Friends for Health in Haiti

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Friends for Health in Haiti

Our mission is to improve the health of the Haitians we serve, using our resources responsibly and e Our founder, Dr. Catherine E.

Friends for Health in Haiti is a 501(c)3 registered non-profit based in Wisconsin. Wolf, has worked in Haiti for over 20 years and has lived there full time since 2006. She is our Executive Director and is the managing physician of our primary care medical clinic there in the remote mountainous region of Gatineau.

10/31/2025

Hi friends. I have a final update for you regarding Hurricane Melissa. The rain finally stopped Wednesday night and we went up to the clinic yesterday with the sun shining! The creek near the clinic overflowed its banks in several places, flattening sugar cane and other crops but, otherwise, there wasn't much damage in the area. We're getting reports of much more severe damage to houses, churches and crops up in the mountains where some of our volunteer promoters work. The wind was very strong and most people had damage to their banana trees and gardens. Our community development staff are getting in touch with all the promoters in the various communities to get an idea as to the damage done but it certainly wasn't as severe as Hurricane Matthew, for which everyone is grateful. Thank you again for your prayers and notes.

10/29/2025

Today, Wednesday, started out with some sun and we had hopes it might be a nice day. But, by 9am rain was pouring down and it has continued all day. Below are some photos of rain coming off our roof. We can barely see the ocean in front of our house. Usually, it’s a deep blue color and now it’s an ugly gray! On both sides of the house, we have pipes coming off the roof to collect rain water in large cisterns. We pump water from the cisterns up to plastic drums on the roof where it is fed by gravity into our kitchen and bathrooms. We love rain water, just not so much of it!
If the rain stops later today, we hope to be able to get up to the clinic tomorrow. This will give us a chance to see patients and also have a look at any damage the heavy rains caused up in the mountains. It seems that the worst of the storm is past Haiti now and we’re hoping for some dry weather. Thanks again for all of your prayers.

10/28/2025

It's Tuesday evening and our prayers are with those in Jamaica who are bearing the brunt of the hurricane right now. We know what it's like to go through a Category 5 hurricane! We didn't have much rain on Sunday night so we were able to go up to the clinic yesterday, slipping and sliding in the mud. There weren't many patients waiting for us when we got there but more came in during the day. It also started to rain more heavily during the day so we slipped even more on the road coming down the mountain! We decided yesterday not to try to go up to Gatineau today or tomorrow due to the forecasts of increased rain and winds. All the schools have been closed since yesterday and this evening we were notified that the government of Haiti has declared a holiday for tomorrow, shutting everything down. So, everyone on our staff are staying safe at home and we'll see what tomorrow brings! It's been raining all day, heavier this evening with occasional strong winds. There's been severe flooding in Les Cayes, which is 2 hours away, not so much here in Jeremie. We appreciate your prayers and will keep you posted!

10/26/2025

It's Sunday afternoon and Hurricane Melissa is still southwest of Haiti, moving very slowly to the north. We've had a lot of wind thus far but not much rain here in Jeremie. We expect more rain and possibly some flooding in the next two days but it seems that Jamaica will bear the brunt of the storm. Our prayers are with the people there. Will update you later in the week!

10/22/2025

We want to thank everyone for all the wonderful birthday wishes for Cherlie and me (Dr. Wolf). We appreciate your love and support very much. Please pray for us this weekend as Haiti seems to be in the path of what-is-soon-to-be-hurricane Melissa! We'll be in touch.

10/20/2025

Happy Birthday Dr. Wolf! Wishing you a wonderful day!

10/15/2025

We are changing lives in Haiti through training community promoters, educating future doctors, adding staff all while finding joy in daily our work.
Click the link to learn more including how you can be part of our mission: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X5quu1t0gtxxGXXGQC8Gcdab11AHPTko/view?usp=sharing

10/14/2025

Happy Birthday Cherlie! Wishing you a wonderful day and joyful year.

09/21/2025

When 2 week old Wedmaël Belle Fleur was waiting in his mother’s arms for consultation in our clinic two months ago, he was crying loudly, as only a newborn infant can. The skin on his face was wrinkled, his mouth was dry, his skin hot and he was obviously very ill. Any infant less than 30 days of age with a fever needs to be hospitalized to receive IV or IM antibiotics for treatment of infection in the blood stream (sepsis). As soon as I finished examining him, I explained to the parents that they needed to take him immediately to the government hospital in Jérémie. I wrote a referral letter to the doctors at the hospital, gave the parents some money to help them pay for the hospitalization and prayed for them as they took little Wedmaël out the door. “If they get down to the hospital quickly and he’s given the antibiotics, he should live,” I thought.
You can imagine my dismay to see the parents a week later with little Wedmaël, still crying, still dehydrated, still with a fever. They had indeed gone to the hospital, but instead of being given IV antibiotics, the parents were given prescriptions for oral Amoxicillin. I was very upset. The infant was still obviously ill, had lost a pound of weight and needed hospitalization. So, I wrote another letter to the hospital doctors, this time outlining the dosage of each medication I felt would be good to give the infant. I hoped they wouldn’t be offended by my suggestions! I gave the parents a few dollars and sent them down the mountain to try again! This time my efforts succeeded and when they returned with Wedmaël 18 days later, he looked much better and his weight was up a few ounces. The parents said he had been given IV antibiotics and no longer had a fever. He wasn’t breastfeeding very well so they were giving him formula. We saw him again last week and his weight was up, he was active and feeding well. We continue to give the parents infant formula for him and we have hope he’ll continue to thrive. We give thanks for all of you who pray for our patients and for our faithful donors who give to our Indigent Patient Fund to help care for little ones like Wedmaël.

09/13/2025

One week ago, September 6th, our Promoter Training course was completed with 13 men and 3 women receiving certificates of participation. 16 new Community Promoters have been welcomed into our Water and Sanitation Program! The four days of training, held over two weekends, went very well and all of the participants were energetic and enthusiastic during the training sessions. Cherlie and I (Dr. Wolf) led some of the sessions and we were assisted by several of our previous promoters as well as our 4 community development staff members. The training involved some didactic sessions, use of posters to illustrate important topics, card-sorting activities, ice-breakers and role-play. Everyone participated, gave feedback and accepted suggestions for improvement. It was wonderful to see them react to their mistakes, correct themselves and show improvement as they did their role plays. It provides great hope for the future of the program and its impact on their rural communities. We now have 36 volunteer Community Promoters working in 18 communities, teaching people the basics of water, sanitation and hygiene. We give thanks to those of you who prayed for this training and to those of you who have contributed funds to our Water and Sanitation Program, out of which we paid the expenses of the training course. Thanks also to Temi Adebiyi and Dr. Diana Baptiste with Johns Hopkins School of Nursing for their help with the curriculum and teaching activities. Enjoy some photos of the training sessions!

08/31/2025

We are very happy to let you all know that the first two days of our Community Promoter training went very well. We held all-day sessions on Friday and Saturday up at our clinic in Gatineau, training 16 new Promoters with 6 “old” promoters recycling through the training. 9 other promoters, plus our 4 community development staff did the training. Cherlie presented cholera, dehydration and oral rehydration fluid information and I discussed the history of our clinic and the Water and Sanitation Program and summarized key teaching points throughout the sessions. Overall, everything went well and the new promoters were energetic and enthusiastic about the information they were learning. In addition, our clinic staff and nurses prepared a wonderful meal for the participants each day, consisting of fried chicken, rice and beans, fried bananas and cabbage “pikliz”, a spicey relish. Everyone enjoyed the food and the ambiance.
We appreciate your prayers for us, since this is an important program for the communities around our outpatient clinic in Gatineau, and this training represents a significant expansion of the program into 6 new communities. We have another two sessions next Friday and Saturday and then we’ll be sending the new promoters back to their home communities to do water, sanitation and hygiene education and, hopefully, help people change their behavior to prevent illness. We love having three women in the group, giving us more gender diversity! Enjoy these photos from the training.

08/19/2025

As I mentioned in our last post, at the end of the month, we are going to be training another 12 volunteer Community Promoters from 6 new communities for our Water and Sanitation Program. For several months, I (Dr. Wolf) have been working with JHSON grad student Temi Adebiyi and FHH board member and JHSON faculty Dr. Diana Baptiste, on the curriculum for the training. We are planning to have four days of training over two consecutive weekends (Friday and Saturday), covering the basic principles of water, sanitation and hygiene education as well as discussing concepts related to behavior change and leadership. The actual training will be done by our present promoters, using their experience to help the newcomers understand their role and responsibilities as Community WASH Promoters. It’s very exciting to see Haitians training Haitians and Cherlie and I are grateful to be a part of it. We recently had a meeting with 9 of our present promoters who will act as the trainers and our staff members who will be supervising it all. Here are some photos from our meeting.

Address

W64N631 Hanover Avenue , P. O. Box 653
Cedarburg, WI
53012

Website

http://www.friendsforhealthinhaiti.org/give

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