Dear Someone Who Cares,

My name is Haeinn Woo. I am a Korean American student attending Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Last January I was volunteering as a doula in a hospital in a city called San Francisco de Marcoris in Dominican Republic with a non-profit organization called Proyecto Adames. One sunny Tuesday afternoon, I saw trees sway and felt unsteady on my feet. It was an earthquake. Hours later I heard that Port Au Prince, the capital of Haiti that was all the way across the island of Hispaniola, was destroyed by a terrible earthquake. The stories of suffering and desperation on the news urged me to delay my return flight back home and find a ride to Haiti. My heart told me I should go where there are people I could help. The Dominican Defensa Civil offered me a ride and a friend donated $100 via Western Union. With that money I was able to stuff a big dufflebag with canned foods and medicine from Dominican pharmacy. In the chaos of the emergency, it took me a week to get into Haiti. In Santo Domingo and Jimane, I met many other volunteers who came to help; from missionaries who have been running an orphanage in Haiti for many years, to a Canadian guy who left his vacation in Puerto Rico. I also met a Haitian man named John Peterson Raymond who came with us to help translate.

When we finally made it to the airport base in Port Au Prince, we were plunged into a chaos among the countless aid organizations that had arrived. Each organization seemed to be running on their own and nobody told us what to do. By then I had run out of time and patience so I jumped into a truck that was going to a refugee camp. In the truck there were medical missionaries from El Salvador with an organization called Operation Blessing. We arrived at a large tent community called Delmas 40 and set up an outdoor clinic. Soon people with injuries and children who were getting sick from lack of food and water made a long line. The refugees were living in tents made of sticks and sheets and waiting for hours to get a bucket of water from the water trucks. I snuck in cans of Ensure into the hands of mothers to prevent a riot over the very limited supply. At the end of the day, the Salvadorian doctors thanked me for bringing some important medicines that they needed to treat the patients. They said it was a miracle that I jumped into their truck. I was so thankful that I had achieved my mission to make sure that the donated food and medicine reached the people who needed it.

Later that evening, I went to drive John to his family in Petionville. He had not yet seen them since the earthquake. We drove up steep slopes and walked on rubble to reach his home. Petionville was a beautiful town built on a lush hill, but many houses had collapsed. I was amazed to see that his home, a humble structure made of cinder blocks, had somehow survived the earthquake. It was so moving to see John run up to his family and hug them. His mother, sisters, and relatives were very nice people. Too soon we had to return to the base before the roads without electricity were pitch dark.

Next day, I rode in one of the few ambulances left in the city to another tent town of 20,000 displaced people that had sprouted on a former golf course nearby Petionville. They had still not received any aid even though a week had passed since the earthquake. In fact, while we walked around to find injured people, a woman screamed at us that the foreigners were just writing down their names and doing nothing to help them. I felt so sorry and helpless as I gave away my last power bar to a pregnant woman who looked starving. I was appalled at a small boy walking around with some dressing around his cracked head. The air was thick with smell of burning trash and the only porty potty in the camp seemed unusable. A vendor told me that a cup of rice cost 40 Gourde, equivalent of 1 dollar, which was more than the average daily income of a Haitian even before the earthquake.

However, what struck me most were the kids who were playing soccer and flying handmade kites within the crowded refugee camp. Unlike the adults, who looked beyond miserable, the children actually smiled for my camera. Even in the midst of disaster and tragedy, these children did not lose their will to play, learn, and smile. Their smiles lifted my soul and convinced me, that the hope of Haiti are these resilient children. 

I came back to US for college and felt guilty and useless for a while. Then my Haitian friend John emailed me to snap me out of the daze and remind me of my promise. So I made a commitment to help OFPADAH build a school, and launched Hope of Haiti project.
OFPADAH connected me with a primary school in Pernier, in the outskirts of Petionville, that was in desperate need. Principal Dorce have been running this school since 1990. There are currently 135 students enrolled and 5 teachers. When we went to visit the school this past January, the teachers haven't been paid their salary which is $75 a month in quite a long time. So we donated what we can to cover their salary so they can continue to teach. Despite all their hardships, the teachers taught passionately, and the children were so enthusiastic to learn. We also paid the tuition for 20 students who could not afford to go to school before. Principal Dorce's dream is to see that every child in the community of Pernier can get access education. This is not an easy dream in a country where only 50% of children graduate primary school. As you can see. Rather than evacuating the orphans from Haiti to US, we should help the Haitians rebuild their own nation so that these children may have a homeland that they love and can be proud of.

. The teachers need salaries, and the children needs school supplies, clothes, shoes, and nutritious meals. We are supporting these tent schools while a permanent building is being built. There are many children who didn't have an access to education even before the earthquake destroyed the schools. These children get by day to day, scavenging food, getting sick from polluted water, with little to hope for. But the 12 year old Haitian boy who I met in Jimani shined my shoes for one cent with enthusiasm and fervor. The street children worked hard collecting plastic bottles to refill and sell. They are the future leaders of a reconstructed Haiti. And they deserve an education and a future, as all humans do.

There are good reasons to support a grassroots organization like OFPADHA. Six months after the earthquake, the situation in Haiti didn't improve much since the earthquake.The international community pledged their aid to Haiti and Obama administration pledged $100 million to their reconstruction efforts. However, so far, only a fraction the aid money has reached the desperate in Haiti. People like you donated millions of dollars  to Red Cross but according to a Haitian source, less than half of these donations have actually reached their intended destination. And from my own observation of chaotic coordination of aid a week after the earthquake, such as donated food rotting in the airport storage while food riots were happening right outside the airport, there seems to be more than enough reasons to not just trust big aid organizations to be delivering our donations to the people who need it. The big organizations seem to be hindered by inefficient bureaucracy and lack of workers on site.
(Source: http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2010/01/obama_100_million_in_us_aid_fo.html)

In contrast, OFPADHA was established by the Haitian community itself and managed by trustworthy Haitian community leaders who know their own family and community's needs best. Since these leaders are helping their own families, there is little worry for donations disappearing into the pockets of corrupted politicians. That's why supporting such organization is the most helpful way to help Haiti.

I returned to Haiti two more times to talk with the children, their parents, and the community leaders to ask them what they need, how we can assist them, and how this project will impact them and their community in the future. We will set short and long term goals and concrete plans to achieve them, make sure this institution is sustainable and run by motivated, hardworking Haitians..

I have been raising money through creative ways from auctioning Haitian art to selling bubble tea in the library of my campus. Each concrete block cost only 75 cents. With less than $10,000 we can build a permanent two classroom building with eco-friendly and earthquake-proof designs.  We also need to help create a fantastic curriculum, and train and hire qualified teachers.

I am currently working with Reader to Reader,  a grassroots non-profit organization at Amherst  MA on this project. I found many fellow studentsin Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and University of Massachusetts who are excited to help with this project. Won't you join our cause and help build a school in Haiti?


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Not only because a little gift can SAVE their lives, not only because they are the POOREST children in Western Hemisphere, not only because they are the FUTURE of Haiti, not only because you will be BLESSED for doing this, but also because you know you MUST.