13118: Charles posts: Retired Hershey doctor gives back to Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Philippe Charles <pcharles@us.ibm.com>

[Corbett comments:  Although this article is older I'm fairly sure we
haven't had it on the list and the content is not as time sensitive as
most "news" stories.]

Date: 07/08/02
Day: Monday
Newspaper: THE HARRISBURG PATRIOT
Section: A Section
Edition: FINAL
Page: A01
Headline: Retired Hershey doctor gives back to Haiti// School offers
poorest kids a meal, a chance
Byline: MONICA VON DOBENECK
Source: Of Our Palmyra Bureau
Subject: Profile;Charity


Dr. Rodrigue  Mortel  has started a school in Haiti for the poorest of the
poor. To choose students, he sends recruiters to the three worst
neighborhoods in St. Marc. They look for children whose stomachs are
distended from malnutrition, who live in cardboard boxes, wear rags, have
no shoes and sleep in shifts because there is not enough room in their
hovels for the whole family.

"I was one of those kids," the retired Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical
Center physician and professor said. "I got where I ambecause of my
education."

In 1985, Mortel  received the Horatio Alger Award, presented to those who
rise from humble beginnings to great success. He wrote about it in an
autobiography published in October titled "I Am From Haiti."

Mortel  was born to illiterate parents in St. Marc in 1933 in a one-room
stick-and-plaster house with a dirt floor. When Mortel  was 11, the family
was evicted from their sparse home because they could not afford the
$4-a-month rent. His mother, Lamercie, cried in despair and told her son,
"If I had an education, this would not have happened."

Mortel 's mother had always wanted an education and sacrificed to see that
her son received one. Although the family had little to eat, she traveled
from market to market, buying unfinished rice in villages, preparing it,
then reselling it. Sometimes the family's only meal was the chaff left from
the rice she sold.

Mortel  was smart, and shined enough in the public school system to be
accepted at a better school in Port-au-Prince and eventually into medical
school, although his sister Dinah had to drop out of trade school so the
family could afford his books and meager board.He was often hungry and had
to study under the light of a street lamp.

His intellect and enthusiasm eventually led him to graduate training in
Montreal, Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia and Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, where he met the woman he
would marry, Cecile. He was recruited to Hershey Medical Center in 1972.

Mortel , who specialized in gynecological cancers, eventually rose to
chairman of the obstetrics department, director of the hospital's cancer
center, associate dean of the medical school and internationally recognized
cancer specialist. He retired in December.

Throughout his career, he returned to Haiti every month or two to offer his
medical and surgical services. It wasn't until 1989, when his mother died,
that he formed the idea of starting a school in her memory.

The adult illiteracy rate in Haiti is 80 percent, Mortel  said, and one out
of every five children dies before age 5. AIDS is rampant, politics is
often corrupt, violence is common place and unemployment in St. Marc is 85
percent. At the same time, families are close and faith is strong.

Mortel  believes conditions can improve and that education is the key. He
wants his school to be for students who "most desperatelyneed a chance."

Many of these children are very intelligent, Mortel  said, and could thrive
given the opportunity. He hopes the youngsters in his school will become
leaders in Haiti.

"That is the goal," he said. "I may not live to see the result, but these
are the seeds we are planting now. In the next 20 or 25 years, we hope to
see good leaders in the country."

Mortel  established the Mortel  Family Charitable Foundation with his own
money and a $450,000 grant from Food for the Poor. The Catholic Archdiocese
of Baltimore has included the school in its outreach program to Haiti
because Mortel  is a longtime friend of Cardinal William Keeler, former
bishop of the Diocese of Harrisburg. Profits from Mortel 's book also go to
the foundation.

Les Bons Samaritains (The Good Samaritans) school opened in October with
its first kindergarten class of 60. The school eventually will go through
ninth grade.

Each year, a new kindergarten class of 60 will be added. Teachers are nuns
from St. Joseph de Cluny, who also run the best school in Haiti for the
rich. They had to start by teaching the children basic tasks, such as how
to use a fork and flush a toilet.

Since many students returned from Easter and Christmas vacation poorly
nourished, the foundation also set up a system to give each child at least
one good meal during the summer.

The change in the students in their first school year has been remarkable,
Mortel  said.

"At first they were shy and withdrawn," he said. "Their progress has been
magnificent. Although they speak Creole at home, within two months they
were singing the entire Mass in French. They do better than the students in
the school for the rich people."

The students will also learn English and Spanish. Adult literacy and
vocational training classes also are offered. Eventually, Mortel  would
like to establish a trade school for graduates of his program and set up
scholarships for the brightest to study abroad.

"What Haiti needs most is a school to prepare leaders," Mortel said.
"Education can take you anywhere."

It costs about $300 a year to provide each student with tuition,books, two
meals a day and medication. Among local sponsors arechildren at Holy Spirit
Catholic Church in Palmyra who raised about$1,000 during vacation Bible
school in June.

Earlier, an 11-year-old girl who attends St. Joan of Arc asked
forcharitable donations to the school instead of birthday presents.

MONICA VON DOBENECK: 832-2090 or mdobeneck@patriot-news.com


To order a copy of Dr. Rodrigue Mortel 's
autobiography, call (888) 355-6065 or go to www.mortelfoundation.org.