Fwd: Update from Haiti

[Phyllis Kalifeh]

Please see the update on Paige and Jim's trip to Haiti. Please keep them and Haiti in your thoughts and prayers. 

Best,

Phyllis

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From Jim--A quick report from Haiti. It’s Friday night and Paige has ended another productive day by going to bed with the chickens at the guest house at New Life Childrens’ Home orphanage in Port au Prince. We started the day very early in Santo Domingo, where Bellinda had joined us late Wednesday. Amber Ramsey from Mobile had gone with us to Santo Domingo. There Barbara, a friend of Bob and Ellen Snow (Episcopal missionaries who had been Paige’s lifeline on the island when she first went down two weeks after the earthquake in Port au Prince), introduced us to Natasha, who directs a “micro factory “ operation at a local rehabilitation center. Natasha’s shop employs teen and young adults at the rehab center to produce hand-crafted child development and teaching products -- puzzles, blocks and other manipulative wooden items that are purchased by schools and childcare centers. That visit raised some interesting prospects on programs of this type that could dovetail very nicely with Project KID initiatives. \
That thought-provoking and instructive visit was followed by a chance to talk at some length with Bob and Ellen over dinner Thursday night. They shared some valuable insights on similarities and differences between Haiti and the DR, as well as their thoughts, born of their 15 years in the DR, about the effectiveness of faith-based and other NGOs in developing countries.
Which brought us to a Friday morning early flight from Santo Domingo to Port au Piince. We had come for what we thought might be the last trip for some time, given the seeming inability to conclude the process with the UN Child Protection subcluster with which Project KID has worked for months in a effort to become an “implementation partner” to this UN group. Paige, Bellinda and Amber had an excellent meeting with Virginia Perez, the head of that group in PaP, the upshot of which was Virginia’s assurance that she was confident that the only obstacle to Project KID’s getting a contract in that capacity with the UN was Project KID’s obtaining evidence of its submission of appropriate documents to apply for registration as a NGO in Haiti. Project KID Haitian staff has been working its way through that process for the past month, assembling the required documents and having them translated into French as is required, and there doesn’t seem to be much reason to think the required application receipt shouldn’t be in hand shortly. Virginia’s advice is that contracting would move quickly after that, and she encouraged the Project KID team to be thinking of how to mobilize once funding was made available.
All in all, a lot of learning and a lot of encouragement. Tomorrow we will help Project KID staffer Waldeck celebrate his wedding in Port au Prince, and so get to share in his climb onward and upward. That seems quite fitting, as there are signs everywhere that Port au Prince is slowly but surely digging its way out of the rubble and starting to rebuild. Say a prayer that all these things will come together in their


Warmly,

Paige

Paige Ellison-Smith, Co-Founder
Chief of Field Operations
Project K.I.D.
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