The week has been flying by for our AFF team in Haiti this week. Today, we had the opportunity to put on a vision clinic at the J Nissi School in Cité Soleil for all the parents of our students.
Our focus was on handing out glasses for “up close” activities like reading and sewing. A few minutes were spent with each parent to assess their vision and to determine what (if any) prescription of readers they needed. It’s a wonderful chance to simply say bonjour, connect with the parents, and provide them with something that can make life just a little bit easier.
Cité Soleil is an area outside of Port-au-Prince that is known for both extreme poverty and for being a well-spring of incredible people who are determined to make Haiti a better place. A man named Windy Sauveur is the one who got this whole project with the school started. You’ll also meet people like Pierre Duckens, who joined our group today, and is working to train up EMTs in Cité Soleil and build the emergency response system for Haiti. People like these are all the reminder we need on why providing kids with an education is such a vital mission in areas like this.
The glasses that we used were provided by the Lions Club Eyeglass Recycling program out of Lacey, WA. The Lions Club collects the glasses, repairs them, cleans them, and puts them in bags that are easy to identify when working with the patients. We are very grateful to them for offering this service.