Project Medishare’s Community Health Program serves displaced families with population increase

By Jennifer Browning

Three weeks after the earthquake three sisters, Darline and Martine Pierre and Deneiz Joseph, had lost everything.

Darline and Martine sit outside their stepfather's house in Casse with their children Francis Emmanuel and Immacula. They fled to the Central Plateau to seek shelter with their stepfather three weeks after the earthquake. Photo by Jennifer Browning.

All that existed of their home was a pile of rubble in downtown Port-au-Prince, their mother had died after medical complications from a crush injury at the General Hospital, and Darline’s beauty salon where she worked was demolished. Life as they had known it had drastically changed.

Darline and Martine packed up their two kids and their younger sister and headed to Haiti’s Central Plateau. The girls knew their stepfather, Renaud, had a home in the town of Casse. Darline said that while they were given the option to stay and live in a tent city, for her that wasn’t an option.

“Often the ground still shook,” she said, “and you could still smell death. We didn’t feel safe living in tents with our children and our younger sister.”

Although he lived in a one-room house, Renaud, took in the three girls and their two children. Now six lived in a space where only one lived previously before.

“I was surprised to see them,” he said. “I have very little, but happy they had come here.”

These sisters aren’t alone in their retreat from the rubble of Port-au-Prince. In February, the United Nations reported that an estimated 500,000 fled Port-au-Prince to reside in rural Haiti with friends and family. Project Medishare’ communities in the Central Plateau, Haiti’s poorest region, has grown tremendously.

This mass exodus of earthquake survivors has spiked Thomonde and Casse’s population by 29 percent, placing a burden on Project Medishare’s already stressed Community Health Program. Medishare’s Integerated Community Development program is also seeing strain, as Marmont’s population increased by 19 percent. Both programs currently rely on individual private donations.

While Project Medishare’s Community Health Program has seen many successes, such as almost a 30 percent decreased mortality rate among the population since 2003, there is still much work to be done. The increased displaced population means that poverty and desperation increases as well.

Word spread quickly about Renaud’s family arriving, and neighbors knew the family had little to nothing. It was true, there was basically nothing for the family to eat. Martine said while she was hungry, she still was glad they had come to Casse. Here it was quiet. Here it was safe.

A few hours passed, and then neighbors showed up at the family’s house bringing whatever food they had.

“We were so surprised,” Martine said. “We didn’t know anyone in Casse, but here they were….friends of our stepfather. We live by the solidarity of the people in this community, otherwise we have nothing.”

Reunited by an earthquake. Darline, Martine and their younger sister Deneiz poses with their stepfather who is providing them shelter. An estimated 500,000 fled Port-au-Prince to reside in rural Haiti with friends and family. Photo by Jennifer Browning.

The community didn’t stop there. For now, Darlene and Martine’s children and their sister, Deneiz, attend school for free. When the family arrived in Casse in February, schools in Port-au-Prince were still closed. School now was a luxury. However the family knows that the generosity won’t last long.

“It is so nice, but my biggest fear is that the school will eventually stop paying for them,” Martine said. “I know it is coming.”

Renaud stands by and shakes his head in agreement.

While the Darlene and Martine both can’t find jobs in rural Haiti, they say for now, they prefer to stay here in Casse.

Deneiz, the youngest sister, said she doesn’t want to return to Port-au-Prince because she still has nightmares about the earthquake.

“Even up here, in this house, I still imagine the ground is shaking,” Deneiz said. “And it makes me remember all that we lost…..our mother….our home.”

Currently, private donations fund the Community Health Program that serves not only the areas permanent residents, but also earthquake victims like Darline, Martine, and Deneiz.

Funding also provides jobs to 95 Haitian doctors, nurses, health agents, mid wives, lab and pharmacy technicians, as well as a small administrative staff.

If you would like to help displaced families, like Darline, Martine and Deneiz, as well as the existing population Project Medishare serves through our Community Health Program please click here.

Read Full Post »

Final piece of equipment arrives for Akamil Production Facility in Thomonde

The final piece of equipment arrived at the Akamil Production Facility in Thomonde. Project Medishare's construction team will soon begin to put all the equipment in place so we can start working towards a production date. Project Medishare is bringing in a technician to provide training. Photo by Jennifer Browning.

By Jennifer Browning

The last piece of equipment required for the Akamil Production Facility arrived in Thomonde last week.

Project Medishare is now in the process of putting all the equipment in place, so that we may start working toward a production start-up date. In the meantime, our staff is arranging for a technician to come to provide training on how to use the equipment properly. Once the technician arrives the facility will be operational and Project Medishare will begin conducting trials on all the equipment.

Soon all the equipment will be put in place and tile layed out along the floors inside the Akamil Production Facility. Photo by Jennifer Browning.

For the past three years Project Medishare has been a part of this hopeful spirit of progress and change in Haiti. Medishare has been working toward a long-term solution regarding hunger and malnutrition in Haiti’s Central Plateau, starting with the community of Thomonde. 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 and the recent earthquake, the Akamil Production Facility is finally complete.

Before the earthquake, Project Medishare planned to begin production of Akamil in late-January, however the final piece of equipment was held in customs long after the earthquake. Project Medishare staff for a while feared that the equipment had been damaged in the quake, but it was tucked away safely in the crate and has now arrived in Thomonde.

The Akamil Production Facility will manufacture and distribute AKA1000, often referred to as Akamil (Nutrimil), a mix of locally-grown products such as cereals (rice, corn, millet, wheat) and vegetables (beans) all blended into powder. It is a product of great nutritious value containing building and energetic nutrients, and is affordable to poor families. With the expert consultation of a nutritionist, the finished product will be fortified with a mix of important vitamins and minerals such as iron, zinc, and Vitamin A.

With the recent migration of earthquake victims from Port-au-Prince, Project Medishare’s  population in Thomonde has increased by 29 percent. In Marmont, our population increased by 18 percent. This increases a burden on an already overstressed area when it comes to healthcare and food consumption.

The Akamil Production Facility will not only help battle malnutrition in the Central Plateau, but provide additional jobs for locals in Thomonde and surrounding communities. Project Medishare will also purchase produce from local farmers that will be used as part of the ingredients for Nutrimil (Akamil).

Read Full Post »

Earthquake affects Haitians many miles outside the capital

By Jennifer Browning

While Project Medishare volunteer relief workers continue to work long hours providing medical care to earthquake victims in Port-au-Prince, 60 miles away  those living in the communities of Thomonde and Marmont are feeling aftershocks of their own.

With the mass migration of earthquake victims to places like Haiti’s Central Plateau, an already strained area is feeling the pressure of housing and feeding its neighbors from Port-au-Prince.

Before the earthquake, the rural communities in the Central Plateau were already some of  the poorest parts of the country. Project Medishare, with the assistance of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, has been working with farmers in the Central Plateau to institute better farming practices and production. Even during these times, while Project Medishare provides relief to those in Port-au-Prince our rural staff is continuing to work with our agriculture and community health programs which have grown since the migration of earthquake victims from Port-au-Prince.

Project Medishare faces structural challenges in the plateau as well. Last week an engineer reported that the community health clinic in Marmont is too damaged for healthcare workers, doctors and nurses to work safely. We are currently looking for a new location to continue health services in that area until the clinic in Marmont can be rebuilt.

Before the earthquake Project Medishare’s Community Health Program served 85,000, the Project Medishare community health staff are currently conducting a census to discover how much the population has grown since the January 12 earthquake.

While we continue our relief efforts in Port-au-Prince, Project Medishare will still need to fund our existing agriculture and community health programs serving communities in the Central Plateau.

If you would like to support Project Medishare’s agriculture and community health programs in assisting the growing population we are encountering in the Central Plateau since the earthquake please click here.

If you would like to read more about the problems facing rural Haiti since the earthquake, click here to read Ken Ellingwood’s story in the L.A. Times: Haiti quake is beginning to be felt miles away.

Read Full Post »