Circle of Health International's (COHI) team of clinicians and public health professionals traveled to Haiti in January to join HCM in marking the anniversary of the devastating earthquake that silenced 250,000 lives in 2010. We were there to remember the lives lost, to take stock of the healing and recovery that has taken place, and to plan for the continued reconstruction still needed in this special place.

COHI is an Austin-based NGO with a mission to provide maternal, reproductive, and newborn health services. We've provided care to over 3 million women, trained over 6,000 healthcare professionals, and placed 200+ healthcare professionals in volunteer placement opportunities. We've responded to 16 humanitarian emergencies and define our beneficiary population as women, children, and the healthcare providers who care for them in crisis settings.

Of the lives lost on that day five years ago, many were healthcare professionals in training in Port-au-Prince. The medical, nursing, and midwifery school building collapsed during class hours taking the lives of an entire generation of healthcare professionals. There were many, many more whose lives were taken before their time, and with all of them in our hearts and minds, COHI's team attended a moving church service in Fonds Parisien at HCM on Tuesday to mark the passing of all who died that day.

COHI's first steps to help in the recovery in Haiti began within days of the earthquake in 2010. Our clinical and public health team arrived into chaos and sadness, and did their best to care for the women who were delivering babies in the days, weeks, and months after the earthquake. COHI's first response team dug in our organizational roots during those weeks in Fonds Parisien with HCM, and the impact made here over the last five years is something that all of us who've lent a hand to COHI, Labor of Love, and HCM over these last five years should be proud of.

Photo Credit: COHI's Field Team

Over the last five years, COHI has sent over 30 volunteer clinicians and public health professionals to Fonds Parisien who have planted and tended the seeds of quality, accessible maternal and newborn healthcare. COHI helped to sustain the birth center and its staff in the years after the earthquake and turned over the support and management to Dr. Fogerty in 2012. They've done beautifully together. These seeds took root and grew into a birth center with three Haitian midwives on staff that assist in the delivery of hundreds of babies a year. This birth center serves as one of the only healthcare sites for the 100,000 families in the region and sees too many emergencies for both moms and babies.

On this most recent trip in January 2015, COHI's team assisted the midwives in the birth center, distributed safe birth kits and conducted training for the moms who will be using them, led a menstrual health workshop for teenage girls and distributed washable/reusable menstrual pads, conducted an assessment of the on-site pharmacy to determine usage of medicines and create a plan based on actual need, worked with the administration of the hospital to help to create a plan for moms with complications who need immediate and emergency care and medicines, led a training on birth trauma for the midwives at the COHI birth center, celebrated COHI's 11th birthday with a party (with a cake baked from scratch by Madame Betty!), and assisted with several deliveries and pre-natal exams. A busy and wonderful week.

COHI values its partnership with HCM, and looks forward to collaborating in the months and years to come as we combine our gifts to care for moms and babies. Labor of Love is leading the way at the birth center, and COHI hopes to identify a role for us there to be able to support the good work that Dr. Fogarty is doing. We feel blessed beyond measure by these partnerships and friendships.

In closing, COHI's team offers a deep bow of gratitude to Madame Betty and Edwens Prophete who hosted us so graciously, and welcomed the COHI team back to HCM with such warmth. Their shared and demonstrated commitment to the women and midwives in Haiti is tremendous. We are so proud to call HCM a friend at COHI. We thank you for all that you've done for COHI, and for the women of Fonds Parisien.

In gratitude and remembrance,

Sera Bonds, MPH  
Lynne Hudson, MPH, WHNP

 Austin, Texas 

Learning is on the move here. It is the modus operandi of this campus. The elementary and secondary levels already attract close to six hundred students. The translation school is going unstopping. This week it is the turn for preachers to increase the number of learners for three full days from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on campus. With three meals a day, no one goes hungry. Break is only for meals.

The interesting study on the parables has attracted 46 preachers and church workers coming from all parts of the republic. Most of them spend the night on this campus that has offered some commodities due to the large rooms of the new children center. It is amazing to see the rapid growth and the joy of brothers and sisters learning together.

Bethel Church continues to stand behind the training of the HCM preachers; Dorlus, Rosicler and I will not fail to encourage this effort tending to expand the epistemological horizon of our Christian community. After all, these precious student-preachers perform in areas where we cannot go. Please continue to pray that Haiti will continue to be saturated with the knowledge of the word of God through this training strategy.

With the KINGDOM in mind, the best is yet to come.

Etienne Prophete