ARTICLE - PEOPLE MAKING A DIFFERENCE

PEOPLE MAKING A DIFFERENCE: 'I JUST DEAL WITH WHAT THE GOOD LORD GIVE ME'
(Montreal Gazette) - By Rene Bruemmer

PORT-AU-PRINCE — The most prevalent form of aid that keeps the majority of needy Haitians alive is that which comes from family, friends and neighbours sharing what little they have.

Or from such people as Marie-Genevieve Joubert, a resident at the Dadadou tent camp of roughly 5,000 people in Port-au-Prince who also serves as its sole nurse, manning a clinic set up by the Partners in Health organization.

Joubert spent four hours stuck under the rubble of her house last Jan. 12, hoping to be rescued.

“I will never forget that day,” she said.

She was lucky — her two children and husband survived. But within days of the quake, she had inherited 74 children who lost their parents, feeding them with money from her nurse salary and finding them shelter under bedsheet tents. She’s down to 24 now, having found homes for most with their grandparents or uncles and aunts. She has bought a property and plans to build a house for her new extended family.

“I just like children,” she said.

Then there are people such as Diddy Washington, 50, a New Yorker (she pronounces it “Noo Yow-kah”) who is now a resident of Burns Lake, B.C., where she lives with her pastor husband.

Washington saw images of Haitian street children and “just had to do something.” She flew down and rented a three-room home last February in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Croix-des-Bouquets, starting with four orphans. Now she’s up to 15 boys and girls, including two-year-old Harry, whose mother died in the earthquake and whose father tried to drown him; and Pierre Emmanuel, a baby found in a tin shack, left to die.

She shows jarring before-and-after photos of her “babies,” who range from newborns to teenagers — emaciated and filthy before, well-fed and beaming in matching pyjamas after. The money to feed and house them “just comes,” she said, from her husband’s ministry, or from people such as 83-year-old “Auntie” Sarah Buhler from Burns Lake, who makes the best pies in town and raised $5,000 cooking and selling up to 26 a day. Buhler’s daughter made quilts for all the children. Buhler’s granddaughter has started a $25-per-child sponsor program. Other organizations donate food and clothing. People want to help.

Washington also runs a goat donation program, giving the animals to Haitian children to raise and make a living. They’re up to 182 goats so far. She flies down every two months, for two weeks to a month at a time. Five Haitian staffers look after the kids.

“I just deal with what the good Lord gives me, and you go from there,” she said.