Dear Friends,
I haven’t set foot on Haitian soil in 22 months. Having traveled to Haiti four times annually for over twenty years, I find this hiatus since January 2020 personally difficult. Besides missing Haitian friends and coworkers, I haven’t been able to work at the Dumay Clinic, or to visit the Charles Salomon School or Demier to show support for our communities and for the Healing Art Missions (HAM) staff. The reasons for my absence are twofold: the Covid-19 pandemic and escalating sociopolitical violence that would put me and others - including staff - at risk of kidnapping and assault.
For Haitians, the year has been worse than usual. A 7.2 magnitude earthquake on August 14th left an estimated 2,200 people dead and 12,000 injured, with many more missing; a tropical storm followed, triggering flooding and landslides. Just a month earlier, on July 7th, the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse released a shockwave of sociopolitical chaos and surging kidnappings, with a reported 117 people taken hostage in September alone, up from 31 in July. That’s the tip of the iceberg, since many kidnappings go unreported. U.S. news media finally awakened to the violence in Haiti only last month when 17 missionaries, most from here in Ohio, were kidnapped. In reality, kidnapping and bloodshed happen daily to Haitians all over the country.
And yet I remain optimistic about HAM’s work in Haiti. Despite these challenges, our Haitian staff labor tirelessly to run HAM’s programs, providing communities with healthcare, education, clean water and employment. Over the past year and a half, our staff, under the dedicated leadership of Haitian Director, Dr. Jacques, have proven they don’t need the U.S. leadership team in Haiti to succeed. In fact, in our absence, staff have overseen the construction of new facilities at the Dumay Clinic to support our growing safe birthing program, and the number of surgeries at the clinic has increased substantially. Because Dr. Jacques has begun training University Hospital surgical residents in Dumay, they and their patients can use HAM’s operating room and its reliable solar power (at a time when fuel to generate electricity is extremely scarce), simultaneously avoiding the most violent areas of downtown Port-au-Prince. In addition, HAM has organized a robust response to the August 14th earthquake. We obtained a large grant to fund salaries and supplies and deployed an all Haitian staff of orthopedic surgery, wound care, and safe birthing teams to cities closest to the epicenter - all spearheaded by Dr. Jacques. We’ve built on knowledge gained after the 2010 earthquake, hiring Haitian medical professionals to design and carry out the disaster response.
In the U.S., our leadership team remains in constant touch with Haitian staff via email, WhatsApp, and ZOOM. It’s essential we stay on top of changes on the ground, maintaining both programmatic transparency and financial accountability and ensuring our staff has resources to serve their communities. This program expansion requires increased revenue. A year ago, we hired a part time grant writer and already have successfully garnered foundation support, as the Expense and Income graphs in the accompanying Annual Report demonstrate. Such funding has been crucial to our expansive earthquake response.
The challenges facing the Haitian people mount daily, making it more important than ever to support those on the ground laboring to provide health care, education and clean water in the communities HAM serves. We are honored to partner with HAM’s dedicated Haitian staff as they persevere. I hope you’ll read the accompanying report and join with me and others in HAM’s family, renewing our commitment to the Haitian people.
Most sincerely yours,
Tracee Laing, M.D. Founding Director