Stories from the Field

Keeping Ahead of the Curve: Tackling COVID-19 in Haiti

HUFH medical and lay volunteers are working together with our Haitian team to intensify our efforts to provide lifesaving care in the face of COVID-19. These efforts are more important than ever, given the ability of COVID to overwhelm Haiti’s already extremely limited medical resources.

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Walking in Another’s Shoes-Understanding Why People Flee

What makes us care? What makes us want to help another person? What makes us want to make the world a better place? Is it empathy, compassion, or understanding? Is it learning the facts and educating oneself about the reality of another? In other words: walking a mile in another’s shoes. At Hands Up for […]

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Haiti’s Clean Water Problem and What We are Doing to Fix It

There are so many health and medical-related challenges in Haiti that it is often hard to prioritize who and what to treat. While the problems are numerous, the funds needed to tackle them are lacking. Malnutrition, clean water, helping mothers and children severely lacking in basic medical care – these are just a few of […]

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A Mother’s Pain; Her Baby’s Survival: From Anguish to Hope

A young mother brought her 5 month old infant to the Open Door clinic where our medical team was working that day. She told us that the baby was vomiting and having trouble eating. One look at the baby and we knew this was serious. An average 5 month old weighs about 15 pounds. This […]

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HUFH’s Launches New Hypertension Program: Healing, Teaching & Supporting

Dr. Marilyn Jacobowitz and I just returned from a trip to Haiti to launch our new hypertension screen and treat program. The lack of reliable follow-up and consistent access to medication makes it especially difficult to treat hypertension in Haiti and contributes to already high levels of stroke, heart failure and premature death. Through HUFH’s […]

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Hurricane Matthew Relief Efforts: Saving the Children

When disaster strikes a place like Haiti, the first impulse as a medical humanitarian organization is to rush a team to help out on the ground or send lots of supplies without knowing if they are really needed. But there are many ways to help in a disaster and one of the best ways for a […]

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A Donor’s Reflections on Her Impact in Haiti

I recently had the opportunity to go on a volunteer medical mission to Haiti with the nonprofit organization Hands Up For Haiti. This trip gave me the opportunity to combine my 25 years’ experience as a Registered Nurse with my role as Executive Director of the nonprofit organization Positive Legacy in an incredibly meaningful way. […]

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The Story of Jennie- The Challenge of Mental Illness in Haiti

  She walked into the busy clinic, a thin, quiet teenage girl who seemed frightened and reserved. Her name was Jennie and she had been brought to the clinic by her adoptive mother who heard that a Hands Up for Haiti team would be visiting the small clinic known as Shaddai in the area of […]

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