United Nations notes dramatic improvements in security in Haiti

By Jennifer Browning

According to About.com Guide to Caribbean travel, Robert Curley things are looking up for Haiti in terms of travel.

The United Nations has stated that the crime rate is down. In addition to the overall crime, murder rates have decreased and the rate of kidnappings in Haiti has fallen off dramatically this year.

Haiti police are claiming that even Cite Soleil, the country’s largest slum, has been relatively peaceful due to dismantling gangs and arresting many of their leaders.

Read more

Read Full Post »

Innovative seed replacement program helps farmers in Haiti

By Jennifer Browning

The International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Food and Agriculture Organization have combined efforts in a $10.2 million effort to distribute and multiply quality seeds in Haiti in order to significantly increased food production, making cheaper food accessible and boosting farmers’ incomes, according to Sylvie Wabbes, a senior emergency operations officer with the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization.

Wabbes told United Press International that this program is the first major U.N. effort to forestall hunger in the Haitian farmer communities and had already recorded success.

Project Medishare has also been working toward boosting agriculture in the Central Plateau.

In May 2008, Project Medishare began experimenting with 20 of the 220 Earth Boxes which were donated to Project Medishare by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In partnership with Project Medishare and The Global Institute at the University of Miami, the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida (IFAS) has been providing technical assistance for the  agricultural program. The program is an effort to begin an alternative growing program for the vulnerable (elders, sick, handicapped), children and adolescents. Thanks to Project Medishare’s Agronomist, Ronal Bien-aimé and IFAS’s Florence Sergile the Earth Boxes experiment proved to be a success and has expanded from the trial garden to the clinic in Marmont so visitors and patients can see the possibilities of alternative gardening, and the link between nutrition and good health.

Read Full Post »

New U.S. Ambassador Kenneth H. Merten arrives in Haiti

By Jennifer Browning

The new Ambassador of the United States in Haiti, Ambassador Kenneth H. Merten, arrived Port-au-Prince yesterday where he presented his letters of accreditation to Haitian President  Rene Préval.

Ambassador Merten reiterated the United State’s support to Haiti.

“I know that these are still difficult times and Haiti has many, many needs. I have no illusions,” Ambassador Merten told South Florida Caribbean News. “Yet I also feel optimistic, because Haiti now has many of the elements to move into a more peaceful, democratic and prosperous future.”

Merten also said he is looking forward to work as a friend and a partner of Haiti.

Read more here.

Read Full Post »

Photographer explains why we should not stigmatize Haiti

By Jennifer Browning

Photographer Jeff Antebi traveled to Haiti this past April to photograph the Haitian Senatorial elections.

In his article on The Huffington Post, Antebi explains his own initial fears and hesitations about his first visit to the country. After listing the horrifying statistics that make up Haiti, Antebi goes into the side of the story most don’t see unless they have been there. He tells readers that Haiti is far from the abyss as it is portrayed on the news.

Read Jeff Antebi’s article here.

See his photos from the Haitian Senatorial elections here.

Read Full Post »

GHESKIO research featured in New England Journal of Medicine

By Jennifer Browning

The Haitian Group for the Study of Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections (GHESKIO) was featured in the August 20 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine where follow-up data was released regarding the detailed outcomes of GHESKIO patients after five years of receiving anti-retroviral therapy (ART).

Prior to using ART in Haiti (2003), 90 percent of AIDS patients died in less than a year and all were dead at the end of two years. The article reports finding that patients followed after receiving ART had a 90 percent survival rate after one year and a 79 percent survival rate after five years. The findings outcomes are comparable to the most advance hospitals in the United States.

GHESKIO physicians began there battle with AIDS in Haiti in the late 1970s.

“GEHSKIO physicians would not have dreamed that this day would have been possible less than thirty years from the days when the disease was barely defined, let alone thought survivable,” Projects Administrator Sandra Camille, Projects Administrator at GHESKIO said. “We are grateful to all partners, colleagues, and supporters and continuing our work together towards the realization of an HIV/AIDS free Haiti.”

Click here to read the 5-Year Survival of Patients with AIDS Receiving Antiretroviral Therapy in Haiti. (August 20, 2009)

Click here to read the Antiretroviral Therapy in a Thousand Patients with AIDS in Haiti. (December 1, 2005)

Read Full Post »

Speaking of Love and Haiti

By Jennifer Browning

Eyebrows raise with shock and surprise when I tell people I have just returned from Haiti. Isn’t it dangerous? Aren’t you afraid? Aren’t they kidnapping people? What about the violence? Isn’t it sad?

Hand-carved canoes on Lac Peligre. Photo by Jennifer Browning.

I sigh, smile and begin a hopeful dialogue about how I have fallen in love with this small vibrant, beautiful island country in the Caribbean. I blurt out about how despite its turmoil, Haiti and her people remain strong, resilient and Haiti’s drum beats on so that her dance can continue. The Haiti I long for when I am back in the States is not one of complete turmoil and despair, but one of beautiful mountains, vibrant music, spicy Creole cooking, and the people…..the people who show so much passion and spirit. I think of the smiles I receive on the roads I walk down. The simple, modest Bonjou from one person or the hug and Sak passe! from another.

Women dance to Haitian roots music (Racine).Photo by Jennifer Browning.

One night during my first visit, I chose to sleep outside on the roof of the guest house where we were staying in Thomonde. I am not sure if it was the unpolluted sky embellished with stars above me, or the intoxicating, rhythmic drum beat in the far off distance, but I think that is when Haiti began her courtship with me. Each day of each visit, the dance has continued. Whether its watching women dance and sing to racine music, sitting on a front porch with a cup of strong black Haitian coffee, or watching children play soccer with a ball made from a rice sack, a rag and string….Haiti makes me never want to be too far away from her for too long.

Amy Wilentz confesses her own love affair with Haiti in her Conde Naste Traveler piece Love and Haiti. Read about her affair, and you may feel that you too need to jump in and take the plunge toward this special place (she also has travel suggestions!).

Read Full Post »

Diaspora Marketplace gives Haitians living abroad opportunity to invest in Haiti’s future

By Jennifer Browning

The United States Agency for International Development [USAID] is partnering with Fondation Sogebank, a philanthropic institution of Haiti’s largest commercial bank, to establish the Haitian Diaspora Marketplace.

A two-year pilot program, the Haitian Diaspora Marketplace is designed to encourage Haitians living abroad to contribute to Haiti’s economic development through direct investment in productive business activities.  The program encourages the creation and growth of small businesses in key sectors, such agriculture, tourism, and information and communication technology.

Diaspora entrepreneurs will also have access to grant funding through the Haitian Diaspora Marketplace and will have the opportunity to receive technical assistance to the businesses. The implementation phase of the grants will include USAID contributions ranging from $50,000 to $100,000 with a 2 to 1 minimum cost-sharing requirement.

Read full story here.

Read Full Post »

Prenatal care on the road in Haiti

During a prenatal exam in Savanne Perdu, Dr. Tisha Titus and a Morehouse Medical student uses a portable fetal doppler to allow their patient to hear her baby's heartbeat. Photo by Jennifer Browning.

By Tisha Titus, MD, MPH

After several hours of rapid fire pregnant women in search of their first, and potentially only, prenatal visit, there is one patient for this day that stands out in my mind. I will wonder what has happened to her for months and maybe even years after returning home. I would like to say that this remembrance is due to the stellar care that I was able to provide to her and her baby or my great clinical skills that caught the often missed rare diagnosis, but this is not the case. She stands out in my mind for what I was not able to do for her.

She was in her early twenties and had come in the first trimester of her first pregnancy with the usual complaints of fatigue and lower abdominal pain. As it is not uncommon for dates to be off by several months, I began to feel her belly and watched as she winced when I pressed near her pelvis. Through the interpreter I asked her to tell me about the pain – where was it, how bad was it, did it hurt all of the time? She pointed to her left side and I apologized as I began to feel that area to sort out what I was dealing with. A mass that caused considerable discomfort. With her positive pregnancy test, my options quickly all converged to an ectopic pregnancy.

I know what to for an ectopic, but I had no idea how to get it accomplished in the environment of a bush clinic with nearly no resources an absolutely no capability for urgent surgery. After some quick discussion we found the referral form to send her to the nearest hospital and a second local interpreter to discuss this with her. She had come to the clinic with other family and her children were at home being tended to, but before she was willing to go to the hospital, she needed to find her sister and the children that had come with them and then head home to make arrangements to have all of the children watched. Transportation was another issue – she was going to walk home and then to get back to a main road to try to find a ride to the hospital.

The urgency of the situation was explained several times by the interpreter, but she held firm that her family needed to be tended to first and her looming medical crisis would have to wait. I had no other option but to hand her the hospital referral slip and beg to her to go as soon as possible knowing very well that she may not go at all, or may rupture and die on the way.

This was the only ectopic pregnancy, but definitely not the only concerning encounter regarding prenatal care. Many of the women were having their first prenatal visit well into their third trimester and a fair number of them also had a sexually transmitted infection or urinary tract infection requiring treatment. Many of them were planning on have a midwife assisted home birth, but in a number of instances this was not appropriate because of the high risk for complications due to fetal presentation or previous c-section.

Read Full Post »

Haiti bypasses first two major storms so far during this hurricane season

By Jennifer Browning

Tropical storm Ana grazed by the tiny Caribbean country and Bill missed it completely. For now, Haiti can take a deep breath as it continues to take a deep breath during the 2009 hurricane season.

About this time last year, hurricanes Faye, Gustav and Hanna ravaged many of the areas Project Medishare serves in Haiti’s Central Plateau. Project Medishare and its staff were personally affected by the storms. Many schools and homes were damaged from fierce winds and many, including several Project Medishare Haitian employees lost their homes.

For now, Haiti waits in hopes to ride out the hurricane season which last year brough devastation, destruction and along with it many health complications including disease and malnutrition. The storms caused water sources to become more polluted and with much of the land deforested, many local crops were destroyed.

Project Medishare is standing by the communities of Thomonde, Marmont, and Casse in hopes that this season leads Haiti to some sort of safe passage in avoiding such devastation experienced last year.

For now, Marie Chery, Project Medishare’s Country Director says Ana and Bill have only brought rain to nearby Port-au-Prince leaving Thomonde with sunny skies.

This week the Associated Press wrote about the challenges Haiti faces this season and how the scars of last year still remain. Read the full story here.

Read Full Post »

Paul Farmer appointed Deputy U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti

By Jennifer Browning

Rumors that Paul Farmer was under consideration for the position of USAID Director have been put to rest. Last week, Paul farmer was appointed Deputy U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti. Former President and U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti, Bill Clinton said Farmer’s “credibility both among the people of Haiti and in the international community will be a tremendous asset” to their work in Haiti. This position will allow Farmer to once again work full time on Haiti.

Read Full Post »