Health Care Nonprofit Provides Hope In The Face Of Overwhelming Poverty In Haiti

By Nancy K. Crevier

There are those that have nothing, and those with less than nothing, is how Newtown resident Kris Beckman describes the conditions in Jacquesyl, Haiti, where she spent one week this past January providing dental hygiene education and care to the residents of that rural town.

The January mission with Haiti Marycare was the second one to Haiti for the 31-year veteran dental hygienist. In February of 2008, Ms Beckman volunteered in the Cite Soleil slums outside of Port au Prince, accompanying Mary Lou and Tom Larkin, two of her patients at Dr Ben Frank’s in Danbury and the co-founders of the Haiti Marycare organization along with Sherman Malone of New Haven. Ms Larkin is a pediatric nurse practitioner, and her husband, president of Marycare, is an account executive. Ms Malone is a licensed clinical social worker, and along with Father Joseph Dorcin of Haiti, Marycare director Michael Cavanaugh, and a host of professional and layperson volunteers, they have been bringing aid to Haiti since 1999.

“Mary Lou was looking for someone to do some dental work, and I thought it sounded interesting,” said Ms Beckman. As a longtime youth group leader for the First Congregational Church in Bethel, Ms Beckman had been on domestic missions to help rebuild homes in poor regions of this country. She was not prepared, though, for the poverty and lack of basic hygiene that she encountered in Haiti, nor was she ready for the overly enthusiastic response her arrival elicited in the airport.

“The worst part for me, initially, was getting through the airport. I was bombarded by people wanting to help me with my bags, just grabbing at them and trying to snatch them away, anything to make some money. It was a little scary,” she said. Speaking only a smattering of high school French, she was further confused by the Creole French being shouted around her. Fortunately, the Larkins were there to guide her through the chaos, she said.

“Once I got out of the airport, and we were driving through Port au Prince, the appalling poverty struck me. Seeing these shacks, if you can even call them that, you wonder how people live in these devastating conditions,” said Ms Beckman.

Once she had the opportunity to assess patients, she was shocked, she said, at the “horrific mouth conditions. People are so poor in Haiti that they never have much to eat. One thing they do have is sugar cane,” she explained, and the constant chewing on the sweet fibrous stalks creates dental problems exacerbated by the fact that the villagers have no tooth care supplies or even the knowledge of how to take care of teeth.

The surroundings are not conducive to providing a complete dental cleaning, she said, so her focus both years has been mainly on education. “I go into the schools — there are two that have been established by Marycare, one in Cite Soleil and one in Jacquesyl — and with a translator, I educate the kids about dental hygiene. I teach them how to take care of their teeth and why it is important,” said Ms Beckman.

Along with distributing more than 300 toothbrushes provided by Dr Tom Valluzzo of Danbury, this year Ms Beckman was also able to provide a fluoride treatment for the children, thanks to the generosity of Dr Frank, who supplied the fluoride. “I had all of the kids swishing the fluoride around, but it’s like putting a Band-Aid on a surgical wound,” she admitted.

So badly rotted and infected were the teeth of the older Haitian residents, however, that Ms Beckman returned to the US last year determined to return the following year with the ability to alleviate some of the suffering. “I became certified this past year in administering local anesthetic,” she said. Armed with her new skills, this year she actually extracted teeth from some of the residents of Jacquesyl who suffer from severe periodontal disease.

It was a bit of a conundrum for her. “I’m supposed to be saving teeth, not extracting them,” she said. But the realization that extraction actually aids her patients there by relieving them of pain has helped her come to grips with that frustration. “Dental pain is just another part of their everyday lives. So if I can take away a little pain, it is better than nothing,” she said.

Appreciation

The people are appreciative of whatever volunteers can do for them, she said. “I found the Haitians to be so friendly and so loving. They love to see us come,” she said. Seeing how happy the children are for what they receive, and the joy of the elderly patients who thrive on any attention, is extremely gratifying, said Ms Beckman.

There is no electricity, no running water in the homes, and no sanitation in Jacquesyl, which leads to myriad other problems, Ms Beckman pointed out. Many of the men with families leave to work in the larger cities, leaving behind the women who must try to find a way to feed and care for their families. It is a nearly impossible task in a country that has only just begun to recover from years of careless governing and a ravaged landscape that no longer sustains the tropical produce that once sustained the Haitian population. According to Marycare, 123 children in 1,000 die before the age of 5 years.

One of the several missions of Haiti Marycare is to try to provide one meal a day at the Cite de Soleil and Jacquesyl schools. For most of the children, it is the only meal they have that day. Staying in a retreat center, where they had paid to have food shipped, it was agonizing for Ms Beckman to eat, knowing that all around her people were starving. “We would make peanut butter sandwiches and hand them out in the village, or I would bring small bags of nuts, or granola bars to give. You look at all the waste here in this country, and it is so hard. Even our waste would be more than what they have in Jacquesyl,” she said.

Haiti Marycare, a nonprofit organization, focuses on primary health care and prevention through education, has built a small clinic for basic health care, works with the Haitian Ministry of Health to see that children are vaccinated, provides home health kits for the elderly, and gives out Safe Birth Kits to pregnant women in the hopes of reducing the high mother and infant mortality rate. In Jacquesyl, funds raised by Haiti Marycare help pay for teachers and provide scholarship money so that older children can attend secondary schools in larger towns.

The organization also works with a micro credit group, Fonkoze, to assist poor people in getting loans to start businesses, and pairs with Dowsers International to teach locals to drill and repair wells. “In Jacquesyl,” said Ms Beckman, “there is one well at the edge of town. The villagers walk to it every day to get water, and of course, there is no hot water anywhere. There was a well in the town, but it was so filthy and awful. They were working on cleaning it out when I was there and making it clean enough to use again,” Ms Beckman said.

Water Contamination

One of the problems with wells near the residences, she said, is that the crude latrines that exist are too nearby, contaminating the water. “We try to encourage people to build latrines away from the homes. Marycare is trying to work on an agricultural program, too, to make the village self sufficient, so that they can take care of themselves,” she said. Traditionally a fishing village, the fisherman of Jacquesyl have overfished the shallow waters nearby, and with only rickety boats powered by sails pieced together from scraps of material, they are not able to safely go to deeper waters to fish. Turning to agriculture could help the population, she said.

Along with teaching dental hygiene to school children and providing what dental care she could, Ms Beckman also helped teach a program on AIDS awareness, and went into homes to teach good health habits and reach out to the people who were unable to come to her.

This year, Ms Beckman said that she did see some improvements in Haiti. “When I first arrived in Haiti, there was garbage everywhere in the streets. Now, the new government has started doing things to help the people. Even in one year, what a difference I saw: more building going on, more small shops opened, and it was much, much cleaner.” She hopes that when she returns to Jacquesyl in 2010 that the health habits she taught have been taken to heart, and that the 300 toothbrushes have been put to good use.

“This mission has made me appreciate what we have here in the United States,” said Ms Beckman. “It also has made me realize that I don’t need so much to exist.”

Haiti Marycare, which is not affiliated with any religion, relies on fundraisers and donations to assist in its mission to improve the lives of people in Haiti. “Every single cent that we raise goes back to Haiti in the form of medication, to pay for teachers, to support the clinic, and to support the people,” said Ms Beckman. A fundraiser held last year at Edmond Town Hall raised $12,000, she said, all of which went to Haiti.

On May 3, Haiti Marycare will sponsor an art show at the Bean Runner Café, 201 South Division Street, Peekskill, N.Y., from 2 to 6 pm, selling metal artwork made by citizens of the city of Croix de Bouquet, she said.

Ms Beckman is also seeking donations of school supplies for the 600 children in the two schools maintained by Marycare, as she has volunteered to take over the collection and distribution of school items. “We need backpacks, pencils, handheld pencil sharpeners, notebooks, crayons, and chalk,” said Ms Beckman. Soccer and basketballs that can be inflated, as well as pumps and pins for the balls, rubber balls, and jump ropes are desired for recreational activities. She has watched children play Jacks, tossing a stone in the air in place of a ball and using pebbles for the jacks. “These children have absolutely nothing, nothing at all,” she emphasized.

For $3, Marycare can purchase metal bowls and spoons for the children, and the organization would like to buy books written in Creole, as well, so monetary donations are welcome.

Sponsors are also sought so that the children can attend schools in other towns. $100 provides a uniform and supplies for an elementary age child, while $350 will support one year of secondary school for older children.

To donate, visit haitimarycare.org or mail a check to Haiti Marycare, 55 King Street, Danbury CT 06811; or contact Ms Beckman at hygenie001@aol.com for more information about donating items or the upcoming art show.