On Feb. 20, 2012, Tony Marcelli of Casco Shipping, Elisabeth, Joshua, Anna, and I had the pleasure of taking Customs Director Romel Bell to meet and discuss our mutual work at Food for the Poor Headquarters in Coconut Creek, Florida (not too far north of Ft. Lauderdale) and at IBC headquarters at the Ft. Lauderdale international airport.
At Food for the Poor, thanks to our friend Artie Gold the shipping director, we were honored to be received by President Robin Mahfood, Exec. Director Angel Aloma, Mark Khouri of Procurement, and Javier Ramirez of International Goods in Kind in a very thorough and positive meeting. FFTP has been working with our Network from the start, and it was great for us both to learn more about the core mission and operating principles of each other. There is a synerg;y of purpose that is as perfect as can possibly be imagined, so everyone was in high spirits about the potential to move forward towards even greater things!
Our partnership started with the inauguration of the St. Anthony's clinic, donation of solar lights, and the installation of Dr. Eugene as doctor at St. Anthony's clinic at Nativity Village near the airport in 2008, and we have continued with our work in distribution of medications and medical supplies with ASAP that we now do on a continuing basis, and was highlighted during our recent meeting (and blog post) with Monsignor Kabreau.
Our Network Support Team will be on the lookout for requests from Network facilities for specific items and refer those requests to Geordani Jean Baptiste, and this system is working well currently and will be more publicized and clarified during facility and organization visits by the Team and Network meetings and communications.
The FFTP delegation was very receptive to our message to liason with our medical experts on medication offers and to be on the look out for more of essential meds, such as antibiotics, anthhypertensives, skin (griseofulvin or terbenafine for Tinea capitis, permethrin, benzyl benzoate or ivermectin for scabies, mupirocin for impetigo, antifungal creams), etc.
They explained to us that while they cannot send directed donations with their shipments, we are welcome and encouraged to send nondirected donation offers that we receive and which are too large to handle ourselves and/or out of the medical realm to Mark and Javier for FFTP to ship and distribute in their extensive network all around Haiti. For example, they feed 400,000 people in Haiti every day!! They have a system in place to report back to us and the donors on who received the donations, and I think that this will be a much easier choice for many donors!!
Everyone agreed that Director Bell has been a great person to work with and that customs issues are greatly decreased and working well for them in recent months in Cap Haitien. Director reiterated that he is available to assist in any customs related issues, with Elisabeth available as a liason and interpreter when needed.
As we also discussed, we will be expanding the Network concept to the Nippes region this year, with our friend and partner Dr. Ralph Gousse, as both Networks have come under the umbrella of the US and Haitian organizations he directs, Haiti Help Med Plus.
Everyone was pleased and look forward to continuing and increasing our work together for the poor in northern Haiti, and all over Haiti, in exciting new times!
Next, Tony, Director Bell, and I went to IBC headquarters at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. We met with Mr. Richard Rose, Director of Business Development for the airline that currently has the only US service into Cap Haitien. His message is "We are here to stay". They have plans to expand service to be announced in the coming months, and we are happy, with the help of their ticketing agent Tony Marcelli, to open this channel of communication with government and customers such as our Network members to help each other grow to help Haiti develop.
Ted Kaplan, MD
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