Team at the Warehouse

Many thanks to the North Shore Community Baptist Church in Beverly Farms for sending a team to work in our warehouse! They sorted soap, shampoo, vitamins & tylenol for our clinics in Haiti & Guatemala!

Tackling Guatemala’s Parasite Problem

“PID gives the poorest of the poor hope, above all, and I feel lucky to have observed it in action.”

Julie (right) and Rachel in the lab.

Julie Merriam went on her PID first trip at age 12. “The memory of seeing such malnourished kids, who were only a few years younger than me, still sticks with me,” she reflects. Over the next decade, Julie took two more trips to Haiti and two to Guatemala. These trips, she says, are what inspired her to become a doctor.

“During my sophomore year of college [as a pre-med student at Yale], I decided that I wanted to go abroad over the summer.” Having fallen in love with Guatemala during her two trips at ages 15 and 16, “I couldn’t think of anything better than to go back.” Julie teamed up with fellow PID pre-med intern, Rachel Cooper, and began working on a parasite project in Guatemala.

Food- and water-borne parasites are particularly common in Guatemala’s rural communities. Lack of knowledge and limited access to clean water contribute to the spread of infection, which leads to intestinal trouble and malnutrition, similar to what Julie witnessed on her first trip. 

 
Julie and Rachel spent the summer of 2012 screening kids in the village schools for parasites, organizing well checks and treatments, and teaching sanitation classes for kids and families. “It was an incredible experience,” Julie says. “We both returned the following summer to do a formal parasite study with PID and our respective universities.”

Julie collecting a fecal sample for her study,

They probed deeper this time, examining the efficacy of Albendazole (a common deworming drug used around the world) and gathering data on the demographic variables that contribute to infection. As part of this research, Julie and Rachel asked local families where they got water for everyday chores such as bathing, cooking and drinking. Many answered, “The river.” When asked where they went to the bathroom, many answered the same. “Hearing people answer, ‘The river’ for those questions was disheartening,” says Julie. “This is why the water filters that PID has installed are so important.”

Also important is hygiene education. “PID’s mission is to help people help themselves. I hope that by increasing awareness about parasites and how they are transmitted, people will be more conscious about how important hygiene and handwashing are.”

Now a freshly minted Yale graduate (May 2014), Julie is back in Guatemala again--this time with a 10-month Yale fellowship. She is expanding her parasite project to two new schools and will begin to map the prevalence of infection in kids younger than school-age.

When she returns to the U.S. next year, Julie will begin applying to medical school with the hope of realizing the dream that began during her early PID trips. “The doctors I have met on teams have all inspired me with the love and care that they give to each patient. Their mentorship has been invaluable. I hope to someday be able to contribute as they have.”

Be part of the solution: Learn how you can contribute to PID’s medical efforts in Guatemala.

Gustavo, a boy in the village, learning how to use the microscope and identify the parasites.

The Long-Awaited Administration Building!

Woohoo! This is a shot of Director of Social Work Mr. Genois standing at the entrance of our much-needed and long-awaited administration building on the PID clinic campus. Its right next to the clinic and will serve as the office building for department heads and directors.

 Up until this point, the heads of small business, sponsorship, administration and clinic were all sharing basically one office, so we are all pumped to have our own space. Its especially necessary for the social work/sponsorship department to have this new space, which includes a waiting room to accomodate Child Sponsorship families while they wait for their monthly follow-up meetings, drop off report cards, meet with Mr. Genois, etc. Previously they had to wait outside the clinic, in the patient waiting room, wherever. Needless to say it will be nice to have a designated waiting room for them. 

Gale is also here this week and helped orchestrate the move into the new building. She was also the one who made a pretty random (and lucky) discovery: the floor of the building (the brand new building) had a lot of white paint splattered on almost all the floors while they were painting the walls. It wasn't going to be the end of the world, but it was a huge shame because the floor design was actually really beautiful before it was ruined. We have tried like three different times to get the paint off with turpentine, etc. Well, Gale comes to find out that the magic combo of brillo pads and windex will take  the paint right off the floor. (Its like My Big Fat Greek Wedding- Baha!) 

So tonight Gale, Saintilia, Murielle and I cleaned one of the floors that way and it turned out pretty good. The floor design is cool- its like colorful swirls. Very artsy.

This is a short work week for the clinic and office- tomorrow is a national holiday so we will start off in the new office after the long weekend.

Will post again soon!

Agustin Toc Family : Transformation Tuesday

Introducing the Agustin Toc family. 

Single mother Dominga has 5 children. When we first met them Dominga was depressed and having thoughts of suicide. She confessed that it was usually her oldest daughter Vanessa (9yrs old at the time) who would talk her out of killing herself. Such a heavy weight for such a little girl. They lived in a small house made of scraps of plastic, tin, cardboard and bamboo. The only son Jackson was sleeping in a bed with a man who was in and out of the family's life. Dominga and her four daughters slept on the dirt floor. Rainy season was awful since the floors turned to mud. Dominga cried with me in my office because she couldn't go out and work to support her family because she couldn't leave her young baby alone. Vanessa would often go and wash dishes at a neighbors house after school to earn a little money to buy at least some tortillas for her family. 

Two children are now enrolled in PID sponsorship and the family received a house last year thanks to a church fundraiser in Ipswich, MA. They still struggle to make ends meet, but Dominga now has a job and they live in a safe, dry house. Dominga is usually seen with a smile on her face because she now has hope for a better future for her and her children.

Nicole's new home!

You may have noticed that we are starting to share some of the fruits of PID programs here on social media by publishing some before and after's with the hashtag #transformationtuesday. This is one of the first transformations I saw here in Haiti since starting my job here. JnOnes introduced me to Nicole (photo below) and she explained what her previous living situation was like.

For 7 or 8 years she and her son Christopher (now 8 years old) lived in the courtyard of an apartment building not far from PID. There was a rickety tarp structure on the property, but it left them very vulnerable to Haiti's harsh weather and also to their unfriendly neighbors. At one point Nicole's son was beaten up by tenants of the apartment building. Nicole then found a temporary housing situation through a local church and has been able to stay there for the past months. But that was only temporary. Now Nicole and her son live in a PID home. Last week when JnOnes, Mr. Genois, Wilner and I all handed over the keys to Nicole we also stood in the foyer with her and we prayed for her and her son.

Before:

Before: The courtyard where Nicole and her son lived for 7 years. The tarp structure is very similar to where Nicole lived and in the rainy season the family had to move inside the building to sleep in hallways or on the porch.

After:

After: Nicole's PID home just after we gave her the keys and prayed for her well-being.