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Here's Why Haiti Will Go Down as the |
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There are few trees in Haiti. Between expelled dictators selling timber and the demand for cooking and fuel wood, less than 2% With such few trees, plywood and lumber have to be imported from the U.S., and is too expensive to be used for most buildings. Rocks are everywhere. Imagine your front lawn being replaced by gravel. These rocks are ground down into weak cement, which is used to construct frail cinderblocks. You have to hold them from the bottom when you carry them so they won't crumble. They remind me of mud pies that my kids make. Most builders put sheets of reusable plywood across cinderblock walls, and then shovel concrete on top of the plywood to make the roof and ceiling. As buildings get older, these roofs start to cave in, often crushing the people below. Shake the ground with an earthquake and they fall apart.
So what’s next for Haiti? Food The average Haitian worker earns $1 per day. Forget about sending the kids to school, their goal is to provide one meal a day. When the world's corn prices rose two years ago because of ethanol demand, desperate Haitians protested in the streets. Disruption from this earthquake will cause food prices to skyrocket again, causing tens of thousands of people to starve. Children Thousands of kids will be orphaned. My son and I stayed at two overburdened Haiti orphanages. Babies are dropped off outside the front gate, right on the side of the road. The orphanage won’t touch or help the baby for 24 hours, hoping that the mother will reclaim the child. The infants scream until they give up or become too hoarse. Sometimes the mother caves in and takes her baby back. If not, the orphanage has to figure out how to support another child with their limited resources. I can’t imagine where the earthquake orphans will go.
Medical Haitians take weeks to heal from minor cuts and abrasions, since their diet consists of starch and fruit... virtually no protein. Without protein, you heal slowly. Combine that with poor sanitation and dirty water, and your likelihood of life threatening infections is high. While in Haiti, I met up with a surgeon friend on a medical mission. I watched him turn away half of his patients because their infection risk was more dangerous than their ailments. Sadly, many earthquake victims will die from infections.
So What is Haiti’s Solution? We have been working on a fruit tree nursery in Northern Haiti. Planting trees is the only way to reverse deforestation, restore top soil, raise water tables and make countries like Haiti agriculturally self sufficient. Our short-term plans have been redirected to emergency relief. We thank you for being a loyal customer. Your partnership has resulted in the planting of 350,000 trees in Africa. Now we’re asking you to help Haiti. Please purchase a tree or plant listed below and we will donate 100% of the proceeds from your order to the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission (www.NWHCM.org). NWHCM operates a charitable hospital, orphanages, child nutrition programs and more. They are one of Haiti’s few medical facilities that survived the earthquake. They have sent medical teams into the worst hit areas and are in the best position to immediately aid victims. They run completely on donations and desperately need funds now. When you purchase the following plants, just type “Haiti” in the Promotional Code Box, or if you would like to donate to them directly please check them out at www.NWHCM.org. Let us know if you donate $25 or more directly to them, and we’ll send you a free Empress Tree this spring. Just forward your donation confirmation email to haitirelief@fast-growing-trees.com Thanks again for your continued help,
Royal Empress Paulownia |
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