Emory medical student finds global health demands patience and persistence

By Sameer Kapadia

CASSE, Haiti—First day of clinic and I started off in pediatric triage. It was wild. I have never felt as much anxiety taking a blood pressure reading as I did taking the first one of the day.

Let me set the scene: it was really hot, me, another med student, and about 25 Haitian children and their parents crowded around us to watch what was about to be done to them.

I’ve worked in low-resource clinics before and triage always seemed like the most simple and often, least significant part of a person’s care. This is absolutely not the case in Haiti. Triage gives us an indication of distress, malnutrition, anemia, and dehydration. These factors are incredibly important here and are signs of the most prevalent causes of illness. With that said, I have also never been this pressed for time in taking these measurements, appropriately called “vitals.”

My colleagues and I had to develop…a dance, a perfect balance between time, rhythm and specificity. Like any dance worth learning, we tripped and fell for a while until we worked out a system that worked for everyone. In this case, that meant adding another person to our two-person team. By the end of the day, by making this a trio instead of a duet, we had figured out a rhythm that would ensure that our patients got the care they deserved.

This experience showed me that above all, global health demands flexibility, patience, and persistence.

Sameer Kapadia is a first year medical student at Emory Medical School. This is his first trip to Haiti with Project Medishare. Emory Medical School takes a yearly medical trip to Haiti every November.

UN food chief commits to 24-hour hunger strike to draw attention to the 1 billion chronically malnourished

By Jennifer Browning

Because Rome’s U.N. Food and Agriculture offices are unheated at night, U.N. Food Chief Jacques Diouf bundled up with a hat, scarf and overcoat over his pajamas and spent the night on a makeshift mattress in an effort to draw attention to the 1 billion chronically malnourished people before next week’s U.N. food summit. Diouf began the 24-hour strike at 8 p.m. Friday in the lobby FAO offices.

Diouf along with the FAO hopes to raise awareness about the plight of the world’s hungry as well as put pressure on world leaders to help combat malnutrition.

The Akamil Production Facility sits behind a new generator, the first piece of equipment to be installed for the facility. The Akamil Production Facility will manufacture and distribute Akamil, a mix of locally-grown products such as cereals (rice, corn, millet, wheat) and vegetables (beans) all blended into powder. The finished product will be fortified with a mix of important vitamins and minerals such as iron, zinc, and Vitamin A.

On the heels of the upcoming UN Food Summit, Project Medishare has been working toward specifically solving the malnutrition problem in Haiti with the construction of the Akamil Production Facility and Nutrition Complex. Construction of the facility began over two years ago and despite severe hurricanes the Akamil Production Facility is finally complete. Currently, equipment for the production facility is being installed. Project Medishare is expecting to conduct trial runs of the Akamil product in December.

Don’t forget to RSVP for REBUILD HAITI:MISSION POSSIBLE

By Jennifer Browning

Don’t miss out on hearing Edwidge Danticat read at the REBUILD HAITI: MISSION POSSIBLE event. Today is the final day to RSVP.

The fundraiser will feature Haitian-American writer and 2009 recipient of the MacArthur “Genius Award,” Edwidge Danticat. Danticat is known for her contemporary work of Haitian heritage writing in English from her award-winning 1994 debut, Breath, Eyes, Memory and her equally lauded 1995 short story collection Krik? Krak!.

This will be the second year Coral Gables Congregational Church will sponsor REBUILD HAITI. The event will also include a silent auction, wine reception, entertainment, and Haitian crafts display. Monies raised will go directly toward Project Medishare, Haitian Education Leadership Project, the Lambi Fund of Haiti, and FAVACA.

Please come help REBUILD HAITI and support Project Medishare Friday, November 13; 7-10 p.m. at the Coral Gables Congregational Church. Please RSVP TODAY at (305)448-7421.

Can’t join us but still want to help us in our mission? Click here to make a tax deductible donation to Project Medishare.

Multi-task your giving: Raise money for Project Medishare and holiday shop at the same time

By Jennifer Browning

Double your giving spirit this holiday season by doing your shopping online with online partners like GoodShop, iGive, and Donation Street. Instead of bracing yourself for a season of jam-packed parking lots and crowded stores find that perfect something for that perfect someone, and raise money for Project Medishare at the same time. The following online companies work with merchants who are willing to donate a percentage of your sales to the nonprofit of your choice:

Raise money for Project Medishare for Haiti just by searching the web and shopping online. Powered by Yahoo!, each time you search using GoodSearch you raise money for Project Medishare. To be sure Project Medishare receives credit for your searches, type in Project Medishare’s name in the area asking who you are GoodSearching for, and then click verify. After verifying, every search earns Project Medishare money. On average, if 1,000 Project Medishare supporters search twice a day for a year, Project Medishare earns $7,300.

GoodShop, an online shopping mall of popular merchants like Best Buy, Target, Bloomingdales, and The Gap. Each purchase made via the GoodShop mall results in a donation to the user’s designated charity or school – averaging approximately 3 to 20 percent of the sale. When you use GoodShop, be sure to select Project Medishare for Haiti for “who you support.”

How often do you search or shop online? A penny a search and a portion of each purchase will be donated to Project Medishare for free when you use iGive.

Searching or Shopping means a donation. It’s just that free and easy. A penny or more per search, a $5 bonus for your first purchase and up to 26% of your purchases at over 730 stores like Amazon, eBay, Travelocity, Home Depot, Staples, and many, many more. Plus you SAVE money with exclusive coupons/free shipping deals.

Shop on Donation Street and choose from hundreds of your favorite stores to do your online shopping. You can save money by using Donation Street’s online coupons and a portion of your purchases will be donated to Project Medishare.

These great websites give you the opportunity to avoid the crowded malls, shop from the comfort of your own home and make your dollar stretch in order to give a little more this holiday season! When you do your holiday shopping on these sites, don’t forget to choose to shop for Project Medishare for Haiti, Inc. As always, we greatly appreciate your support!

Check out Dr. Barth Green during today’s Center for Strategic and International Studies panel discussion

By Jennifer Browning

If you missed the panel discussion “Meeting the Challenge of the Millennium Development Goals in Haiti: A Progress Report from the Poorest Country in the Americas.” You can see it in the embedded video above or by going directly to the CSIS site here.

Watch Dr. Barth Green today in a panel discussion about Millennium Development Goals in Haiti

By Jennifer Browning

Dr. Barth Green, Project Medishare’s co-founder, will be joining UN’s Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti, Dr. Paul Farmer and Haiti’s Ambassador to the United States, Raymond Joseph during the panel discussion “Meeting the challenge of the Millennium Development Goals in Haiti: A progress report from the poorest country in the Americas.”

The panel will discuss Haiti’s experience in order to inform audiences about several Millennium Development Goals.

Click here at 3 p.m. EST to watch the live feed of the panel discussion.

REBUILD HAITI: Mission Possible 2009

By Jennifer Browning

For the second year in a row, Coral Gables Congregational Church will host REBUILD HAITI: MISSION POSSIBLE.

The fundraiser will feature Haitian-American writer and 2009 recipient of the MacArthur “Genius Award,” Edwidge Danticat. Danticat is known for her contemporary work of Haitian heritage writing in English from her award-winning 1994 debut, Breath, Eyes, Memory and her equally lauded 1995 short story collection Krik? Krak!.

REBUILD HAITI will also include a silent auction, wine reception, entertainment, and Haitian crafts display. Monies raised will go directly toward Project Medishare, Haitian Education Leadership Project, the Lambi Fund of Haiti, and FAVACA.

Please come help REBUILD HAITI and support Project Medishare Friday, November 13; 7-10 p.m. Please RSVP by November 10 at (305)448-7421.

Can’t join us but still want to help us in our mission? Click here to make a tax deductible donation to Project Medishare.

UTHSCSA wins $10,000 grant for Project Medishare on Ideablob.com

By Jennifer Browning

Since their first partnering trip with Project Medishare in December 2008, University of Texas Health and Science Center in San Antonio (UTHSCSA) has been working toward raising enough money to send two medical groups to Haiti in 2010.

They received quite a boost after the group won a $10,000 grant from Ideablob.com this month.

UTHSCSA trip leader, Sheridan Fielding found out  about the website by two friends who are involved with, Play For Hope, who successfully used Ideablob to win a grant for their organization earlier in the year.

“It is truly a remarkable site,” Fielding said. “The $10K monthly prize is clearly very neat in itself, but when you look closer at the site, it’s a dynamic website for idea exchange and encouragement of entrepreneurship. It also has become a fantastic venue for non-profit and/or public health organizations in particular to spread the word about the work they are doing and receive good advice from others who may have expertise in an area that is helpful to them.”

The Texas group’s involvement in Haiti and Project Medishare was inspired initially when Project Medishare Co-Founder Dr. Fournier visited their campus. Fielding said the first year medical students were captivated by the stories and work being done in Thomonde with community health workers, and wanted to learn more.

Project Medishare’s Dr. Barth Green joins panel discussion in Washington D.C.

By Jennifer Browning

In November, Project Medishare’s Co-Founder, Dr. Barth Green will join UN’s Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti, Dr. Paul Farmer  and Haiti’s Ambassador to the United States, Raymond Joseph during the panel discussion “Meeting the challenge of the Millennium Development Goals in Haiti: A progress report from the poorest country in the Americas.”

The panel will discuss Haiti’s experience in order to inform audiences about several Millennium Development Goals.

Project Medishare is currently partnering with The Global Institute at the University of Miami for successful implementation of the Integrated Community Development Program currently underway in the community of Marmont. Both organizations use the Millennium Development Goals set forth by the United Nations Development Program as a model to guide them toward the success of the Integrated Community Development Program in Marmont.

The November panel discussion is the first dialogue in the monthly, yearlong series “OUR GLOBAL CHALLENGES: A Series of Dialogues on the Most Pressing Global Issues of Our Time.”

The series of panel discussions is sponsored by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) who is partnering with University of Miami’s Knight Center for International Media.

The discussion will be November 2 between 3-4 p.m. at CSIS in Washington D.C.

“Sweet seeds” sowing for good in the social gaming world

By Jennifer Browning

If you’ve been tending to your crops in Farmville, think about purchasing some sweet potato seeds in an effort to feed children in Haiti.

Under Zynga’s “Sweed Seeds” initiative, when Farmville users purchase special sweet potato seeds,  50 percent of profits are donated to non-profit organizations in Haiti.  Those being FATEM.org and FONKOZE.org.  FATEM said Zynga’s contributions have already provided education for 500 children in Mirebalais.

Read more.