Healthy Mothers, Healthy Children in Rural Haiti

Chateau, the community we serve, was affected by the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti on Saturday, August 14.

Thankfully, Chateau has reported no fatalities. However, there has been significant structural damage to the clinic and staff residence that CORRECT Health in Haiti helps to fund, as well houses in the local community. The reality in such a low income area like Chateau, is that people often must make the difficult choice to prioritize basic needs, such as rebuilding their homes and paying for their children's education, over health care needs.

The clinic staff has been hard at work providing much-needed care to local community members since the August 14th earthquake. Thanks to your generous donor support during last year's campaign, we were able to finalize the clinic's new maternity room in March 2021. Since then, our Head Nurse, Miss Donia Samedi, has helped to safely deliver almost 20 babies at the clinic! We are encouraging more and more pregnant women to utilize the clinic as a safe setting for deliveries, in case of any complications.

We also believe in incorporating traditional practices, so we are working together with local midwives, known as matwon in Haiti, to ensure the best possible care for our expecting mothers.

This is our first project report since launching the successful donation campaign in September 2020 to support Healthy Mothers, Healthy Children in rural Haiti. Infinite thanks for your generous support, which has allowed us to lay the much-needed foundation for our initiative to increase the number of pregnant women who attend the minimum four prenatal care visits recommended by the WHO.

Since receiving your supoort, our first step has been to construct a maternity ward at the medical clinic in Chateau. This maternity ward is equipped with running water and electricity thanks to our solar power system. We are currently working in conjunction with Haiti's Ministry of Health to help equip the maternity ward with supplies and equipment we will need to ensure safe deliveries.

Our next step will be to hold sessions to properly train traditional birth attendants, known as matwon, on safe delivery, immediate newborn care and health clinic referral signs, and provide them with clean delivery kits for safe births.

Thank you for your support and we look forward to keeping you updated as we progress!