Haitian association remains in it for the long haul

    Through medical missions, art projects, book bag drives and more, the Association Haïtienne de Développement Humain, Inc. (AHDH), in New Orleans, has been making a difference for Haitian people since its founding in 1985.
    “We’ve been in existence for a long time and have helped the Haitian people a lot,” co-founder and board member Fenelle Guillaume said. “Whatever we do is uplifting that community.”
    Co-founder and association treasurer Dr. Charles Rene is currently on his 56th medical and educational mission in Haiti through Feb. 17. On this trip, he has a team of volunteers providing pediatric, cardiology, gynecology, dentistry, optometry and midwifery services as well as medicines to Haitians. Last year, 122 volunteers went on three mission trips.
    “Our missions are two-fold,” association president Yvelyne Germain-McCarthy said. “To improve the health and education of Haitians here and in Haiti,  and to share our cultural heritage in the community at-large. People fail to see the richness and culture of Haiti.”
    Germain-McCarthy said Haitian Association for Human Development (AHDH) board members are Haiti-born and found a common purpose when they moved to New Orleans – to help Haitians living in New Orleans through health fairs and tutoring.
    Over the years, donations have made it possible to expand medical care in Haiti, she said, with 100 percent of donations going directly to Haiti. Board members and volunteers who go on mission trips not only pay their way 100 percent, they also donate their services and medical supplies for the trip.
    After Katrina in 2005, the association’s focus shifted to mission trips, due mostly to Haitian New Orleanians being scattered nationwide.
    Then the 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, and the association’s energies concentrated on rebuilding efforts in Ridore in La Vallee de Jacmel in northern Haiti, around Port-au-Prince in Riviere Froide (Germain-McCarthy’s hometown) and also Grand Boulage (Guillaume’s hometown), northeast of Port-au-Prince.
    Over the past few visits, Rene, a gynecologist, has overseen construction of a hospital next to a medical clinic in La Vallee de Jacmel that the association has been supporting for years through medical services and supplies. The clinic now has electricity, a full-time doctor and nurse, and the ability to provide sonograms and X-rays and even ophthalmology services.
    “It’s becoming a full-service clinic,” Germain-McCarthy said. “Our challenge is once it’s built, how do we fund the staff to keep it going?”    
 Rene handles the medical aspect of each mission and assesses what’s necessary at the clinic and hospital for the next trip, but other board members also contribute.
Personal connections
     A math educator by profession who has recently retired from the University of New Orleans, Germain-McCarthy said she left Haiti with her family at age 6. Her dream of returning was realized after college graduation. When she visited, she would see people struggling and think she could be one of them. She knew she had the ability to help and has worked to do that ever since.
    In 1994, she adopted a son from Haiti who is now studying at Spring Hill College in Mobile.
    “You have to give back,” she said. “That’s why you are here (in America) and not there (Haiti) struggling. With the gifts I’ve gotten from God, I think of what more I can do. I put it in God’s hand of how much more I can do.”
    On her last visit in August 2012, she organized a week-long art camp and a field trip with 80 children to the Haitian Museum of History. Germain-McCarthy brought the supplies, paid a local Haitian artist to lead it in Riviere Froide and left money for art to continue after the trip.
    “Everybody can do art at some level,” Germain-McCarthy said. “We try to engage children at any level.”
    A nonprofit University of New Orleans’ photographers group called One Bird accompanied her and held a photography camp for children. The photographs shot by the Haitian children were exhibited at UNO, sold for $400 and the money was used to buy cameras to give to Haitian children.
    “We want to do something that doesn’t stop when we leave,” Germain-McCarthy said.
    After the earthquake, Germain-McCarthy learned from discussions with  children, merchants, activists and even resort owners that education was the biggest need. So, the Haitian Association supports school rebuilding efforts throughout Haiti, including construction of a school classroom in Grand Boulage at Our Lady of Sorrows in Grand Boulage that Guillaume helps spearhead.
    “We’ve been helping Haiti with education and medical services,” Guillaume said.
    To sustain the medical services, the association also is providing tuition and boarding fees for a dozen students to study nursing at the Universite Notre Dame d’Haiti.
    “So they can come back and help the community,” Guillaume said.
    “There’s a lot going on and a lot of people benefit from what we are doing,” Guillaume said.
    For more about the association, email Dr. Charles Rene at [email protected] or visit www.haitiahdh.org. Mail donations to: AHDH, P.O. Box 2883, LaPlace, LA 70069.
    Christine Bordelon can be reached at [email protected].