I have been to Haiti twice now. My first time was with an organization named STAND: The Haiti Project. I had an overwhelming experience that left me energized to learn more, but also absolutely devastated to learn that a place that is geographically close to the U.S. is so poor. How could this happen? Why did this happen?

I came home and read as many books as I could find to help me understand the history of Haiti. Here are a few books I read that I recommend if you want to start understanding what has happened and some of the things that have gone very wrong:

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

Teaching home exercises - calf stretches, to the PT students May 2018.

The Big Truck That Went By by Jonathan M. Katz

Haiti After the Earthquake by Paul Farmer

But don’t get me wrong. Haiti is a beautiful country with amazing, smart, caring people. I loved being there. And I wanted to do more than fly in and do one visit of PT with one of many who needs months and months of intervention, and fly home again. I started to investigate PT schools in Haiti.

It was a short search. I found one. The school I found is called the Faculté des Sciences de Réhabilitation de Léogâne (FSRL). It is over 8 hours from the clinic I volunteered at, but it is the only place in Haiti that is training Physical Therapists. I contacted the Dean of the school, a lovely woman named Janet O’Flynn, and asked if she needed a clinician PT to help. She immediately got back to me, and we started making a plan for my second trip to Haiti.

In May of 2018, I spent a week at the school in Léogâne, and then headed north to spend a week at the clinic in Port de Paix. I had an amazing time meeting the students, and then heading to the clinic to see patients. This past May, although I was unable to travel to Haiti, the students from the school were able to make their way to Port de Paix and treat side-by-side with the PTs volunteering with STAND. I was so happy to see students I had taught, at the clinic I had worked at, seeing Haitian patients!

I have now opened my own clinic, which means resources for me to travel and volunteer are trickier. But I am absolutely dedicated to helping the PT students in Haiti in any way I can. At my Open House last month, I did a donation raffle to raise money for the school. For the 4th of July, I am offering a donation based yoga class at Yoga Roots in Shelburne with all money raised going to the school.

New crutches with new padding, updated shoe, happy after many hours of waiting to be seen.

July 14th, I head back to Haiti to teach at the school. I have never been to Haiti in July, and I am a little nervous about the heat. I will be teaching a part of a course called Musculoskeletal 2, and I plan to cover the low back and hip. Maybe we will do a little yoga!