Welcome to Haiti

Welcome to Haiti

Bonjou! My name is Brooke Bullock and I am a current graduate student working with International HELP, specifically on the Haiti project, and I wanted to share a few updates. On June 5^th, we got the chance to officially start our work in Haiti! I went to Carrefour, Haiti, along with our founder, Monterey Starkey, for 4 days. We partnered with a local non-profit organization called VOPADEH, which is a faith-based organization who aims to better the social conditions of every Haitian citizen.  While there, we assessed Carrefour and the surrounding areas to get a better idea of the health disparities the community members faced. We also held three different meetings, one with the VOPADEH leaders, one with the community leaders from the 13 different communal sections in Carrefour and lastly, one with actual community members. In the last meeting, we collected much-needed information from health surveys about various topics such as nutrition, sanitation, and women’s health.

Monterey and I spent much time on foot exploring the communities and were able to see first-hand what everyday living is like in Carrefour. In doing so, we saw many health needs such as a lack of bathrooms (public and private), limited food choices from the markets, and a lack of sanitation and trash systems. Seeing this will help me, Monterey, and the International HELP team develop a training plan that will greatly fill the needs of the Carrefour community.

The VOPADEH leaders and community members of Carrefour, Haiti could not express how thankful they are to be able to partner with International HELP. This was such a wonderful opportunity for me, thanks to International HELP and VOPADEH, and I am very excited to work alongside Monterey to train community health workers in Haiti. Now that we are back, we will start the process of reviewing the information gathered and preparing training manuals to teach the community health workers.

~ Brooke, MPH Intern