SQ Foundation and Variety International joined forces to offer financial assistance and services to provide nutrition, basic health and necessary water development in Pestel, Haiti, to improve children’s health. A nutrition program was implemented to educate the community; implementing an anti-parasite campaign to reduce malnutrition; training new local health workers; build a basic health care organization with adequate facilities; encourage community participation and volunteers, and cultivate lasting relationships between partners; and bring safe water to 10 communities. This will decrease/prevent anemia, malnutrition and death from water borne diseases, and raise awareness that much of the world faces the crisis of lacking clean water and sanitation.
The medical mission has given life, and the water drilling project will sustain the life there. SQ Foundation has been a major part of this effort to give many children and villages clean water and understand about proper nutrition. The well-drilling project has literally been a life-changing effort. Diarrhea is the #2 cause of child death that is fixed by providing clean, safe water along with the hygiene program and promoting sanitation. Diarrhea in turn contributes to malnutrition (because nutrients are wasted and not absorbed). This in turn contributes to the #1 cause of child death in places like Pestel: pneumonia. Pneumonia can be treated and beaten, but we first have to deal with issues of water and nutrition. And the great benefits from the Vitamin A Campaign alone, reduced child death in Pestel by an estimated 500 annually! And implementing immunizations will make a huge difference also.
The work that the SQ Foundation and Variety International has supported in Pestel since 2010 has enabled a number of other organizations to engage with the area. The workers of the health group called APPAS, all Haitians, have been helped by providing them a source of income. These individuals form an important network of active community members. The area involves an incredibly challenging landscape of high-peaked mountains with villages scattered deep in the interior. So the workers collected GPS coordinates on about 230 villages in Pestel, which is 100+ more than the government knew about. We literally helped chart unknown territory.
Another group partner will use these coordinates to get help to these areas, and use APPAS workers to train the villagers about health education, hygiene, and sanitation in these remote areas. These coordinates are also used for the upcoming well-drilling project, to help identify candidate villages needing help.
SQ Foundation and Variety International have literally provided life-saving support for the people of Pestel, Haiti. Their ability now to interact with other organizations, like APPAS, is helping other organizations to step into Haiti to address important needs also. Our work in Pestel is having a big impact on these children and their families. The return on investment is huge! Once again…“SQ Foundation with very little makes big change”
