Within a few short weeks of the earthquake that rocked the island nation of Haiti, Healing Hands International purchased a drilling rig and began drilling water wells throughout the tent cities in the Port au Prince region. Since then, we have drilled more than 60 wells that provide clean water for hundreds of thousands of displaced Haitians.
As the rainy season approached in Haiti, we knew that sanitation issues were going to cause disease to spread in the surface water, so we began distributing hundreds of Sawyer water filters. The number one disease that these filters remove is Cholera, making them invaluable when the outbreak hit.
Harry Hames, Director of Haiti Operations, continues to travel with medical and construction teams each month. Dr. Matt Tincher leads one of these medical teams. Matt's team visits each of the orphanges in the Port au Prince area treating more than 300 children, some of which have never recieved even basic medical check-ups. We are also sending nurses down each month to work in the Nursing School in Port au Prince. We have provided each student with a text book, stethescope, scrubs and a blood pressure cuff. Now these nursing students are getting the opportunity to do clinicals at the orphanages where the medical teams work.
In the fall of 2011, construction was completed on the Lillivois orphanage. The 75 children that live in this new home were sleeping outside on the ground just a few short weeks ago, because their old home was so damaged by the quake it was no longer safe to live in. HHI partnered with a group from Franklin, TN to provide this new home.
We also had the opportunity to partner with the Estes church of Christ in Henderson, TN to build a brand new school building in Ganthier. This site is where HHI drilled the first well in Haiti and now we are coming full circle to provide them with an opportunity for a safe educational environment.
