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Haiti - The Eroding Nation

By Bryan Schaaf on Tuesday, January 1, 2008.

I came across an impressive multimedia piece on Haiti's environmental damage in the South Florida Sun Sentinal.  The piece contains impressive, and disturbing, photography of deforestation, erosion, and flooding.  In addition, there are photo essays, interactive lessons for children, and a number of graphs and charts.  The Wynne Farm is also mentioned in this piece.  Unfortunately, the "community and solutions" section does not offer up any solutions.  Despite this, this is a good piece for understanding Haiti's deteriorating environment - and the repercussions.   You can access the piece by clicking here.

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Providing Culturally Appropriate Health Care in the Haitian Context

By Bryan Schaaf on Tuesday, January 1, 2008.
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paul farmer examining a patientPaul Farmer examining a patientI recently came across a document I wrote years ago as part of a training for ex-pat health workers at the Hopital Justinien in Cap Haitian.  It concerns how to provide health services to Haitians.  I wrote it for two reasons.  First, cultural misunderstandings in a medical context can have serious consequences.  Second, I was bothered when I would sometimes hear expat health care providers complain about how hard it was to work with Haitians - as if there were something wrong with them.  Quite the contrary.  To be an effective provider, one has to know his/her own culture as well as that of the patient.

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