UPDATE: Thanks to our generous donors, we have been able to pay Oliama to run a free clinic and we returned ourselves in September 2010. Your help is still needed — please read about how to help We are also planning to return in September 2011.

Our work has only begun

There are so many other earthquake victims who need our help. Our immediate plan is to raise $300/month (USD) for Oliama, the Haitian bone-setter and herbalist, to run a free clinic from his house in the slums. We are also exploring the idea of returning to Haiti to repeat what we did in March and run a full-scale naturopathic clinic.

An idea is born

While running the clinic, we had a definite learning curve. We realized that while what we were giving to people was very effective, we would soon run out of supplies and leave, and the patients would not be able to find a refill. While we were there, many patients returned asking for refills. The essential oils and homeopathics we provided were so effective in fighting disease that our patients were desperate for more. As we ran out of our supplies, we started to give out more and more local herbal recipes for treating anemia, high and low blood pressure, stomach acidity, and worms. We counseled people to eat raw garlic as an antibiotic and chew cloves against tooth aches. Slowly, a vision of an ongoing naturopathic relief clinic dawned.
 
Oliama, the local herbalist, bone-setter and midwife on our team is a highly qualified healer. Trained in the Afro-Haitian tradition handed down to him and his siblings by his parents and ancestral line, he knows all local medicinal plants, constitutional herbal prescribing, and is truly versatile thanks to his diverse training. A devout Christian and Man of God, we were thankful for his integrity, as well as the fact that he understood our efforts of bringing free healing to the destitute. He has long served his community as a midwife, delivering babies for free to the women of his neighborhood, who cannot afford a hospital childbirth or pre- and post-natal care.

Before the earthquake Oliama was already struggling to feed his nine children, laboring as a construction worker, and since the disaster he has been out of work. Before that, he used to work for the Haitian Doctor's Association, but he stopped working there because the medical doctors exploited his skills, underpaying and disrespecting him as a black Haitian folk healer.
 
After he began working with us, many Haitians discovered the value of his work and set up future paying sessions.  When the locals realized how much we respected and recommended his work, they began to see him in a new light and appreciate him much more. We also pointed out to people when we thought that their injuries needed more than one bone-setting treatment.

We therefore want to raise $300 USD per month to help Oliama open an full-time clinic from his home for the next year. Services would be free of charge for poor clients, and clients who can afford it would be asked for payment or co-payment. 

The goals of the clinic are to:

• Provide free natural health care to thousands of poor people in Port-au-Prince
• Generate local employment
• Feed one large poor family
• Increase the respect of local people for their own healing tradition and knowledge
• Include educational classes on herbal healing and preventive health
• Serve as the base for future volunteers from the West to come and help
• Enhance local self-sufficiency, rather than dependence

If all goes well we would like to employ Oliama's sister Eliane, who is also a midwife, herbalist and bone-setter. She lost her job as a housekeeper after the earthquake, and we feel her skills as a healer would be of great value to the community.

UPDATE - June 24, 2010: Guided by your feedback, we will be returning in September along with several other naturopathic doctors to run another clinic. We have also raised money to pay Oliama to treat patients from his house, and he has even made house calls for those who are too badly injured to walk. For more information, read Ven. Jinpa's June 2010 letter.