ABOUT HHF



A volunteer effort of health professionals begun in 1982 has grown into an outpatient health care facility supported by a nondenominational foundation called the Haitian Health Foundation (HHF). In 1985, after working for four years in Port au Prince, HHF moved its outreach to Jérémie, Haiti, at the suggestion of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, in order to bring health care, hope, and opportunity to this especially poor and remote area. Jérémie is located in the western end of Haiti, where people depend on subsistence farming, charcoal production, and other menial jobs for their living (average income: $90–$300 per year). The area is very isolated, and, even under the most favorable conditions, all means of communication with and supply from urban centers is difficult, and services scant. Living conditions in this area are scandalous—children are frequently sent to live with relatives to avoid crushing more people into the tiny shacks. Often, families will sleep in \"shifts,\" as they share one small bed. It is common to see children rooting with animals through the garbage for scraps of food. HHF has created a stable and loving preventive and curative health and development program in the poorest area of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Our mission is to improve the health and the well being of the poor, the sick, and the infirm of Jérémie and to break the bonds of poverty which tie so many Haitians to a life of great deprivation. While cynics decry the impotence of individuals to change the world, HHF continues to change lives—one person at a time.