a1402: Haiti featured in Newsweek Article (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

Press Release : World Neigbors

Contact: Kendra Fox
405-752-9700
Kendra@wn.org

World Neighbors - Haiti featured in Newsweek Article

On January 3rd, Newsweek Magazine’s Health Editor Geoffrey Cowley visited
World Neighbors - Haiti. He was writing an article about Bill & Melinda
Gates, their foundation and their commitment to global health.  On his
one-day tour he met World Neighbors program staff and visited project sites
in the mountains above the coastal town of Montrious. His article, “Bill’s
Biggest Bet Yet,” appeared in the February 4th issue of Newsweek Magazine:

“One of the Gates Foundation’s partners is a group called World Neighbors,
an Oklahoma-based organization that has worked in Ivwa since 1996. When the
group’s Haitian country director, agronomist Cantave Jean-Baptiste arrived in
the village, it still had no latrine.  Farmers were using sticks instead of
pickaxes to till the land and most were planting seeds borrowed from usurers
at interest rates of 200 percent.  Armed with little more than information,
Jean-Baptiste and two community organizers helped the peasants start a tool
bank, a seed bank and a savings-and-loan with assets of $2,200.  Thanks to a
Gates foundation grant, Ivwa also has a burgeoning grass-roots health program.

Launched in 1999, the Gates-backed health effort employs a pair of nurses who
travel from village to village, training local health volunteers who then
become teachers themselves.  Every Wednesday morning, several dozen
volunteers visit the area’s churches and outdoor markets to share the
insights they’ve gained.  Their tools are humble-condoms, chlorine tablets,
oral rehydration formula-but the knowledge they share is transforming.
People accustomed to blaming voodoo magic for their maladies discover that
hygiene and clean water count, too. Midwives learn to recognize trouble in a
pregnancy before it’s too late to trek to a clinic.  And couples discover the
link between family-planning and prosperity.  Statistics are scarce in this
region, but when the peasants met recently in Ivwa’s cinder-block meeting
hall, they loudly affirmed they were having fewer babies and seeing more of
them grow up.”


World Neigbors
4127 nw 122 street
oklahoma city, ok  73120
usa
1.800.242.6387
405.752.9700
fax 405.752.9393
info@wn.org
www.wn.org