CLUB BULLETIN

PID Haiti Project Report

The plan was for my wife and me, along with fellow Rotarian Linda Parker, to travel to Haiti on March 11, 2004. Not for a Caribbean seaside vacation, but to help build a medical clinic outside of Port-au-Prince, near the worst slum in the Western Hemisphere, Cite Soleil. Needless to say, given that the country was in the beginning stages of a coupe-de-tat and that people were being indiscriminately robbed or killed by rebels and government supporters alike, we postponed the trip.

The decision to postpone, though seemingly easy to make, was actually quite troubling as Haiti is in desperate need of humanitarian aid. We knew that delaying the building of the medical clinic would likely result in the death of some Haitians for want of simple medical treatment. As it turns out, a few others on our team who had traveled to Haiti many times in the past did not cancel. Despite the obvious dangers, they teamed-up with local Haitian builders, and successfully laid the foundation for the medical clinic. Fortunately, they left the country just before fighting in Port-au-Prince broke out in earnest and all flights were cancelled.

As we became more interested in helping Haiti, we found the facts about life there to be very disturbing. Haiti's problems are massive. It is the poorest country in this hemisphere. Most of the country is without even the basics needed to sustain life. Diseases like hepatitis, STD's and HIV/AIDS run rampant. Over 6% of the population suffers from HIV/AIDS. The streets are filled with orphans whose parents have either abandoned them or died from disease.

The average life span for a Haitian man is 50 years and a woman, 52 years. On the average, almost five children are born to every woman. One in eight infants will die at birth and many more before the age of five. The average family income is about $3 per day and 80% of Haitians live in abject poverty

Only half of the population is literate. There is no electricity or telephone service in outlying areas. "Houses" consist of one room with scrap wood or tin walls and leaky tin roofs. If there is a bed, it is shared by perhaps five to ten or more adults and children who often sleep in shifts. There is no clean water. Toilets consist of a trench beside the road that runs through the village. There is little food. Some children eat every other day.

A few affluent Haitians have access to medical care, but for everyone else, very little medical care is available and virtually no health education other than that offered by international volunteers. Basic procedures such as washing hands before eating, brushing teeth (not an easy task when you don't have a toothbrush, toothpaste or clean water), using antiseptics, Band-Aids, or birth control are absent. The medical clinic, which was financed by funds raised primarily by the Rotary Club of Topsfield, Boxford and Middleton, will address these issues for at least some of the neediest Haitians.

If conditions improve in Haiti by the end of the year, we will go on our building trip - there is no lack of work to be done! (We will travel with Partners in Development www.partnersindevelopmentinc.org), a non-profit organization headquartered in Ipswich, which has worked in Haiti for seventeen years. Partners in Development, better known as PID, selects families from Cite Soleil, supports their education, helps those families establish a small business, and then builds them a (duplex) house with a well on a parcel of land. The land is owned by PID and is just several miles outside of Cite Soleil. The new homeowners then make no-interest payments on a small mortgage. Proceeds from mortgage payments are used by PID to finance more business loans and the construction of the next house. PID's goal is to build 100 houses and the medical clinic, which will serve those families.

For more information, contact PID director and Honorary Rotarian, Gale Hull, at 978-356-5930 or pid3@comcast.net. To find out more about the Rotary Club of Topsfield, Boxford and Middleton, please visit http://www.rotarytbm.org or contact club president Joe Long at 978-356-7275, email: jf_long@yahoo.com