Haiti

Haiti

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For the first time, I decided to go on a mission trip. A friend at work has been working through his church for 20 years with a orphanage in Haiti. This year I will be joining him, and his team.

A big thank you to Dave and Caryn Wooster for giving me, and two other Cisco colleges the opportunity to help this small part of the world.

Haiti is a very economically depressed part of the world. According to Wikipedia that 3/4 of the population live off of less than $2/day or less than $300/year. 

The world fact book (aka CIA) has 32% of the population younger than 14, and less than 10% will live beyond age 50.

The country is on the same island as Dominican Republic with a GDP of $76 Billion compared to Haiti with only $8 Billion. 

Currently the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti has experienced political instability for most of its history. A massive magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010 with an epicenter about 25 km (15 mi) west of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Estimates are that over 300,000 people were killed and some 1.5 million left homeless. The earthquake was assessed as the worst in this region over the last 200 years.

For the trip we will be working in the Port Au Prince area (the capital city of Haiti) at the Kai Papa Orphanage, a partner of My Neighbor’s Children, our hosting organization.

Step one for me in getting ready is vaccinations. CDC recommends a bunch of them. I started most of them, but as I decided to take this adventure in September and the trip is in November, it turns out the some are only going to be ‘partially’ covered, as it take 2-3 shots over 6 months.

I will post with the Category of ‘Haiti Mission Trip’ and you can filter on them based on the menu above.