DAY 1 ARRIVAL…INTRODUCTIONS…MEETING KIDS NEW LIFE: Started finishing off my long and adventurous journey back from the WFOT council meeting in Medillin, Columbia that morning. My last flight from Miami to PAP was at 7AM and so I landed in PAP at 9 AM. Instead of heading straight to New Life and waiting for the team there I had time to travel to Santo 5 to visit my friends Megan and Courtney and to to drop my stuff off (they have become home base/central station). They were both having a very rough week and I was so thankful that it worked out for me to come and spend a few hours encouraging them and just being there to listen. I am thankful for the friend Jimmy who was able to drive me to New Life in the afternoon.
The team arrived at new life a few hours before me and when I got there they were already over at the special needs home. I walked over and got to meet the team and love on some of the kids and introduced myself to the staff. They were very excited to hear that I lived in Haiti and helped run a special needs home and outreach program for families with special needs children.
I spend a lot of time loving on Lunas. She wanted me to put her on the matt and so I did. Once on the matt she went up on her knees and was trying to balance in tall kneeling. A few minutes later she asked to go for a walk. I quickly realized she had more physical skills that at first appearance. She had good active stepping with Mod A for balance. She was so EXCITED to be out of her chair and able to walk. (fast-forward to wednesday and we were able to bless Luna with a walker which was donated from a family at Cincinnati Children’s. Luna went from wheelchair bound to independent!!!!! Luna loves her new walker!!! She walked around for like an hour and would not let anyone help her.
At dinner I had a chance to get to meet the students and other leaders that had come. Prior to coming into this trip I really only knew Meg (an OT professor from ISU) who agreed to lead this trip. I felt bad but I went to bed shortly after dinner as I had not slept more than a couple hours in the past 35 hours and I was exhausted. I knew I needed to get sleep to get prepared for the week. It was hard to go to bed and not work on figuring out the plan for the week or spending time getting to know the students.
Day 2- MINISTRY at Hope Home
Monday morning we left around 9AM to head to Hope Home (which is another special needs Home in PAP. They have 26 kids that live there. The plan was to do work at both Hope Home and New Life.
I always love seeing Haiti afresh through the eyes of new visitors. I loved listening to all the talk about the tap-tap…things they saw as we drove…At one point someone commented on how I was not holding on, drinking my morning tea and so laid back…like it was just another morning commute for me….lol On the way to Hope Home the truck overheated and we had to stop and wait for them to bring us a new vehicle. I kept thinking welcome to Haiti :-) lol. We happened to break down outside a school that was doing their testing. We were able to love on the kids that had finished and blessed the school with a kids Bible on creole and side walk chalk for the kids during recess. The kids that had Finished exams got stickers. Love how the team is eager to take advantage of every opportunity. Back on the road again in a different vehicle.
When we arrived at Hope home we received a tour from the Canadian Therapy group that we would be serving alongside. It was exciting to receive a tour of the new school building (last time I visited Hope Home it was just the concrete slabs with no walls or roof.). The school with not only have regular classrooms but also special education classrooms.
 |
| The view from the second floor of school |
 |
| The regular orphanage |
 |
| the view from the second floor of school |
 |
| The new special education classrooms. It is 2 rooms with an open doorway between |
 |
| The ramp up to the special education classrooms. |
After the tour since the ISU team did not have specific plans for the week I highly recommended that we sit down with the leadership at Hope Home to see what their biggest needs were, how we could help move their vision forward and what we could do to work on something that would be sustainable after we left. I knew going into this trip my role was to organize and help plan what would be practical, sustainable and most valuable to both Hope Home, New Life and the students. bringing to the table my experience in Haiti, the culture and therapy experience. I spent the majority of my day collaborating with the leaders of each program and the other leaders of the ISU team.
So by the end of our meeting with Hope Home and later in the evening a meeting with New Life staff the following is the plan that we came up with….
At Hope Home: They are finishing the building of a special education and regular education school and asked if we could help prepare for the opening by completing school readiness evaluations on 14 of the kids. So Lori, Rosie and I stayed up till 1AM creating a functional school assessment evaluation form. From the evaluations we will create therapy and educational plans for each of the kids. We would also be creating boxes for various stations within the new education room (FM stations, GM stations, sensory station, visual-perception, visual-motor, etc.). We had a builder with us who will be making adjustable height tables and possibly some of the shelving units. We will also help with a few positioning and assistive tech needs for a few specific kids, and perform some training with the 5 rehab techs that work there as well. We were blessed to be there serving alongside and at the same time as a group of therapists from Canada who have been investing and helping develop this program for the last 20+ years.
At New Life we will be playing with the children and helping to improve their positioning equipment using Cardboard carpentry techniques, fixing/adjusting wheelchairs, etc.
The students did Awsome job the first day jumping in and playing with and treating the kids while the leadership had planning meetings all day!
I was definitely brain dead after 14 hours of thinking and planning and creating a new eval form the first day!
DAY 3- HOPE HOME
This was day 1 of implementing the new evaluations. Since we finished creating the functional school evaluation form at 1:30AM before heading to Hope Home we had the adventure of making copies on the way. Once we got to Hope Home we split into 3 groups (2 students, 1 therapist, & 1 translator per group) and completed an evaluation. After lunch each student took their own child and we the therapists floated around and helped. In total 9 evaluations were done!
While we were evaluating our carpenter was hard at work building the adjustable night table/desks and starting on the shelves.
When we got back some of the students and I went to the toddler house and decompressed from the day holding and loving on babies
After dinner we had a quick team meeting followed by typing up 3 evaluation (each group worked on their 1st evaluation) and created educational treatment plans and therapy treatment plans for each child.
I am so impressed with these students and their hardwork, processing skills, and knowledge application. They were learning so much and were so eager to learn and not afraid to be hands on! Way to go girls!!!!!
DAY 4- HOPE HOME and NEW LIFE
We all decided to sport our fountains of hope shirts for this day and so we took a group picture. The little boy in our picture was abandoned the day before at Children Health Ministries and was brought to New Life Ministries this morning. Our team enjoyed loving on the little guy while the staff that brought him were waiting to talk to new life ministries staff. Please keep this little guy in your prayers. All we know is that he is 3 years old. Pray for his mom who was obviously overwhelmed and felt she was out of options and was trying to do what was best for her son. Pray for her heart and pray that if it is Gods will the may be reunited.
The students continued evaluations with the goal of finishing up all the evaluating by the end of the day.
 |
| The Students even worked through lunch to be more efficient with paperwork |
I spent all morning working alongside one of the rehab techs at Hope Home to adjust this Awsome stander for sweet Marvins. I really think this will increase his Functional Mobility and strengthen his legs in preparation for walking. A huge shout out to Julie Hartsel Gerdes who facilitated a family donating it and getting it to the ISU OT team to bring in (she also was the one to get the walker we gave to Luna donated).
By the end of the day we had finished the rest of our evals at Dora's and got to come back to New Life early. We went right back to work helping Rosie with cardboard carpentry (as she stayed behind to start assessing the equipment situation and the work that needed to be done at New Life). She had made several lap trays and slant boards out of cardboard and was working on a few bucket seats. We help with cutting cardboard shapes out make PVC toy hanger mobiles. We had the chance to just play with the children and offer them love and attention. They couldn't get enough and neither could we!
DAY 5- NEW LIFE and FSRL OT/PT School LEOGAN
On this day the students, Meg, and Lori stayed at New Life to help watch the kids while the staff at New Life had a meeting. They also worked on bucket chairs, toy hangers, and making footplates for some wheelchairs using PVC and cardboard carpentry techniques in the morning and then they spent the afternoon at the beach, visit cite Solail, and visited the memorial for the earthquake.
 |
| Working at New Life on Projects |
 |
| BEACH TRIP |
 |
| City Solail loving on the kids |
 |
| Memorial from the Earthquake |
Rosie and I went to Leogane to FSRL and taught the therapy students intro to Adaptive equipment OT and PT perspectives. My favorite part was at the end hearing each of their stories of why they wanted to become therapists
When we returned we were overwhelmed by the amount of work that still needed done and so got right back to work. Many of the tools went missing in the morning and so we started out making an inventory of what tools were missing. Then proceeded to working on the 5 bucket chairs. The students worked on finishing the paperwork with their evaluations. It was a late night. Rosie and I learned that we may get slap happy and a little crazy when we are exhausted but we made a lot of memories…lol
DAY 6- NEW LIFE and HOPE HOME
Friday was an extremely busy day we but got a lot accomplished. It was our last day visiting Hope Home and my last day with the ISU OT team. We got a late start as the traffic in PAP was a disaster because of a bridge collapse. But the students got to implement their treatment plans for the 14 kids they evaluated (which was a highlight for the students getting to do a treatment session with their kids).
The guys installed all their Amazing carpentry projects they worked all week on for the new special education school.
We also created an interactive alphabet walk in the one classroom with foam alphabet floor tiles and Velcro. And finished the boxes for the different educational stations.
The students worked really hard to finish all the paperwork involved with the evaluations and drop pictures of best positioning into the evaluations before we left.
Before the students left they handed out candy to the orphans and got a group picture with them :-)
When we left we were able to hand over the evaluations with therapy and educational treatment plans. Rosie stayed back at new Life to finish fixing wheelchairs and to finishe the 5 bucket chairs we made.
I then left for Greasier as I have a HAOT meeting this afternoon in Leogane but saw on Facebook all the work the students helped finish last night including making a pirate ship out of PVC, ductape and other left over supplies and they finished the PVC mobiles.
Day 7- NEW LIFE
The team did not fly out of Haiti till 5PM and so they spend the morning at New Life finishing up projects and loving on the kids. I loved seeing pictures of them delivering the bucket chairs, seeing the kids enjoy their pirate ship, and finishing the toy hangers.
What an incredible team we had!!! The students worked incredibly hard and used their critical thinking skills and creativity all week. This was their spring break and I guarantee they worked harder than any week in college. I am So proud of them. I loved watching them love on the kids, See their eyes light up when they saw progress in a child or realized a treatment plan would work. I am excited to see what God has in store for each of them and I hope to maybe see them each in Haiti again!
Also a HUGE shout out to Bill from Fountains Of Hope ministry who help coordinate and do all the logistics for travel for this trip. I also wanted to share that while we were in Haiti Bill installed a water filtration system at a church in City Solail which will help a entire community with clean water.
One more big shout out is to Alex and Susan at ADA...As if it was not for them Meg and I would have never been connected with Rosie!!! Cardboard Carpentry and Adaptive Design ROCKS!!!! YAY for creativity and using what you have!!!!
FUTURE THOUGHTS...PLANS...
One of the things I challenged the ISU OT students to is to think about how they could make a lasting difference...One thing we discussed this week was about challenging the ISU OT and PT departments and students to consider taking on the challenging of raising $ to pay a Rehab Tech Salary for the children at New Life. Currently their is only a Rehab Tech coming 2 morning a week (and this is not consistent). Their are 26 children with severe disabilities that desperately need weekly therapy. There are trained Rehab Techs ready to work just no funding. If the student OT and PT associations raised the $ throughout the year these children could receive much needed therapy. And if ISU students went down yearly on a service trip they could update treatment plans and train the Rehab Tech empowering him to do even better therapy.
No comments:
Post a Comment