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24780: Hermantin (News) 'Mom' nurtures Haiti's future one child at a time



leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Fri, Apr. 15, 2005
ORPHANAGE
'Mom' nurtures Haiti's future one child at a time
BY JENNIFER SANTIAGO
jsantiago@wfor.cbs.com


PORT-AU-PRINCE -- It is 5 a.m. on a Sunday. The drool on my pillow hasn't even dried, and my sleep is suddenly interrupted by screams. ''That is the prayer I told you about,'' mutters Jackie from the other side of the room. A woman screeches in Creole -- her calls to the heavens then met by deeper voices joining in the pre-dawn prayers. I suppose if I lived in Haiti, I'd scream at God too.

It is my second day in Port-au-Prince at the orphanage that never sleeps.

I am a guest of Jackie Workman -- my roommate -- and administrative director of Christian Haitian Outreach. CHO is a faith-based charitable organization with a home office in Miami that owns and operates two orphanages in Haiti. One is in Mariani, just outside of Port-au-Prince. The larger of the two is about 150 miles west in the small coastal town of Jeremie.

I first met Jackie and the founder of CHO, Eleanor Workman, one year ago when they invited me to their home so that I could film a story for CBS 4 News. Then, the rebellion to oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was well under way, and daily acts of brutality were keeping Eleanor, or ''Mom'' as she is affectionately known, and her South Florida-based employees, away from their children. Now, a year later, with more than 7,000 U.N. troops in Haiti, the violence hasn't quite subsided. But we feel comfortable enough to travel to Port-au-Prince and beyond to check up on Mom's 200-plus kids.

It is a 45-minute ride from Guy-Malary International Airport to Mariani in more stop- than-go traffic. At first we speed by rows of decrepit homes made of corrugated tin and cardboard. Then, a protracted pause, while a man pushes a colorful tap-tap, adorned with red-white-and-blue dollar signs and crammed full of exhausted commuters, down the crumbling street. Like the tap-tap, things have a tendency to break down in Port-au-Prince.

My driver is Mayel Figero. He handles shipping and receiving for CHO. He is also an orphan. ''I lost my parents when I was 15. I was so skinny and so helpless. Without Mom what would I have done?'' In Haiti, according to the latest figures from UNICEF, nearly half the population is under the age of 15. It is a country within spitting distance of our own, and I suppose we've taken that whole spitting thing a bit too literally for too long.

When we finally arrive at the orphanage, home to 60, every one of Mom's kids greets me with sweet kisses and smiles -- smiles that don't exist outside these barbed wired walls. Here, infants may wait months before adoption papers go through. Some 200 children have found homes in the United States and Canada. The oldest, resigned to a life without parents, play soccer in a courtyard shared by grazing goats and broken-down schoolbuses.

One is 22-year-old Emanuel. But, here, everyone calls him Mano. The lanky, handsome young man wears his pants a bit too high on the waist by cool-American-kid standards, but he is top dog here in the orphanage. Mano is fluent in three languages, a testament to the quality of education that he received through CHO, which provides schooling to hundreds of area kids for free.

But Mano is taking an involuntary sabbatical. College is expensive in Port-au-Prince -- $4,000 per semester. While Mano waits for a U.S. sponsor, he spends his days mentoring the orphans and sharing his dreams with anyone who will listen. ''I want to be president of Haiti,'' he tells me. And I hope, for Haiti's sake, his wish comes true.

Jennifer Santiago is an attorney and Emmy-nominated reporter for CBS 4 News.