Excerpted from North Texas UMC Reporter
“Empowering an entire community to care for the health of its children is effective, powerful and sustainable”. This is the philosophy of International Child Care (ICC), part of the United Methodist Advance that has served impoverished children and families in Haiti since 1967 and the Dominican Republic since 1988. ICC partners with communities to advance health and wellness through education, health promotion, child health clinics, immunization programs, birth attendant training, literacy training and micro-enterprise projects. Programs such as these are vital in a country such as Haiti, which has the unfortunate distinction of being the poorest country and having the highest child mortality rate in our hemisphere.But now ICC is adding a new dimension to its services. In the fall of 2007 a request came from the staff of the ICC supported rural integrated community health programs for support from US medical volunteer teams. The small hospital in Grande Riviere du Nord and its mobile clinic system are overwhelmed by the needs of the many small communities scattered throughout northern Haiti. They believe that visiting physicians and nurses could bring in needed manpower, medical supplies, pharmaceuticals and provide a means for medical education and information exchange. In response, ICC USA began exploring the best way for volunteer US medical teams to empower local Haitian healthcare professionals and help sustain community health programs and clinics that would best serve children and families.
Lumanie Bangerter, a Haitian American nurse on the U.S. team, was impressed with how the local population had taken ownership in improving the health of their communities. She was particularly touched by the impressive efforts of the people of Jolitrou and their desire to have a full-time nurse and more frequent clinic days with a physician so that they could put the clinic they worked so hard to build to good use. We all agreed that sending US physicians for specialty clinics such as cardiology, gynecology, nephrology and hypertension and ophthalmology would help with unmet needs.
Dr. Ellen Palmer of McKinney, TX would like to see ICC supported communities such as Grande Riviere du Nord and Jolitrou receive United Methodist Volunteer in Mission Teams. ICC’s Medical Resources Committee is working with ICC Haiti to establish this connection. Dr. Rudy Magloire, new director of ICC Haiti states that he is very supportive of these valuable activities and wishes to see them grow.
For further information on ICC’s programs as well as updates on medical service opportunities as they develop, go to www.internationalchildcare.org .