1. GLOBAL DISABILITY CARE

We continued to provide empowerment, dignity, and support to people with disabilities in Haiti, Uganda, and South Sudan. Last year, we provided over 1,450 wheelchairs, more than 300 prosthetic and orthotic devices, and thousands of rehabilitation sessions. We also opened a new rehab garden for patients with spinal cord injuries in Haiti, hosted another wonderful 'Night to Shine' for young people with special needs, and got a new vehicle in Uganda, enabling us to reach more people through mobile clinics.

HHA are taking part in this global day of charity where, for 24 hours, every donation will be worth more. The fundraising platform Global Giving is offering $1.2 million of ‘incentive funds’, and the more we raise on the day, the more of these funds we receive. This is an amazing opportunity for us, a great way to kick off our Christmas campaign, and can have a huge impact on our year-end fundraising (last year we received over $20,000 in incentive funds alone, just from this 24 hours of fundraising!)

If you are able to make a donation to HHA this Giving Tuesday, and increase the value of your gift at no extra cost to you, please make your donation directly through our Global Giving project today! 

We will be using this opportunity to raise vital funds for our maternal and infant health projects globally. Pregnancy and motherhood should be a time of joy and hope - something we are reminded of at Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of Jesus. But for thousands of women and girls around the world, it is simply a time of fear: a girl in South Sudan is more likely to die in childbirth than finish secondary school; 1 in every 39 babies born in Haiti will not survive their first month. 

We provide maternal and infant healthcare in Haiti, South Sudan, and Uganda, to make pregnancy, birth and childhood safer, happier, and less scary. This includes community outreach to identify and refer high-risk pregnancies, expert maternal and neonatal care at our dedicated clinics, training and resource provision within communities to make home births safer, and nutritional support and vaccinations in early childhood. With our new clinic in South Sudan, rapidly expanding community outreach projects in Uganda, and growing awareness of, and demand for, our services in Haiti, we have more capacity than ever to improve outcomes for mothers and babies. But we desperately need funds to be able to do so. 

Giving Tuesday kicks off our period of festive fundraising, and is a great opportunity to make your Christmas donation go further. But don't worry if you can't donate  today - we'll be sharing other ways to support our maternal and infant health work very soon, so stay tuned!

CRADLE Training

Dr. Raphaelle (delivery agent for King’s College, London) and Josephine (new midwife at our new clinic) partnered together to deliver CRADLE training in Kajo Keji, South Sudan. They spent time with the Kajo Keji government hospital, as well as several clinics. Josephine will continue her work with ongoing support and training to the midwives that attended, and then reach out to the clinics who could not be present. At 3 different locations in 3 days, the team has trained 30 midwives from 12 of the functional clinics (including the Kajo Keji hospital).

The CRADLE device is a life-saving semi-automated blood pressure/heart rate device, designed to World Health Organization standards for such settings. It has a unique traffic light system which can inform even a non-medical user if a pregnant woman is at risk or not. If the device light flashes red, this clearly indicates that the lady needs urgent treatment. By providing training and devices to hospitals and clinics in the refugee settlements, we’re ensuring women with high-risk pregnancies are identified and referred for care quickly and effectively.    

Gait Training and Assessments

We were blessed to have Brooke Barisich, long-term HHA volunteer and physiotherapist in Haiti, return to East Africa once again to provide ongoing gait training education for the physiotherapy team at New Hope Disability Centre. Additionally, she helped assess and treat patients during our mobile clinic in Kajo Keji, South Sudan.

Gait training is a type of physical therapy (PT) that seeks to improve an individual’s strength, balance, mobility, and coordination. The training focused on how to assess walking, identify specific problems for amputees walking with prosthetics, how to fix them either with PT or by adjusting the prosthetic, and an outcome measure test for walking speed.

Leadership Training and Team Building

Christian Jackson, Brooke’s fiancé, is an experienced nonprofit leader, and we’re so glad it worked for him to join Brooke on this trip. He spent time with our staff at New Hope Disability Centre, as well as with the staff and students at Amazing Grace Primary School. All of the training sessions provided encouragement and renewed vision for this important work.

The core of an effective team is trust and clear communication. Christian helped facilitate several team building activities that exemplified and helped grow these values within our teams. At Amazing Grace, he demonstrated some activities that teachers can facilitate with students that bring a lot of joy and excitement for school. The smiles and laughter throughout proved the training effective!

Wheelchair Follow Up

HHA and Walkabout Foundation have been in partnership since 2021. Since then, as a direct result of this partnership, thousands of wheelchairs have been distributed to those in need throughout Haiti and East Africa!

A few members of their team recently visited our team in Uganda! Together we visited some of our past beneficiaries to see how they're doing and check if their chairs need any adjustments or maintenance. As part of Walkabout's Repairs Project, the teams also went out to the field to carry out some much needed chair repairs.

This newsletter includes COVID updates from our team in Haiti where we’ve been working on the frontline of Haiti’s fight against the virus.  You can also read about a major new disability project launching in Uganda and many other inspiring stories and updates. Please read the newsletter an share it with people who may also be interested. 

Access the Summer 2021 Life Support Newsletter here.

With 2020 dominated by COVID-19, we have a full from our response in Haiti where we’ve been working on the frontline of Haiti’s fight against the virus. We also have updates from East Africa where we’re been tackling food insecurity by helping the most vulnerable refugees with emergency food aid and ways to grow their own food sustainably. 

You can also read about a major new disability project launching in Uganda and many other inspiring stories and updates. Please read the newsletter an share it with people who may also be interested. 

Access the Autumn 2020 Life Support Newsletter here.