Stories of Transformation - more from volunteers in Lospinit (northeastern Haiti)

Noël Resimene, Community Health Evangelist in Lospinit

I've been in CHE [Community Health Evangelism] since the beginning, in 2000. We started with perinatal training.  I've had a lot of children. I took them to the hospital a lot, and they often had red hair because they were malnourished. I learned about nutrition in CHE and now my children are healthy.

I go to people's houses. When you go to someone's house you greet them. They have us come in, ask us to sit. We show them some things in a brochure. We see that they make changes – they have good latrines, they have Tippytaps [simple handwashing device]. They ask us to leave us brochures so they can continue to read. They make dishracks, they wash their dishes, they cover the clean dishes so that flies cannot sit on them and bring cholera....

I love all the lessons: how to wash hands, how to make water potable. I don't buy chlorine tablets anymore – we do SODIS [solar disinfection of water] so that we don't get sick with cholera.

Edner Exile, Community Health Evangelist in Lospinit

What I like about CHE is that when we are learning a lesson it's the same way it is when you are a child at school, you learn. Then after you learn, you go share with someone else. Then after we learn something they teach us something else so that we can continue to more forward.

I say all of this because once I had a problem – my wife was pregnant with our first baby. We lost the baby but it wasn't because we weren't doing everything we could: every eight days I had her get a check-up. I spent a lot of money, but we lost the baby. When she got pregnant again, with the second baby, we had success. Then she became pregnant a third time and lost the baby. With the lessons I learned in CHE, I thought about them, and realized we shouldn't try to get pregnant again right away. We should take a little rest. It's because of CHE I say thank you very much, they gave me this great idea to take a rest.

Amelie Jean-Baptiste, Community Health Evangelist in Lospinit

What I like about CHE is the Bible teaching. When you see a portion of Scripture, that really helps you. If you have a disagreement with someone we have learned we shouldn't yell at people. We have changed this and really behave better with people within the CHE group and with our neighbors. We even tell the children they should live like brothers and sisters and not argue or hit each other or throw stones and hurt one another. When there is fighting the children suffer and their parents suffer, too. They listen to us, and even though they still fight sometimes it's gotten better.

Augustin Viola, Community Health Evangelist in Lospinit

CHE has given me a lot of information, because every month I go to the trainings the trainers give. We wash our fruit, and when we cook our food we cook it well. They advise us to dig a hole for trash and to build latrines.

I didn't know about making a hole for my trash before. But I have one now. I really like this. When the hole is filled you cover it or you can burn it – that depends on the kind of trash. When you have papers you shouldn't let them blow all over your garden – we put them in the hole or burn them.

We shouldn't tie up our pigs in the same place where people go to get water. I didn't have pigs when I first started with CHE. Now I have them and I tie them under a tree. I don't let my children go over there without shoes so that they don't get worms. I have five children. I always have them put on shoes – even if they sometimes take them off!

You need to give your children a toothbrush so they brush their teeth every morning. Whether you're a child or an adult, before you go to bed you should brush your teeth again. Really, you should brush your teeth three times a day.

They taught me how to gain wisdom, how to talk with people – you can't just do it in any old way. You need to reflect. For example, in your neighborhood a neighbor's animals might come into your garden and eat your plants. But you shouldn't yell harshly at your neighbor, you should speak with wisdom.

Note:  the above stories were collected in 2013.  The Lospinit program remains very active.  Funds for my time in the northeast were donated by World Challenge, one of our Haiti team's major partners.