HAMAFUND – Haitian Amputee Mothers Alliance

Today is the two year anniver­sary of the earth­quake that killed hun­dreds of thou­sands of men, women and chil­dren.  What may be worse though, is those who now live with the mem­ory of those they lost and do so with­out a home, with­out enough to eat and many with­out a limb.

Please remem­ber this day as a reminder of those who con­tinue to live each day with hard­ships unimag­in­able to most of us and do so the only way they can: with brav­ery and fear both.

Below is a mes­sage from our Hait­ian part­ners, Foun­da­tion Enfant Jesus.  Please read it and if you can, please donate though our site or our sis­ter site www.rompglobal.org and choose HAMA from the drop down box.  Thank you.

Today, we pray for all who lost their lives, fam­i­lies, friends in the Quake 2 years ago! We also pray harder for all who are still there strug­gling to get back on their feet! We are pray­ing for these neglected, needy, illit­er­ate and orphaned chil­dren, the future gen­er­a­tion of Haiti who need us to help them grow, suc­ceed and later be the voice of our coun­try! They deserve a bet­ter tomor­row and this is what we should give them. We thank God for all he has done for us so far and we ask him to help us con­tinue our fight and pro­vide to these chil­dren and their fam­i­lies the love, secu­rity, affec­tion, edu­ca­tion care they DESERVE…

We, FEJ, want to express our thanks and sin­cere appre­ci­a­tion for the efforts, time and energy that you all put forth in help­ing us through­out these 2 years after the earth­quake. Your per­sonal com­mit­ment was incred­i­bly help­ful and allowed us to reach our goal. Your assis­tance means so much to us but even more to the chil­dren and the women of the Foun­da­tion and their fam­i­lies. Thanks to you, we accom­plish so much already and we wish to con­tinue build­ing a strong rela­tion­ship with you!

TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

The Hait­ian Amputee Moth­ers Alliance has teamed up with the Range of Motion Project!

The Range of Motion Project (ROMP) has been work­ing to bring pros­thetic limbs and orthotic devices to devel­op­ing coun­tries in Cen­tral and South Amer­ica for over 5 years and has now teamed up with HAMA.  “By team­ing up, we can share resources for obtain­ing hard mate­ri­als and ensure that we are get­ting the best prices and we can ben­e­fit from each other’s expe­ri­ence, exper­tise and man­power.  We are very excited to col­lab­o­rate with such an amaz­ing non-profit,” says HAMA’s pros­thetic direc­tor Joe Mahon.

When Eric Neu­field, ROMP’s lead Pros­thetist, heard about the work that HAMA was doing in Haiti he knew that the both orga­ni­za­tions would ben­e­fit from a col­lab­o­ra­tion.  “Our mis­sions and our philoso­phies are in such close align­ment and Haiti is still far from hav­ing enough resources on its own.  We hope that we can expand the num­ber of amputees being served in Haiti.

Both ROMP and HAMA are staffed by unpaid vol­un­teers who are pas­sion­ate about bring­ing inde­pen­dence and dig­nity to the lives of amputees every­where.  Your dona­tion can make YOU a part of this project and a mem­ber of this com­mu­nity of ser­vice.  As they like to say at ROMP, “Amputees are not dis­abled because of a miss­ing limb, but because of a miss­ing prosthesis.”

ROMP’s lab in Guatemala

To find out more about ROMP’s work you can visit them at www.rompglobal.org

You can also donate to both HAMA and ROMP by click­ing on the “Donate Now” but­ton found on the right side of this page.  When you do, please clar­ify HAMA project by click­ing on the drop-down box and choos­ing our organization.

Thank you.

Street Scene Croix de Bouquet

We drive through Port au Prince; the chaos of the street is as thick as the humid­ity.  Our van is cut­ting a path through the mas­sive swirl of drawn faces, col­or­ful closed store­fronts, street ven­dors, piles of garbage, the hun­dreds of other vehi­cles on the road and the occa­sional goat.  The careen­ing of the van is even­tu­ally replaced by intense bounc­ing as we drive into the coun­try­side on our way to meet the next group of women.  The throngs of motor­cy­cles and over-crowded tap-taps turn qui­etly into cows tied to small trees and chil­dren play­ing in the canals.

We pull into the foun­da­tion.  The feel­ing is one of relief at see­ing the com­pound.  It is a feel­ing made pos­si­ble by the utter exhaus­tion from 24 hours of travel.  We are a small group of half-smiles still try­ing to fig­ure out where we are and if we have stopped mov­ing.  Trop­i­cal storm Emily has brought a cool breeze, thick grey skies, and occa­sional rain bursts.  It feels like a gift of still­ness given to us to let us pre­pare for the days ahead.

Tent at the Women’s Camp

Anx­ious to meet the women, we walk down the path to the camp, the sky dark­en­ing into a blue-grey evening.   We find them in their large, rub­ber army tents, which are even darker.  They are sit­ting on cots or lying on the floor, chat­ting, comb­ing each other’s hair, and get­ting ready to eat.  We say hello and are intro­duced.  They say hello back but don’t smile much.  The trans­la­tor explains who we and they nod, unim­pressed.  In my usual way, I try to illicit smiles from them but most of my Cre­ole attempts fail.  I snap a few pho­tos of some of the women and show them pic­tures of them­selves and of each other.  Sud­denly, there are peels of laugh­ter, fin­ger point­ing and clap­ping.  They are teas­ing one another about how they look on cam­era and every­one sud­denly wants their pic­ture taken.  They are touch­ing my arm and point­ing at them­selves, ask­ing for pho­tos in makeshift sign lan­guage.  I take a few more and promise them that we will be back in the morn­ing to begin our work and that I will take pho­tos of all of them.

Made­line poses for a pic­ture within min­utes of our meeting.

We walk out of the tent into the night call­ing out “bon soir, bon soir” and walk silently to din­ner, the gravel crunch­ing under our feet.  Tomor­row is an unknown anx­i­ety.  I guess that is what you call adventure.

Jacque­line and the grand daugh­ter she cares for.

Walk­ing through the rub­ble and chaos of Port-au-Prince a trav­eler is struck by the crisp whites and bright yel­lows that adorn the chil­dren as they make their way to and from school every­day.  Their hands and faces are clean and their hair is set in place by deft fin­gers.  The visual image is so incon­gru­ous as to seem impos­si­ble.  But there they are, walk­ing in small groups, hold­ing the hands of a younger sib­ling, per­haps, pick­ing their way around piles of destroyed build­ings, muddy roads, and avoid­ing the Tap-Taps full of pas­sen­gers as they careen through the traffic.

Immac­u­late school kids pick their way though Cite Soleil

Ninety per­cent of schools in Haiti are pri­vate insti­tu­tions and are finan­cially out of reach for a lot of fam­i­lies.  How­ever, it seems that even among the very poor, if there is any way to get a child to school, it is done.  Most of the women admit­ted to the Hait­ian Amputee Moth­ers Alliance pro­gram are street ven­dors and mer­chants of one sort or another.  They lead very hard and very poor exis­tences but almost all of them have found a way to send some or all of their chil­dren to pri­mary school.

For the Vil­lage of LaMardelle, where the Hait­ian Amputee Moth­ers Alliance is housed on the Fon­da­tion Enfant Jesus Com­pound, vil­lagers can send their chil­dren to the Ecole Enfant Jesus for $0.50 a month.  An amaz­ing deal for the fam­i­lies for just the edu­ca­tion, but the chil­dren also get fed while at school and if they fall ill, a doc­tor or nurse is brought in to assess and treat the child.

A girl raises her hand in School

Attend­ing school is a priv­i­lege in Haiti and once the open­ing bell rings the doors of the school are shut.  If a stu­dent arrives after that bell they are not admit­ted.  That means no school for the day and, at least at the Ecole Enfant Jesus, no meal for the day.  You can be sure that any stu­dent who is locked out of school does not go home and tell his or her mom that he or she was late.  I have to assume that most chil­dren are never late and if they are, it is only one time in their life.

The Hait­ian moth­ers who bring their chil­dren with them to our amputee pro­gram send their kids to the school right there on the com­pound, as well.  This ensures that the chil­dren do not miss any part of their edu­ca­tion due to their moms get­ting the help that they need to move for­ward in their lives.  It is so impor­tant for fam­i­lies with­out help nearby to stay near each other so that the chil­dren are cared for and safe.  The col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Hait­ian Amputee Moth­ers Alliance and the Vil­lage of Vision for Haiti Foundation/Fondation Enfant Jesus makes it pos­si­ble for fam­i­lies to stay together as their lives are rebuilt.

Kids fly kites at L’Ecole Enfant Jesus

If you would like to donate to HAMA’s par­ent orga­ni­za­tion, Vil­lage of Vision for Haiti Foun­da­tion, you can des­ig­nate FEJ School or just School to sub­si­dize the edu­ca­tion and well being of a child.  As always, you can also donate to the HAMA pro­gram there as well and sup­port a mother who needs to get back home and back to work.   www.vvhf.org

The Hait­ian Amputee Moth­ers Alliance will be the focus of a Sum­mer Sol­stice Party hosted by The Spirit School in Salt Lake City.

Lucy, the founder of The Spirit School, has planned a truly mag­i­cal night.  Per­form­ing in her beau­ti­ful back­yard will be Bron­wen Beecher the Fid­dle Preacher and John Lou­viere.  If you have never seen them play, you owe it to your­self to come spend a cool sum­mer evening lis­ten­ing to some soul-stirring, live music.  Lucy will also lead a yoga class in honor of the return of sum­mer, focused on open­ing the body, mind and spirit to the sea­son of intense and beau­ti­ful growth.  If you have never done yoga before this might be a great way to try it.

Scat­tered through­out the gar­den will be the stun­ning pho­tographs of some of the women the Hait­ian Amputee Moth­ers Alliance is serv­ing.  Do not miss this last oppor­tu­nity to see the work of Pho­tog­ra­pher Stephen Speck­man and San­dra Wong Ger­oux before the exhibit moves on.  Stephen Speck­man is local pho­tog­ra­pher who has exhib­ited through­out the val­ley and has had his work pub­lished in the Deseret News.  San­dra Wong Ger­oux is a New York based pho­tog­ra­pher who uses her tal­ents to help var­i­ous non-profits.  Both pho­tog­ra­phers trav­eled to Haiti to doc­u­ment dif­fer­ent aspects of the work we are doing and of Hait­ian day-to-day life.

Please bring your­self, your kids, your favorite sum­mer dish to share with a neigh­bor and san­dals so that the sum­mer grass can tickle your toes a bit.

The events start at 6:30.   3819 South Hon­ey­cut Road, (1825 East,) SLC, UT.  Dona­tions accepted to Vil­lage of Vision for Haiti Foun­da­tion.  Please spec­ify HAMA project to ear­mark the dol­lars for the Amputee Moth­ers project.

First, the Ladies of Larch­mont, NY had their Caribbean Back­yard Bash to raise funds despite the unco­op­er­a­tive weather.  At the last minute they rented a tent to pro­tect party-goers from the rain that had been plagu­ing the area all week­end.  Red Stripe beer and rum drinks loos­ened up the crowd as they min­gled and danced to Caribbean themed tunes.  All the food and drinks were donated to HAMA by a core group of fam­i­lies ded­i­cated to the change HAMA is mak­ing in one cor­ner of the world.

Pros­thetist Joe Mahon at Recent Exhibit

Then, in Salt Lake the local chap­ter of Green Drinks, in con­junc­tion with the Urban Scrap Stu­dio and Bou­tique and the Flynn Artipelago Stu­dios, hosted an evening high­light­ing the work of HAMA and Ten Thou­sand Vil­lages.  It was truly a local event shin­ing a light on the inter­na­tional scene.  SLC locals of all ages gath­ered to social­ize and learn about the mis­sion of HAMA and Ten Thou­sand Vil­lages.  On dis­play were the HAMA pho­tog­ra­phy exhibit, hand­made craft­work from Haiti cour­tesy of Ten Thou­sand Vil­lages, and all kinds of locally made art includ­ing an art cor­ner where peo­ple could make their own recy­cled glass pen­dant.   Salt Lake’s only win­ery, Kiler Wines donated wine and Squat­ters pro­vided organic beer to drink.  Yummm:)

If you haven’t hooked up with your local Green Drinks orga­ni­za­tion, you should.  Check them out at www.greendrinks.org They are active in over 800 cities world­wide and meet once a month to high­light an environmental/social cause, eat, drink and meet oth­ers who are mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in their com­mu­nity.  Maybe you could host a Green Drinks evening to raise funds for Hait­ian Amputee Moth­ers Alliance!  We need you to spread word of the work of HAMA through­out your com­mu­nity.  Please con­tact me for ideas or with any ques­tions about our mission.