Our Response
The St. Luke response was immediate, due to the St. Luke SKALA medical team hosting summer health clinics in Port Salut and Camp Perrin.
These trips have focused on the following four objectives:
Immediate medical attention
At Cayes General Hospital, in the areas of Maniche, the more remote area of Rambo, and in Camp Perrin, we’ve been able to treat over 3500 patients
For these patients, we’ve also been able to assist financially with treatment.
helping families rebuild
After the earthquake of 2010, the teams recognize the need to avoid tent cities AT ALL COSTS. Our teams are aiming to help around 500 families with a donation of materials for the construction of shelters in wood and in sheet metal. For example:25 sheets, 20 units wood studs, nails, etc., and also a donation of food packages would be provided to each family. The unit cost for each shelter is approximately $ 1,300 US and $200 US for the food package. In total, we will need $750,000 USD.
promoting Health and Hygiene
Our teams have supported hygiene and community health by providing water filtration systems, hand sanitizer, soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, Clorox, and aqua tabs, These are ongoing programs that we’re leveraging for emergency response.
We have also strengthened medical programs by previously opening a clinic in St Louis du Sud and continuing efforts to provide access to care in Jeremie province.
providing General supplies
In the days after the earthquake, St. Luke have made several trips to help with rescue recovery efforts, as well as provide food, clean water, and medical supplies in areas- supplying them to local Haitian leaders for distribution.
You can make a difference!
This is exactly what the St Luke Foundation does every day, we forget our pain to go and help others even when the road is difficult, even when there is no gasoline. We pay elevated street prices and remove the stones in the path so that we can continue to help. We will push the trucks if we need to in order to continue the outreach support where it is most helpful.
This week when Wilflo returned home, everyone wanted to see him. His family and friends greeted him with a welcome worthy of a king. They surrounded the car excited to see and talk to him. The phrase "Oh dear Jesus!" is what they all said over and over.
Dear family and friends,
The last weekly update I sent was a strong attempt on my part to find a silver lining in many dark clouds,
I had hardly pushed the "send" button when another thunderhead roared at us, and threw lightening in all directions.
Marie Ange was kidnapped from our NPFS home for children called St Anne, the community made up of both disabled children and very small fully abled children.
Gunmen came over the wall, made their way across the roof of the pigpen (where we raise the pre Duvalier era Creole pig, to try to reintroduce it to the peasant farmers),
and without effort, climbed down the ladder used for reaching the cisterns where we reuse water from our Tilapia farm to irrigate the fields.
This is Jounal Odilan, he is 48 years old and has 3 children. He lives in Plaine Martin in the south. These last few days of his life and that of his community have become very strange. Days before the earthquake they prayed for rain because they almost all have gardens to feed themselves. Then came the earthquake which destroyed all their houses. Now they do not know if they should pray for the rain because they have no place to sleep and they also know if there is no rain they will not have water for the gardens and no food.
The St Luke team is doing huge work, and there are updates on the2021 Earthquake Response — St. Luke Foundation For Haiti (stlukehaiti.org) website
These particular messages are the work of my own team. The work is tough and requires a lot of rough driving, loading, carrying, walking, visiting people, listening to their challenges, and practical help.
"I was at a funeral at Sainte Famille Church in Camperin when the earthquake hit last August 14 in Haiti. Who would have thought? We were about fifty people who gathered to say goodbye to a young girl who had died. At 8:30 a.m. the earthquake passed and the church fell on us.
As we slept under star stars in Les Cayes two nights ago, having led another caravan of medicines, supplies and building materials to the South,
and while mosquitos ate us alive, the heavens were spectacular and the earth was all music.
It's been 15 days since the earthquake, and our teams are still working. We're focusing our efforts to various areas severely affected by the earthquake in the south, at Port Salut, Camp-Perin, Maniche, Maceline, Rambo,St Louis du Sud .
1. Our medical team is working daily with the people at the various tragic sites, with their base at Port Salut,
2. St Luc Hospital (among other hospitals) is receiving medically evaluated patients,
3. We are sending loads of supplies daily to our emergency medical team, to other St Luc clinics in the affected areas as they restart their function,
and to hospitals and clinics in Jeremie and Les Cayes as we receive requests,
4. We are starting to put a solid roof over peoples' heads.