Another post about her trip to Haiti from HFF board member Vivian Croft. You can read more about Vivian’s trip to Haiti here.
My friend Tom once called me a professional volunteer. For almost three years, I have spent quite a bit of time volunteering my efforts, be it fundraising, event planning, marketing and media services, or super sweat-inducing, physical, hard work and manual labor. I care. For no other reason than I feel it.
My heart and soul aches for those who are unable to care for themselves, speak for themselves, make their own decisions, or find help when it is needed. So many people spend much of their time in pain and in search of necessities. I’ve been a part of a few projects over the years that have opened my eyes to the pain that we all share.
Life is filled with pain but the most beautiful and most amazing oppositional force is another thing I have seen in great quantity. And this is why I continue to give. And those with whom I am lucky enough to share my life also give because they, too, have found great joy in finding that opposite of pain. And happiness filled me in Haiti.
Through smiles.
Art.
Celebration.
I was welcomed back to Pittsburgh with great excitement and joy and much concern and eagerness by those interested to hear what I’d seen and most of all, what Jamie and Ali McMutrie are doing now. I don’t want to say, ‘You won’t know if you don’t go,’ but I do think there are many untranslatable components to an experience of this magnitude.
While in Haiti, my role was that of a skilled volunteer, an observer, a student of life who would return home to translate the everyday of two young women working to change one life, one family at a time. Because they feel it. And because who else will.
Here’s a post by HFF board member Vivian Croft, who visited Jamie and Ali in Haiti a few months ago. You can read more about Vivian’s trip to Haiti here.
Last September, Clercine and her husband Auguste came to Jamie and Ali with a story not unlike so many other parents. The couple felt the had no choice but to put their younger child, daughter Melissa, in an orphanage. Without steady work, raising two children in their small community near Port-au-Prince would be nearly impossible. They felt they were out of options.
I think back to the stories my grandparents told of Depression-era living in the United States. The difficulty in securing the basic necessities, food and water, was so much a struggle that families were often torn apart by disease and hunger. More often though, they were torn apart by lack of money. That was a fear faced in our own country many years ago. It is a way of life for much of Haiti every day.
Knowing how desperately Clercine and Auguste wanted to keep their children, Jamie and Ali vowed to help them find another way – a sustainable way to live and raise two beautiful children. Fortunately, this was not new to them. In their years in Haiti, Jamie and Ali were able to help many families in the same way many times before.
The McMutrie sisters helped Clercine find steady work, a job she still holds today. But that’s not all. While this job helps Clercine and her family afford the very basic necessities, it has not impacted the family the way another small gift has.
During a visit to the family’s rural home, Jamie and Ali brought along a variety of seeds and suggested the family plant them.
Agriculture is a mainstay in Haiti and the land is fertile for many types of fruits and vegetables. Still, purchasing even a few seeds can be costly.
But to the girls, this small gesture of giving away a handful of seeds and teaching the family how to plant and grow them, the reward would not only germinate in the garden, but seeds of sustainability would improve the family’s standard of living, as well.
Today, the family has a large garden with a variety of foods that they are able to eat, share, and sell at the market. They have been successful with foods such as a variety of peppers, onions, spinach, lettuce, peaches, cherries, guava, pumpkin, okra, corn, and barley.
We met the family before church and even in their Sunday best, they proudly gave us a tour of their large plot.
They even have a small pig among the banana trees.
We each tasted a guava right off the tree.
Sharing one small gesture has changed not only the daily life of this family, but has kept them together, learning and sharing. This is what helps Haiti grow. This is what will be the future of sustainable life.
Have you ever wondered what the people who work for the non-profit organizations you donate to do all day?
While her sister, Ali, is in the U.S. attending to HFF business matters, Jamie McMutrie is spending today, Friday, January 13, 2012 like this:
5:00 a.m.: Wakes up and gets ready for the day. Every Friday is “hospital day,” when, in addition to checking in on the families HFF assists, Jamie also sees to the medical conditions of the children.
6:00 a.m.: Drives to the airport-area of Port-au-Prince where Berlancia and Simile, two infants whose mothers died in child birth and to whom we give formula, live with their families. Weighs both babies. If there are any signs of illness, Jamie takes the babies with her to be seen at a hospital later in the day. She leaves for a town about 45 minutes’ drive outside of Port-au-Prince called Cabaret.
7:30 a.m.: She arrives in Cabaret. HFF helps four families there by providing formula for infants whose mothers have died in child birth. Again, Jamie weighs the children and checks on their general condition. If any appear to need medical attention, Jamie takes them with her.
8:30 a.m.: Jamie picks up valued HFF employee Junia, who helps her with the children every Friday for “hospital day.”
9:00-10:30 a.m.: Jamie and Junia check on several children and families around Port-au-Prince, including Seth, Cliff, Bonifil, Orens, Gloria, Kervens, and the children of a mother named Chrisla. They distribute formula for the infants whose mothers have died. Each of the children mentioned above live in a different area of the city. Jamie and Junia assess the medical needs of each child and, if need be, take them to the hospital.
11:00 a.m.: Jamie and Junia arrive at the hospital with three of the children.
They also visit with the father of twin babies whose mother died giving birth to them. The twins, born prematurely, no longer need oxygen and are ready to go home with their father.
While at the hospital, Jamie and Junia will discuss with the staff if there are any other children who might need help, children who may have been abandoned there since last Friday, or have lost their mothers in child birth, or are in other kinds of crisis situations.
They also assist the beleaguered hospital staff in educating new mothers about the importance of breast feeding, about caring for premature infants, and other child-care related issues.
Late afternoon: After returning Junia and the children to their homes, Jamie will return to her own home and spend time with the three children for whom she and her staff are caring on a full-time basis.
7:00 p.m.: The children in care go to bed.