Greenbrier Valley Team to Spend Two Weeks in Haiti in Community-To-Community Partnership
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information contact: Meike Schleiff at 304-667-0566 or Sara Crickenberger at 304-646-5823
A team of physicians, teachers and a therapist from the Greater Greenbrier Valley will be in the community of Bonnay Dugal on the outskirts of Cap Hatien, Haiti, for two weeks in August providing medical services and teaching as part of a partnership between the two communities.
The team will include three physicians: Coy Flowers, MD, an obstetrician/gynecologist who lives and practices in Lewisburg; Rick Fogle, DO, who lives in Frankford and is family practice resident at Greenbrier Valley Medical Center; and Patrick Barrett, MD, a fourth-year emergency medicine resident at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The three physicians will provide medical services to residents in the Bonnay Dugal community and outlying areas.
Allison Medford, an art therapist who lives in Washington, D.C., heard about the project through a personal connection to the Greenbrier Valley. She will provide therapy to people suffering from trauma, grief and loss as a result of the January earthquake.
Brent Fernandez lives at Bethlehem Farm in Summers County and is director of Loaves and Fishes in Hinton. Fernandez will be teaching and working on an agricultural project. Jennifer Fogle is a Frankford resident and a K-12 music teacher. Sara Crickenberger, a Lewisburg resident and former teacher, will set up a classroom and teach English. Meike Schleiff, a Lewisburg resident and AmeriCorps VISTA at High Rocks Educational Corp., taught English in Bonnay Dugal two years ago. Schleiff is coordinating the community-to-community project; she organized the trip and will start a women’s support group in Bonnay Dugal.
The team will be in Haiti Aug. 9-22. While in Haiti team members will live with a Haitian family and experience their culture and community.
The community-to-community partnership grew out of Schleiff’s continuing friendship with her former English students in Bonnay Dugal. As a result of this partnership, residents of the Greenbrier Valley were able to quickly respond to the January earthquake, sending aid to Cap Haitien and Port au Prince.
This aid included funds for renting buses to move supplies and injured people, sponsoring blood drives, training volunteers, sponsoring displaced children to return to school, sending seeds and medical supplies to the most devastated areas and paying for individual victim’s medical care.
In return, community members in Haiti shared their stories with schoolchildren in West Virginia and Kentucky and sent art and traditional food items. They also became pen-pals with student groups in the U.S.
Students here who have been in direct contact with young people in Haiti have gained a new perspective of how much they have and the opportunities available to them; they now have a personal connection to a place that is very different from the one they live in and a more global perspective of the world.
The partnership is entering the long-term rebuilding phase in Haiti, building infrastructure and bringing professional expertise in to meet immediate needs and train local people to carry on the work after the professionals leave.
Cap Haitien is the second largest city in Haiti with an estimated population of 200,000 people before the earthquake; since the earthquake the population has grown to around 300,000. Thousands of children are not able to go to school because they cannot afford it, there is no space in existing schools, or because they are too afraid after having buildings topple around them during the earthquake. Many people are also still battling long-term health issues related to earthquake injuries—infections and disabilities— and the loss of homes and belongings. And illnesses such as malaria and tuberculosis are still prevalent, and those without adequate shelter, food, and other resources are more vulnerable.
Snarly Colas, the local coordinator in Haiti, will visit the Greenbrier Valley in September. He will assist in schools teaching French, share his culture and work with the community on plans for long-term projects in Haiti. Those projects may include building a vocational school, microloans for small businesses, and construction of a trash/sanitation system.
Numerous groups and individuals in the Greater Greenbrier Valley are involved in the Haiti community-to-community project, including the One Foundation, High Rocks, Greenbrier East High School, Greenbrier Sporting Club, Boy Scout Troop #70, Lewisburg Rotary Club, Greenbrier Valley Medical Center, Greenbrier Medical Arts and Fritz’s Pharmacy. An equally influential and diverse group of organizations and people are participating in the Haitian community.
To support the project, please send your tax-deductible contributions to High Rocks, HC 64, Box 438, Hillsboro, WV 24946. Checks should be made out to High Rocks with Haiti in the memo line. For more information, contact Meike Schleiff at 304-667-0566 or meike@highrocks.org.
