On the 5th Anniversary of the earthquake

One Hundred For Haiti: 2014/2015
What we’ve done and what we will do, thanks to your support!

Accomplishments since we last spoke…

In the last two years One Hundred For Haiti experienced a profound shift from relief work to development work. The change is significant: rather than only give supplies (which is how we started), we now focus whenever we can on helping create opportunities. Many of the following stories are explored in greater detail on this website (https://www.onehundredforhaiti.org), but those which are not are explained here, some for the first time.

You made all of this happen. We cannot be more emphatic about that. Without your ongoing support, none of this would have been possible.

The Rural Water Project: saving lives from cholera
While visiting Haiti in the early spring of 2014, we spent a week helping to build a medical clinic with Peacework Medical. Pam Burwell, director of Peacework was well underway building the new clinic there – the only one for dozens of miles around – and Greg flew in with Michael Scott, long time One Hundred For Haiti supporter to help level the new floors of the clinic and begin to paint the walls and entryway. While there we all discussed the need for cholera to be eradicated. Introduced into Haiti’s water table accidentally by a UN worker from Nepal, cholera had killed thousands of people: deaths which were entirely treatable.

One of the easiest ways to prevent cholera is to simply avoid it, and Pam told us about her desire to build cisterns around the Ranquitte region into which potentially cholera-infected water would flow, be treated by a low-grade chemical, and then taken from the cistern from a tap. We loved the idea and immediately agreed to fund all of the tanks they wanted to build. As of today, 15,000 people in Ranquitte region now drink cholera-free water due to your donations and the tanks we were able to fund. The success of this program has led us to commute to building ten more tanks. All told, by the time the project is complete and we build the new tanks and hire a local Haitian to monitor them, between 25,000+ people will no longer have to worry about death due to cholera-contaminated drinking water. Donations that come in from this point forward will fund that second round of cisterns.

Individual support: saving hearts, minds, and bodies
In 2014 we focused whenever we could on individuals and small groups as well.

We were able to provide barbed wire fencing to protect the former child slaves and orphans living at the Little Footprints, Big Steps safe house in Les Cayes. Robbers had been scaling the walls and harassing the boys as they slept. We felt that their young lives as orphans and slaves had been enough and that harassment from thieves was too much. We paid for barbed wire to be installed by a Haitian worker around the compound, and we paid for him to take it down someday when the safe house – which is renting the space – moves to a new location, so that the safety of the barbed wire can go with them when they outgrow their current space.

In addition, we helped individuals in two very significant ways:

We found out about a young man named Josh who was suffering from a heart condition in a hospital in Carrefour, just south of Port-au-Prince. This was the nephew of Josue Lajeunesse who we had helped int the past in his village through installing our Moto Logistics Program. Josue told us that this young man wasn’t able to pay his medical bill at the hospital, and as a result wasn’t able to leave. This was a problem because he as at an inferior hospital, and we wanted him moved to Bernard Mevs, in Port-au-Prince, one of the best hospitals in the country. One Hundred For Haiti paid for his medical bills in Carrefour so that the hospital would let him go and he was able to receive life-saving quality care at Bernard Mevs. You saved him.

Finally and arguably MOST importantly. We heard about a young woman who was raped in Les Cayes. Her home life was completely unstable because her mother was out of work and she (who shall remain nameless for anonymity) was on the streets. The rape came as a result of her exposure on the streets. One Hundred For Haiti agreed to pay for immediate medical care for the girl as well as psychological counseling. In weeks that followed over the last month, we heard of two other cases as well. This is when we decided to take action.

What is coming in 2015?
We are hoping to work with a new consortium of organizations in Haiti to develop child sexual assault crisis prevention work in rural areas. We want to turn the tide and protect future victim/survivors from ever having to experience the primary instance of assault in the first place.

We will be building more water tanks with The Rural Water Project. This will save thousands and thousands of people from dying of cholera. This is really help, in real time, for real people who need it most.

All of this is possible with your help. The most important thing you can do is to spread the word: share this email with your friends and social networks. Like us on social media and read what we post. We are a small NGO. We do what we can, with what we have, when we have it: so your attention and focus goes a long way.

In terms of donations, we’d love to have you consider our recurring monthly donation option, where you can set paypal to donate anywhere from $1 to $100 a month on a regular basis. We’ve also set up employee matching programs so that your employer can match your generosity. If your company is interested in being involved, write us anytime through our contact page on the One Hundred For Haiti website.

We also partner with Amazon.com so that if you go to http://smile.amazon.com and set One Hundred For Haiti as your charity of choice, a small percentage of EVERYTHING you buy will go to us. It changes nothing about how the Amazon.com site works for you, but it helps us significantly, especially if enough people sign up to donate.

Thank you for your interest, your support, and your commitment: that’s why we are still here doing what we do. We said we would help in Haiti and we didn’t give up or forget, even after Haiti was out of the news. And we will continue to be here doing this work for years to come.

All the best,

Greg and One Hundred For Haiti