Here is an email I received sent by our Field Director.
Hello everyone,
We are practicing the virtue of patience with respect to helping Haitian children.
Today, Victor Herrera and I attended another large four hour meeting in the United Nations building in Santo Domingo that was changed from Monday to today due the child trafficking uproar over the last few days. We thought that UNICEF and CONANI were going to share the results of the hospital survey and they would continue with their request from last week that we take 40+ children (along with their caregivers) from the hospitals. This issue was not discussed nor was the information available. We did learn that UNICEF, which has been more assertive in this process, is now taking a back seat to CONANI because UNICEF is only here by invitation and CONANI is the proper authority.
Victor Herrera will go to CONANI in the morning and try to get more information. We continue to believe that we are uniquely positioned to help some children from this crisis and will pursue this end simply because we think it is the right thing to do. We have also made UNICEF in Haiti aware of our capacity though immigration of children presents additional issues. We think there are 160-220 children in DR hospitals and they will need to go somewhere at some point. This remains the most likely place for us to help.
We will wait to see what God has in store for us tomorrow.
Thank you for your patience and support.
I wanted to pass along the latest news regarding the possibility of receiving Haitian children in our facilities.
Today, our board president, Victor Herrera, attended another meeting in Santo Domingo regarding protection care of children in this crisis. The UNICEF, the Red Cross and CONANI are exerting more control and things seem be getting more organized. We are engaged and involved which puts us in a good position to use our abilities to help.
Here is what we are expecting over the next few days.
1. Tomorrow, the Red Cross and CONANI will survey all the hospitals in the country to understand how many Haitians need transitory care.
2. Monday at 9AM, we will participate in a meeting where these results will be shared and decisions will be made where children and adults will go who need to recuperate
3. Perhaps, Tuesday we will be able to bring some children into our care but many of these may come with a caregiver (e.g. mom, older sibling, aunt)
Apparently, there are not a lot of children in the country who are separated from family. This would make our role temporary for the recovery period and one of hospitality for the adult caregiver. In discussing this role, we feel it would be a privilege to help a child who was badly hurt in the earthquake in any way and also a privilege to show Biblical hospitality to their family. If this is the opportunity we are given, we will attempt to set up housing for family where they can visit children during the day but sleep outside of one of our facilities at night.
Finally, it seems that there is much tighter control being exerted to protect from trafficking or worse. This probably means no children would move directly out of Haiti any time in the very short term. In While this gets sorted out, we will continue to build capacity in Haiti, participate in the supply line work with which we are helping (fuel, medicine, food through the northern border), and care for any children that we can help coming out of the DR hospitals. I will continue to write updates as I have news.
God bless you all.
Here is an email I received this morning-
Many of your by now know this news but the much anticipated arrival of Haitian refugee children to our facilities in the Dominican Republic did not happen as planned. A week ago, we requested permission through the government agency through whom we report to receive any kids who had been separated from family that needed a place of refuge temporarily. They were grateful for our offer and said they would have children for us shortly. By the middle of this week, 26 children were identified that were arriving from the border to a hospital in the capital. Today, as planned, we went down with hired Christian Haitian caregivers and other Kids Alive helpers with the Ark bus to pick up the children. On the way, we learned the hospital wasn’t ready to release the children to us. Consequently, we went directly to the government agency where we anticipated we would get the help we needed to leave with the kids.
Over the next few hours we learned the following:
-the hospital controls the children more than our government agency at this point and they prefer to release this particular group of children to a group of nuns who are helping out patients
- there are relative few refugee children that have made their way to the Dominican Republic so the likelihood of having more children in the wings is not high
- there is no organized effort to import children here to get them away from areas of crisis in Haiti
While there, we participated in a meeting about child protection and through this made a few more connections(UNICEF, World Vision). These may help us connect with needy children. However, one conclusion from the day is that we should look outside the Dominican government to find children that need to be rescued from the crisis in Port au Prince.
We are ready more than ever to receive 50-60 children into our facilities. We have begun trying to contact others who may have access to children in immediate need and offer our services. We are continuing to help with supply logistics from Santiago to Cape Haitian and Port au Prince as well.
We are disappointed but not broken by the events of the day. We will see what God has in store for us tomorrow.
Thanks again for your continued prayers!
We are on plan to receive our first refugee children tomorrow. We will travel in the orphanage bus 2.5 hours to the main trauma center in Santo Domingo. We are not sure what to expect but have heard many of the hospitals are jammed with patients from the disaster. We learned that there are now 26 children slated to come back with us. The 27th child has an uncle whom they have located so will not need our help. We also learned that all the children are being given intravenous fluids to help rehydrate them. Apparently, these kids had been wandering in the streets of Port au Prince and no relatives were ever located. We suspect that they had gone a number of days without food and water. Though we are not 100% sure we can leave with all the kids tomorrow, we believe the DR government will want them out of the hospital so we are headed down and will be ready. We would like to be back in Jarabacoa before dark.
Our sites have been preparing and God has provided. We have Haitian care givers lined up for both ANIJA and the Ark from our contacts in the community. Interestingly, God has also provided a professional photographer in the form of a visiting team member who has agreed to go along on the trip tomorrow. Also, we are planning to seek donations of clothing and food through a network of local Jarabacoa churches. If successful, this will allow us to extend our financial resources further. We know we may be entering a chapter of life here that could last for many months.
Finally, our sites in Constanza, Monte Plata and Caraballo are also ready for children. We anticipate more will be available next week.
Thank you for your prayers and support. We hope to have good news to report tomorrow.
Click on the link "Donate to Haiti Relief" if you would like to contribute financially.
The big news is that we expect to receive up to 27 children tomorrow or Friday. A representative of CONANI (DR child protection services) said that they have transported 27 children from the border to a DR hospital in the capital because these children apparently could not find their parents or relatives and were wandering dazed in the streets in Haiti. The children are being identified and evaluated for trauma at the Contreras Hospital in Santo Domingo. CONANI want us to care for the children when their process is complete. Our plan is to move this first group of children to Jarabacoa then distribute them to the Ark, ANIJA and possibly the Ark in Constanza. As we receive more children at later dates, we will utilize Casa Monte Plata and the care center in Caraballo.
In other news, we helped with the logistics (money, containers, location) to send a truck with 1,000 gallons of fuel in small containers through the Dajabon(northern) boarder today. Interestingly, the fuel supply chain that we have been assisting has been so successful and necessary that reportedly hundreds of requests are being received in Haiti including one from the U.S. military. We also helped a Haitian doctor locate the medicine and supplies he needs for his hospital in Haiti through a contact in Santiago. Finally, we made more purchases of materials that will go over next week to set up the tent camp for 50 children at the current KAI site.
