A Time to Give

November 18, 2019 jennifer 0 Comments
Executive Director, Nada Marjanovich
Executive Director, Nada Marjanovich

Join in #GivingTuesday and Smile and help save lives

The giving season is upon us and I’m sure you’re carefully deciding which organizations to support. This year, Haiti Air Ambulance has two ways you can join in saving lives where it’s needed most.

#GivingTuesday is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. This year, that’s December 3. Please mark your calendars and make your donations HERE! As always, 100% of all donations go directly to services. #GivingTuesday is the official kick-off to the season of giving, but if you would like to donate before or after December 3, don’t be shy!

Smile is the Amazon marketplace where you shop and Amazon donates! By making Haiti Air Ambulance your charity of choice, it’s an easy way to continue to support HAA at no cost to you. Log onto smile.amazon.com and select Haiti Air Ambulance (or add us if you’re already a Smile shopper) and Amazon will donate .5% of your purchase prices to us. This #CyberMonday when you’re doing your holiday shopping, you can use Smile and let the donations to HAA begin!

Smile can also be used when shopping for your home, family, personal items and even business and office supplies. Every little bit helps, please remember to ask your office manager, spouse and friends to support HAA though smile.

October continued to be challenging for Haiti. It was the second month of ongoing civil unrest, complicating our daily lives in countless ways. But HAA persevered! Though we did have to close the base a few days due to the conditions in the streets, our team made it to work almost every day. I’m so proud of their dedication to their promise to Haiti: to be mission-ready 365 days per year to support healthcare needs no matter what.

Our team is comprised of mostly Haitians and a few Americans who exercise a safety-first mentality at all times. They were steadfast in balancing their personal security with the objective of completing our initiatives last month.

They traveled to Baie d’Orange, in the far southeast, spending two days teaching midwives and laypeople basic baby care and lifesaving skills. Imagine a village so remote, it’s not even reachable by car. The people there have no formal training and are paralyzed when children are stillborn, often invoking mysticism or even harmful practices. They now have the skills to help those babies breathe and decrease the death rate of newborns. Our team also traveled to Deschappelles, where they trained staff at Hôpital Albert Schweitzer, Saint Marc where they provided training at Hôpital Saint-Nicolas and several trips to Partners In Health Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais.

The participants who attended our training ranged from laypeople, like in Baie d’Orange, to doctors and nurses, like at the hospitals. Our team provided refreshers on a range of perishable life-saving skills including initial assessment, maintaining airways, performing chest compressions and delivering rescue breathing. The bonus was simulating the Heimlich maneuver and putting an unconscious but breathing casualty into the recovery position. These are things that even the most advanced doctors benefit from practicing because without the quality assurance of consistent third-party training bad habits work their way in, often leading to negative results.

Thanks to HAA’s own rigorous, ongoing training—both in-house and sending our clinicians regularly to the states—our team is able to maintain the highest levels of skills. And our programs are modeled on American Heart Association (AHA) and American Safety and Health Institute (ASHI) curriculum to ensure we are following the industry’s best practices.

Even though we are still not flying, HAA fulfills its mission of supporting the Ministry of Health (MSPP) and Centre Ambulancier National (CAN) by providing these trainings and exploring other ways to collaborate. And, we remain steadfast in our search to obtain our own helicopters and operating certificate to restore HEMS in Haiti and continue our core mission of providing this vibrant country with vital medevac services.

Imagine dying of something basic, like a broken arm or common asthma attack. It’s a daily occurrence in Haiti because even when not in the headlines, Haiti is under constant threat of crisis and its more than 11 million citizens and annual visitors are effectively cut off from health care once they leave Port-au-Prince. As a US-based 501c3, HAA adheres to the strictest transparency and accountability. This gives our donors peace of mind that 100% of all contributions go towards services whether made directly, like during this #GivingTuesday campaign, or through third parties, like when you shop using Smile.

There are many places around the world that are challenged and have serious needs, we are grateful for the supporters who donate, offer guidance, help spread the word and volunteer to our program.

If you are considering giving this season, Haiti Air Ambulance is a chance to help in a very real way. Support Haiti Air Ambulance this #GivingTuesday and throughout the giving season. This is your chance to save children, mothers, brothers, fathers and visitors in this vital caribbean nation.

Please Donate Today!

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