiti team! After a traditional Le Gou T breakfast of spaghetti and hot dogs, we boarded our bus and made the two-hour journey to Grande Saline.  Today we were ready to get to work as soon as we arrived. We had three teams of people working on different projects.  We had a team working at the water system, our medical/dental team ran our clinic, and our education team worked with the local teachers and students.  The water team did a chemical clean, repaired the intake line and did some general maintenance.  The medical team assisted Dr. Gary and Dr. Robinson and saw 115 patients.  The dental team saw 60 children and sealed 227 teeth!  Pastor Belando is very grateful for the dental sealants applied by Professor Hankin and her students and looks forward to the day when the people in his community are spared the pain of tooth decay.  On the education team, Lynn provided a second day of professional development for the ten teachers in Grande Saline. She built on her work from yesterday and guided the teachers through student observation and the application of the brain gym activities.  At the end of the day the teachers each received a certificate for completing the workshop.  On their exit surveys the teachers overwhelmingly reported that the brain gym information would be very useful in their classrooms.  The students on the education team delivered lessons on the bones, heart, mosquitoes and malaria, and physical education.  The education team had over 100 students attend these lessons, each of which had a focus on how to stay healthy.  The kids loved looking through the microscopes and all of the hands on activities. They especially enjoyed working with notebooks and colored pencils to record what they were seeing.  After the lessons many of the students walked to see the community gardens.  We visited the student garden and saw all of the tomatoes and melons growing there. We were able to see the gas pumps that are used to water the garden.  We did not have time to visit the big garden because we had to head back to the hotel, but we did get a good idea about how difficult it can be to grow food in Grande Saline.  After a hot bumpy bus ride home and a delicious dinner and some fun and conversation we are all ready for some rest.  Tomorrow is another clinic and education and water system day in Grande Saline.  We are so proud of the students and staff and all of the great things they accomplished today.  One very special part of our day today was having the chance to work with Dr. Robinson again. He is the person who introduced us to the community of Grande Saline in 2014.  He no longer lives in Haiti but is back for a visit.  He was overjoyed to see all of the positive changes happening in the community. He said that to him, it feels like when you have a dear friend who used to be very sick, and is now smiling and running around.  Below are some images from our day. Thanks for following our progress and good night from Haiti.

 

 

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