Help Haiti’s People in the Poorest Slum of Waf Jeremy

Project location: Haiti, Waf Jeremy
Project start date: December 2011 - Project end date: September 2012
Project number: 2011-35
Beneficiary: Fondazione L’Albero della Vita ONLUS

 [2012-106 | 2014-008 | 2015-032]

The area of implementation of this project, which received a grant from the Nando Peretti Foundation,  is Waf Jeremie, located in the biggest and poorest slum of Port-au-Prince, which host about 50,000 people in brick homes and roof made by zinc sheets, built-up in a spontaneous way by the families of former peasants who migrated in the sixties in search of employment in the manufacturing factories of Port-au-Prince.

The slum of Waf Jeremie is characterized by degradation, social exclusion, widespread violence, awful health conditions, and food insecurity. The population has no access to fundamental rights (water, food, education, medical care, sanitation) and the unemployment rate is very high. Many people of Waf Jeremie has never been registered as citizens of Haiti. The majority of the people living in that area are children and young people who are not enrolled in the school.
Child and maternal mortality rates are very high in Waf Jeremie. Malnutrition, respiratory diseases, HIV / AIDS, tuberculosis and scabies are common diseases in the slum, but population has no access to the National Health Service and they use traditional medicine.
The earthquake of January of 2010 has resulted in Port-au-Prince the death of some 230.000 people, an estimated 300.000 injured and 1.500.000,00 Haitians left homeless. In Waf Jeremie the consequences of the earthquake has been dramatic: the population is till isolated, there is no access to basic services and the majority of the people are living in inhumane conditions.
The cholera emergency of October 2010 and the Tomas Hurricane of November 2010 had aggravated the situation of the slum, due to the high number of victims and the destruction of the infrastructures and houses.
Sister Marcella is an Italian missionary and she is working in developing countries since 1992. She worked in Albania and Brazil before arriving to Haiti in 2004. The Fraternità Francescana Missionaria, born in Haiti in 2004 by Sister Marcella, is inspired by the catholic's values and works to meet the basic human needs through programs of medical care, education and training activities.

Sister Marcella founded in 2005 the only community centre for children and families in Waf Jeremie, the San Franswa Centre. The centre housed a school, a cafeteria and a medical clinic. Over the years, the centre become the only one provided health services in the area offering medical care to thousands of children and adults. The most common diseases reported are: child malnutrition, diarrhoea, respiratory diseases, vermin, AIDS, tuberculosis, fungal infections, scabies, conjunctivitis, ear infections, purulent wound infections.
The earthquake of 2010 destroyed the infrastructure of San Franswa Centre. After its reconstruction in June 2010, the new clinic consist of a waiting room, a clearinghouse, an emergency room, a room used for the nutritional support program, a dental room, a delivery room and a pediatric room.
In that context, Fondazione L'Albero della Vita met Sister Marcella in July 2010 to talk about the possibility of collaboration in the clinic project in Waf Jeremie. After that meeting, Fondazione L'Albero della Vita started working with Sister Marcella assuming the coordination of the clinic.
The health project is providing necessary equipment to make the clinic operational, medicines to treat children and their parents, a doctor who is specialized in the management of medical devices in a context of extreme poverty and 5 health workers (paramedics, non-specialist). Sister Marcella and all the staff working in the San Franswa clinic are the only hope of children and adults in Waf Jeremie to fulfil the basic right to health in a context of degradation, social exclusion, widespread violence and food insecurity.
However, the needs of the clinic are still huge and increasing day - by day. For this reason Fondazione L'Albero della Vita aims to promote the continuity and strengthening of the San Franswa clinic and the work of Sister Marcella.
The support of the San Franswa clinic is directly related with Peretti Foundation's Goal of protecting and promoting human rights and health, being an "immediate intervention program for those who live in situations of extreme economic and social hardship".

The direct beneficiaries of the project will be:
- 5.000 children and 3.000 adolescent and adults who are living in the slum and will have medical care and medicines from the San Franswa clinic.
- 5.000 children who will receive nutritional assistance through nutritional programs of the clinic.
Children and adults in Waf Jeremie live in awful health conditions, with absence of water supply, sewerage and waste landfills. Children growing up in this conditions are neglected and live with the risk of contagious diseases in their environment. This risk is aggravated by the condition of malnutrition that has affected all the children that have raised the clinic in the last year.

The project aims to develop the following activities during 12 months:

Activity 1. Allocation of medicines and medical equipment
1.1. Allocation of the following furniture for the clinic:
• 1 ambulance
• 2 deck cards
• 1 gynaecological bed
• 2 Dressing trolley
• 1 lamp Cards
• 1 pediatric scale
• 3 drawer
• 1 sterilizer
• Surgical
• Bowls for surgical
1.2. Allocation of medicines and necessary medical equipment:
• Vaccines for the following diseases: typhoid, malaria, tetanus, polio, typhoid, trivalent (measles, rubella, mumps and whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus), bivalent (diphtheria and tetanus)
• Paediatric antibiotics
• Paediatric Multi vitamins
• Lactic acid
• Mebendazole
• Albendazole
• Paracetamol
• Metronizadole
• Intravenous fluids
• Expectorant
• Lidocaine
• Soap
• Paediatric cough
• Disinfectant irons
• Skin disinfectant
• Alcohol
• Syringes
• Band-aids, bandages, gauze, wire suture
• Disposable scalpel
• Set a drip
The project address the allocation of some furniture for the regular operation of the clinic. The logistician staff of the project will distribute all necessary medical furniture at the beginning of the period, in order to ensure the regularly operation of the clinic.
Sister Marcella will purchased an ambulance, necessary to bring patients who need to be hospitalized to the nearest hospital of Citè Soleil.
Project staff will daily provide the supply of medicines and vaccines according to medical diagnosis of patients.


Activity 2. Provision of medical care.

2.1. Provision of a medical coordinator, a doctor, three nurses and three paramedical staff from 8.00 to 15.00 from Monday to Friday in the clinic.
2.2. Provision of an ambulance driver for San Franswa clinic.
2.3. Free test of HIV, TBC and malaria for population of Waf Jeremie.

The project provides a medical coordinator for the clinic, who will daily organize the furniture of medicines and management of the medical assistance of the clinic. In the clinic there will be a doctor ,three nurses and three paramedical staff every day from Monday to Friday, from 8 to 15, who will provide vaccinations and specific medical care to children and adolescents, first aid and medical advice to the adult population that will reach the clinic.
The medical and paramedical staff will be responsible for all activities related to medical care (first aid, individual testing, therapeutic treatments). The project expect to provide a new driver for the new ambulance purchased by San Franswa clinic.
The driver will ensure that patients requiring hospitalization reach the hospital of Citè Soleil.
HIV, TBC and malaria are common diseases of the slum and the medical staff of the clinic will do free test for population in order to detect the disease on time and treat it appropriately.

Activity 3. Implementation of nutritional support program for children.

3.1. Weekly Nutritional screening for children in the malnutrition programme site of San Franswa clinic.
3.2. Weekly access of children in the weight maintenance program (rice, beans and oil)
3.3. Provision of Plumpy Nut for children between 6 months and 5 years through the nutritional programme of the clinic.
3.4. Distribution of nutritional information among the population of the slum of Waf Jeremie.

The analysis of the causes of type, degree and incidence of malnutrition will be achieved on the basis of existing information as the data processed in the past by San Franswa clinical or other medical specialist in maternal and child health or feeding therapy.
For children aged from 6 months to 5 years, medical staff of the centre will provide Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) so-called Plumpy-nut treatment, enrolling them in the nutritional programme of the clinic.
The staff of the project will distribute the necessary nutritional information among the population in order to aware people about tools for an adequate nutrition of children.


The health project will be developed with a participatory methodology. In a context of spread violence is essential to involve people of the slum in the project. Sister Marcella since the beginning of the work in Waf Jeremie has trained local staff in order to create a confidence environment between the clinic staff and inhabitants of the slum. The participatory approach will avoid internal conflicts. Thanks to this approach, even during the outbreaks cholera, the clinic has not been touched by riots and violence.

Anticipated achievements or outcomes of the Project
a) Achievements of the project
- 5.000 children under 15 years of Waf Jeremie received medical assistance in the San Franswa Centre in 12 months.
- 3.000 adolescent and adults over 15 years of Waf Jeremie received medical assistance in the San Franswa Centre in 12 months.
- 5.000 children have been enrolled in the nutritional program and have received Plumpy-nut treatment in 12 months.
- 5.000 children have been enrolled in the weight maintenance program in 12 months.
- 3.000 families have received nutritional information from project staff.

b) Multiplier effects
The development of this project will restitute dignity to the population living in the slum of Waf Jeremie, through the fulfillment of the basic human right to health.
Supporting the San Franswa clinic allows to protect and promote the health rights of the children and families of Waf Jeremie, as stipulated in the Haiti Constitution (1987) and in all the international legal texts relating to human rights, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989).
Through the health care, the nutritional support program, promotion and prevention activities it is possible to reduce the mother and child mortality, malnutrition incidence and the diseases related to degradation and extreme poverty. This action contribute to achieve Millennium Development Goals number 4 which aims to reduce child mortality and number 5 which aims to improve maternal health.

Since 2006 Fondazione L'Albero della Vita promotes Actions aiming to protect and foster the rights of children in developing countries and in European Countries of new integration. Nowadays, FADV implements development cooperation projects and researches in the field of children's rights protection in Perù, India, Haiti, Kenya and Romania. Children are the main beneficiaries of our interventions, with their families and the Community where they live. The main strategy of Fondazione L'Albero della Vita in promoting development project is to act in a participatory way with an integrated approach, addressing to the economic and social exclusion of the most vulnerable groups in that Countries.

Two are the main Programmes of Fondazione L'Albero della Vita:

1) Health Programme (Medici in Prima Linea), which aims to promote maternal and child health, to prevent waterborne diseases (Water and Sanitation projects), to tackle child malnutrition;
2) Development cooperation programme
a. education and vocational training
b. food security and sustainable development
c. awareness on children's rights and fight against child labour
3) Development/children's rights education programme in Italy

This project received additional grants in 2012, 2013, 2105.

 


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