May Mission Accomplished!
Dr. Tracee & crew above the clouds on the mountain trail to Demier
HAM's most recent medical mission was completed in May. Dr. Tracee Laing, Paul Hammond and Dr. Jim Naprawa arrived in Port-au-Prince on May 13th. Dr. Jim, an emergency pediatrician at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, first joined the HAM team in Haiti for the April 2012 mission, though he has volunteered in Haiti with other groups several times over the past few years. The team spent their first week seeing patients at the Dumay clinic, and over the first weekend they hiked into the remote mountain top village of Demier, north-west of Port-au-Prince, to conduct medical clinics for the village residents. HAM first visited Demier in 2000 and over the years has supported the community through visiting medical clinics as well as water and sanitation projects. A HAM team has not visited Demier since the 2004 coup d'état that ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide, when extreme violence broke out all over Haiti. However, when we restarted the Gift of Water program last year, we included Demier and have been employing two water technicians in that community.
The second week, Dr. Jim departs and Dr. Leslie Mihalov arrived. Dr. Leslie, who runs the emergency department at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, is a HAM board member and a mission regular who also joined us during the January/February mission. Dr. Tracee and Paul remaind for a third week at the Dumay clinic and focus on clinic and administrative operations with a special focus on the promotion of our clean water programs to the community.
Be sure to read the team's BLOG HERE.
FIRST MISSION TO HAITI FOR 2013
Some of the Dumay community visited in February
On January 14 th, Dr. Tracee Laing and Paul
Hammond arrived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti to begin Healing Art Missions’ first
medical mission of 2013. They lived and worked at the Centre de Santé
in Dumay for a month and hosting three teams of other volunteers during
that period.
Ten days after Dr. Tracee and Paul arrived, a medical team
will arrive consisting of HAM regulars Dr. Leslie Mihalov, Dr. Janine Flood,
Nurse Terrie Hostetter, Judy Bradley, and Judy Laing. Most of this team have traveled
to Haiti in January for many years, though this trip marks a return to Haiti by
Judy Laing, Dr. Tracee’s mother, who was last there in 2009. Dr. Janine
focussed her time at the Noel Dusan Eye Clinic and met with a
Haitian ophthalmologist, Dr. Marcelus, whom HAM hired to see eye patients in Dumay on
a monthly basis and perform cataract and other eye surgeries as necessary.
Nurse Terrie and the “Judys” assisted Dr. Janine in the eye clinic, as
well as organizing medical supplies and
storage in various spaces around the clinic. This team was in Haiti for one week.
Following the Living Waters team, we had Laura Moehling from Gift of Water, our other clean water partner stay with us for a few days. To learn more about this water filtration system and all of HAM’s
clean water programs CLICK HERE.
You can see photos and read posts directly from
the January mission to Haiti on our January/February 2013 Mission BLOG.
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Art from the Heart
Asheville, NC!
On Sunday, April 14th, Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Asheville, NC hosted an auction of over 70 pieces of unique Haitian art. A few hundred parishioners and community members showed up to view and bid on the art, as well as to learn more about Haiti and the work of Healing Art Missions. All the money raised from this auction will go directly to provide Haitians with the resources to help themselves. HAM provides resources such as employment, medicine and clean water to make possible ongoing access to primary health care in Dumay Haiti, provided by Haitian medical professionals.
Haitian art auction at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church
We thank Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church for their ongoing support of HAM, and to Grace Covenant parishioners Bill and Nancy Gettys who spearheaded the organization of this wonderful event. Thanks also to entire community of Asheville for their support of the Haitian people.
Original Haitian artwork from auction: Snow Cone Cart - 12"x 16"
Why Art from the Heart?
When Dr. Tracee Laing first went to Haiti in 1997, she saw not only the
tremendous medical needs of the people, but also the beautiful art the
Haitians created. Realizing the suitcases she and her teams used to
transport the medications needed for their medical missions would be
empty at the end of the trip, she had an idea; purchase Haitian art from
the artists to bring back to Ohio. In Granville, she organized Art from the Heart,
a silent auction of Haitian art in which she raised awareness and funds
for her work in Haiti. With the funds raised from this event, Dr.
Tracee purchased medications for her next mission to Haiti, and came
upon the name for the non-profit organization she would create to
support her work, Healing Art Missions.
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...TO OUR CLEAN WATER PARTNERS
Volunteers from Richmond, VA - Laura Wright, Corell Moore, and Cynthia Haw
During HAM's January mission to Haiti, we were joined by a team of volunteers from the First Presbyterian Church of Richmond, VA who came to install a new water filtration system. This Living Waters for the World purification system now suplys clean water to the Centre de Santé and all of HAM's health programs, as well as bringing affordable access to 5-gallon bottles of clean water to the community of Dumay. The First Presbyterian Church of Richmond donated this new filtration system system, and Laura Wright, Corell Moore, Cynthia Haw, and Bo Osborne all volunteers their time and expertise to install the system and help educate the community about the importance of clean water. All of us that work with HAM in both the US and Haiti greatly appreciate our partnership with this GREAT team all volunteers and all the church's parishioners!
Local Dumay artist, Boss Easy, paints partner logos on clean water building
When the First Presbyterian Church of Richmond (see above) chose HAM as their partner to receive of a new Living Waters for the World water purification system, one of their requirements was someplace top house the system. Given the limited existing building space at Centre de Santé, we realized we needed an entirely new building to house the new system and all of our clean water initiatives. Fortunately, it didn't take long to find a partner to help us fund the building of this new facility, for up to the plate stepped the First Community Church of Columbus! The church's the missions committee met with HAM board members Dr. Tracee and Paul Hammond and watched the shot film, Dumay an Santé, and awarded HAM $15,000 for the construction of the building.
HAM's relationship with First Community Church of Columbus began when an emergency pediatrician, Dr. Jim, joined the HAM team for the April 2012 mission, and little did we know it would be the beginning of a blossoming relationship with a Community Church in Columbus. Soon after that mission parishioners James and Amanda Naprawa and the Reverend Kate
Shaner organized a mini Haitian Art Show on the North Campus of the church in support of HAM. Thus began what we hope will be a long and mutually beneficial partnership.
During the summer of 2012, HAM restarted a partnership with the Carmel, IN based non-profit, Gift of Water,
to provide simple in-home clean water filtration systems to the
community. Gift of Water (GoW) manufactures point-of-use filtration
systems that involves low cost,
in-home systems comprised of two five-gallon buckets, rope and charcoal
filters
with chlorine added. Under previous leadership, the GoW program supported the community of Dumay for many years but ended in 2009 leaving leaving
almost 1/3 of 3000 systems in Dumay broken and unusable. As of July HAM hired and trained three water technicians who have been going through the
community and repairing and re-educating those with broken GoW systems. A
small fee, a small fraction of the actual cost, will be charged for the
replacement parts to help impart ownership and responsibility, though
the labor is paid for by HAM.
In February, the HAM team was joined in Dumay by Laura Moehling (pictured above with a community member), GoW board member and communications director. Laura spent several days with the HAM team and water technicians visiting homes in the Dumay community to see how the point-of-use filtration
systems were being used. She provided additional education and guidance to the water technicians, and gained insight into the Dumay community.
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