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Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Haiti Needs Our Support!

I’ve been following the desperate situation in Haiti and the news out of there is just heartbreaking.  The Dominican Republic is right next door to Haiti, and while we have no reason to believe any of our friends there were seriously affected by the quake, we have yet to hear anything because of the poor communication infrastructure there.  We know that many of our friends in the Dominican had family in Haiti...we hope that their loved ones are okay.

Tonight at our bimonthly fundraiser at Poleng, we’ll contribute our 10% of the bar tab to Partners in Health.  Giving emergency funds can get kind of sticky, so I was careful to do my research.  The reason why I chose Partners in Health is because they’ve been in Haiti since 1987 providing direct health services.  They know the needs of the community and since they are well-established there, they have already set up a temporary field hospital.  Here is a message from their website:

"A major earthquake centered just 10 miles from Port-au-Prince has devastated sections of the city and knocked out telephone communications throughout the country.



In an urgent email from Port-au-Prince, Louise Ivers, our clinical director in Haiti, appealed for assistance from her colleagues in the Central Plateau: 'Port-au-Prince is devastated, lot of deaths. SOS. SOS... Temporary field hospital by us at UNDP needs supplies, pain meds, bandages. Please help us.'

We are still in the midst of collecting information from all our sites in Haiti, and determining how we can best help with the recovery efforts in the areas hardest hit."

If you can’t make it out to Poleng tonight, please consider making a donation to Partners in Health.

Our thoughts are with the people of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

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