Stories

Our Stories: The Ophthalmology Team In Action

To save a life is to save the world. An ancient saying, it perfectly captures how our actions impact the people of Haiti. Here is one such story, related by Dr. Beth Bromberg, who recently returned from her annual ophthalmology trip. About a year and a half ago, Pastor Wiljean, who runs the Open Door […]

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NEW PROJECT UNDERWAY: Sponsor a Nurse

Bringing a Nurse’s Training and Compassion to Communities in Need We all know how important health care is to a local community, especially those in developing countries like Haiti. During her 9 weeks in Haiti late last year, Hope Bechard, R.N., a Canadian volunteer and HUFH board member, was able to observe firsthand how much […]

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The Sewing Lesson – or Murphy’s Law in Action

By Celeste Theis, a social worker recently returned from the January 2015 mission to Haiti: Our team of eleven, doctors, nurses, nutritionists, a social worker and an occupational therapist, and one volunteer from outside the health care world, came to Cap Haitien this past January on an HUFH pediatric mission. Some of us had been […]

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Sharing Haiti- A School Responds to Help

On December 18, 2014 the Middle School Student Council at Wooster School in Danbury Connecticut ran a very successful Holiday Shopping Bazaar to support the work of Hands Up For Haiti. The volunteers who travel to Haiti with Hands Up for Haiti on our medical missions become our best ambassadors. Last October, Dr. Eliot Barsh, […]

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A Most Challenging Mission-Part 4- Peacekeepers and Patients

by Mary Ann LoFrumento “There is a place in the city where no one goes and the children are very sick.” So reported Francisco, a doctor on the medical staff of the UN Peacekeeping force in Haiti. Our friends at Haiti Hospital Appeal had introduced us. Francisco is an officer in the Chilean battalion, the […]

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A Most Challenging Mission-Part 3 –Helping Two Sides of the City.

By Mary Ann LoFrumento MD It had finally stopped raining and the floodwaters were receding from the city and the countryside. As team leader, I breathed a sigh of relief. We had held one large pediatric outreach clinic the day before but the week was only half over and we needed to find more locations. […]

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A Most Challenging Mission-Part Two- Heartbreak in Shada

by Mary Ann LoFrumento MD It had been raining for days in Cap Haitien and the city and surrounding areas were suffering from serious flooding. The community of Shada, one of the worst slum areas of the city, was particularly hard hit. Many families who live in poorly built huts by the river lost all […]

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A Most Challenging Mission- Part One- The Rains Came

by Dr. Mary Ann LoFrumento This was my seventh Global Health trip to Haiti, and I felt very confident leading this team of fourteen doctors, nurses and volunteers. We had been planning for months and preparing for weeks. The plan was to arrive in Cap Haitien and then head west to the remote fishing region […]

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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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Hands Up for Haiti Opens “Our Door” for Pastor Wiljean and His Family

Almost every Hands Up for Haiti volunteer who has traveled to northern Haiti has been welcomed at Open Door in Bois de Lance. In fact, this clinic was the site of the very first medical mission in 2010 when the founding team went to Haiti after the devastating earthquake. They were welcomed at that time […]

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