17036: Ray: 17031: jhudicourt: Re: 17029: Labrom: 17018 - Database forvisitors (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Matt Ray <mraymus@yahoo.com>

I'm not sure I understand your definition of a mission trips or perhaps you oversimplify.   I believe there are many kinds of mission trips.   Our group comes to Haiti at our own cost (as you explained), we have a staff of people we pay in Haiti.  They run the clinic and guest house.   We are training Haitians in our clinic and in our school to be rehabilitative and medical professionals, which in the long run will help the economy in Haiti (unless of course, they decide to use that training outside of Haiti).     Perhaps you're talking about missions who send construction teams over to Haiti and build things.    We don't do that, although there are times when we do need to build things at our guest house, at which time we hire Haitian laborers and construction folks.    We will typically send in someone from the US to oversee the project.

Is there a tourist facet to our work in Haiti?   Yes.   We are there to help Haiti and feel good about ourselves.    We do bring with us, however, people who specialize in rehabilitative medicine which is almost non-existant in Haiti.    There are no rehab centers in Haiti, or I should say very few.    We sent one of our Haitian prosthetists-in-training to the US to learn prosthetic work in Michigan for 6 months.   He is now back at the clinic working on fitting new arms and legs and other prosthetic work.  We have plans to send 2 more to Montreal for the same type of training.   These individuals will be providing a service that few others in Haiti can provide, and will probably be able to make a good living doing it.   Once rehabilitative care becomes more common-place in Haiti.     We currently are having a struggle, culturally, with the handicapped population in Haiti.   Regarding its handicapped people, Haiti is where the US was 50-75 years ago, in recognizing their abilities and their use in society.    Most handicapped children never excel and are basically outcasts.     We are working to overcome that stereotype.      In November, we are having the 2nd Annual (yes, the 2nd year ever) Disabled Awareness Week to try and help Haitians understand the needs of the handicapped in Haiti.

Keep in mind that one of our long term goals is to have a team of rehabilitative professionals in Haiti that replace the need for us coming at all.    We want Haiti to be able to take care of her own handicapped by having clinics all over the country and rehab hospitals where people can go to have their needs met.     If this isn't a boost to the economy, I don't know what is.     And then we can come down as "real" tourists!  :-)

Be careful not to lump all "mission groups" into one sterotyped bag.    We're not all the same.    Many of us are in Haiti for the long haul and have hopes of helping the economy in the long run even if our immediate goals are to only help the handicapped.

Se piti piti zwazo fe nich li.

Matt


Matt Ray
Healing Hands for Haiti Foundation, Inc.
4212 Danube Court, Bakersfield CA 93308
http://www.healinghandsforhaiti.org
mraymus@yahoo.com
661.588.4400 - phone
801.516.0168 - efax


>>> Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu> 10/24/2003 1:31:07 PM >>>

From: JHUDICOURTB@aol.com


In a message dated 10/24/03 9:22:51 AM, corbetre@webster.edu writes:

<< So its impossible to know how many of each of these groups are

coming in.  Believe me the Cruise ship passengers, the Diaspora and the

mission groups are the biggest - certainly not the tourists - shame shame. >>

Mission groups are tourists.  They come to see the poverty and want to feel
useful .They are just a different kind of tourism.  If they just wanted to help
the cost of their trip to Haiti would be donated and they wouldn't come.  It
probably costs about U$1,000 for each of these  people to spend a week in
Haiti if you include the cost of the ticket.  Whatever work they do could just as
well be done by a Haitian for about 5 percent of that cost.  Most of them do
manual labor which costs less than U$4 a day when done by a Haitian .One
thousand US dollars a month can hire a full time  young doctor .  The cost of the
trip for 12 missionary would cover a whole year to offer a full-time doctor to a
clinic.  So the missions are not economically a benefit for Haiti except as
tourism.