Environmental Justice, One Teaspoon at a Time

33 Beautiful faces greeted a team of 12 of us last week as we arrived in the little orphanage in Lejeune, Pignon, Haiti, finally lumbering bald tires off of the hard packed washboard National Highway #3 onto the scattered grass clumps of the churchyard.  The kids sang to welcome us to their home, and for a week when we would be handing out medical supplies and advice to them and their community, as well as conveying all of the prayers and thoughts of those people who had helped raise funds and awareness for the orphanage back here in Virginia. 

Many of the sights and smells that first hit me were reminiscent of Filipinos half a world away with different history, music, and faces, but the same underlying stories of corruption, mismanagement, and yoyo development for the past hundred years.  Mixed trash still burned in the evenings, electrical wires were haphazardly spliced from house to house, and the songbirds were mysteriously silent on warm tropical mornings.  One day, while watching locals playing soccer on the new dirt field, a truck sloshed a heavy pesticide along the limed boundaries to presumably eliminate mosquitos and gnats from the game.   Hillsides, once lush with jungle were bare, as if in an arid desert.  Hillsides burned everywhere for agricultural clearing, removing all flood control and bank stabilization, sterilizing parched soil.  Environmental degradation was everywhere, as is the case in most developing regions.  These are the epicenters of environmental justice need. 

The kids and I on the last day of work at the orphanage

During the days, I worked with the other members of the team to triage patients who had walked miles in bad shoes to sit in the hot sun and wait for a couple Tylenol, or a handful of vitamins, or a teaspoon of deworming medicine, or some of the other medicines that the doctors had brought on this trip and in previous years.  I found myself asking early in the trip why it was that we had brought these meager supplies to such a big problem.  I’m more of a construction-minded person, who thinks in terms of energy and agriculture, who follows on the heels of people like Henry, our engineer/handy man/awesome group leader who constantly brainstorms infrastructure improvements.  I thought that the supplies were a nod to health and well-being, but probably wouldn’t make much difference.

But then it occurred to me while sitting with the kids one day, and seeing their white eyes widen and shiny ebony cheeks stretch with smiles, that the most important thing in this forgotten hillside in Haiti is the mind.  Innovation starts in the minds and hands of the people, and there is no way to empower undernourished, starved brains.   Our brief visit was meant to provide respite.  That’s all.  A respite from the worms and bacteria that rob vital nutrients from developing minds so that they can be the change in their community, and so that some day, the hope for these Haitian children will not come from some distant country, but from their very neighbors and friends within the community.  Environmental justice is more dependent on the nutrition of it's practictioners than it is on remittances and infrastructure. 

Corruption is rampant, and no one has an answer for where all of the billions of international aid has gone.  While the socioeconomic disparity grows, the challenge becomes more and more eminent that we must innovate new and bold ways to get nutrients to these minds, and use new energy solutions to make communities self-sustaining for those times when a despot in Port Au Prince, or Jakarta, or Darfur, or Abuja, or Manila decides to turn off the lights, or fill deep pockets a bit more.  The leaders of our team have been coming to this little corner of Haiti for years now, bringing containers  of supplies, fixing pumps, and providing a lasting presence to these kids and the community members.  That kind of sustained assistance is so important in development. 

Without the minds of these young people plugging away at problems, it doesn’t matter how many buildings we put up, or roads we pave, or churches we paint.  Nourishment of these minds is the key to a better life. 

To learn more, or to donate to future medical trips to the orphanage in Lejeune, please contact me or go to http://www.gofundme.com/HaitiMission2015 to contribute directly.  The site admin for the gofundme account is Anna, one of the participants of the trip.  Thanks for stopping by EnvironmentalJusticeJunky!

The medical team, including two doctors, two ministers, four nurses, and thirteen really good people doing their best.