07/24/2020
Masks for Pen ak Pwason!
Of all my friends and colleagues in Haiti who are faced with the prospect of a growing COVID19 outbreak, I most worry about the ones at Pen ak Pwason. Many of our Pen ak Pwason guests fall in the high risk categories of being over 60 or having pre-existing conditions, including high blood pressure and strokes. As soon as the first cases of COVID19 were identified in Haiti, the Pen ak Pwason program offered pick up or delivery service to our guests and limited the number of people eating at one time in our small dining area. Our director and cooks, Somane, Marivierge and Marceline, immediately purchased masks to wear when cooking and serving…but our 100 guests come to the program because they don’t have enough money for food, so they clearly cannot afford to buy a mask. This weighed heavy on my mind.
Another project that I work with, Friends of Borgne, supports a sewing program at the Fondasyon Dauphin in Borgne, Haiti. Young adults learn to sew on treadle sewing machines and later earn money for themselves making school, band, and club uniforms. The sewing teachers and students agreed to volunteer to make masks for essential workers and community educators if Friends of Borgne was able to provide funds for materials. After a Gofundme campaign and a search for hard-to-find materials, they got to work. Within a few weeks they made 1,070 masks which were delivered to the hospital staff, Scout community educators, cemetery maintenance volunteers, and market vendors.
Then on June 22, I received a text that brought me to tears. The sewing program had also provided our Pen ak Pwason guests with masks! My heart feels more at ease knowing that the most vulnerable people in the community of Borgne have some basic protection.
I spoke with Somane yesterday and, despite a mysterious fever raging through town that no one wants to think is COVID19, and despite a lack of test kits, so far the virus has not been particularly devastating in Borgne. There are only 4 confirmed cases. And so far, by the grace of God, none of the Pen ak Pwason guests have been among them.
However, there is still an incredible need for food. The country has been shut down most of the last year—first due to political crisis and now due to the pandemic. Farms have not been planted, the work of normal life has not been done, and Haitian relatives in the US have not been able to send remittances due to losing their own jobs (or health!). Many Haitian diaspora live in NY and Miami, both of which have been hit extremely hard by COVID19. At the same time prices of staple foods have increased significantly. The World Food Program said 1 in 3 Haitians needed urgent food assistance before the pandemic even started. Gas costs more than $3, which further increases the cost of getting food to rural areas. Each day, many people line up at the door of Pen ak Pwason who are not part of the food program, hoping for leftovers.
Thanks to all of your support, we have been able to keep the doors open at Pen ak Pwason, serving our 100 guests and whomever else the leftovers will allow.
