This is the last part of my interview with Travesty in Haiti: A true account of Christian missions, orphanages, fraud, food aid and drug trafficking author, Dr. Tim Schwartz. (You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.) I am extremely grateful to Dr. Schwartz for his time and his thorough responses. If you have not yet ordered Travesty I encourage you to do so through either of the links in the article. MD: Elaborate on the trouble that you had getting your book published; what were some of the excuses, if any, given to you? Schwartz: You’ve read published authors giving advice to aspiring writers, “Don’t give up, when I was getting started I tried twenty publishers before I finally got accepted.” Well none of them have anything on me. The process started off well enough. After about 20 queries to agents I got one, a good one, and she said it was a terrific book. She subsequently queried every major US publisher–I think there were thirty. Not a single one would even look at the manuscript. So I took over and began approaching academic presses. I went through every one I could find. More than twenty. I think that two read it. The senior editor at one of them, Zed Books in England, he liked the book, wrote me a letter of congratulations and said that they were sure to publish it, but that it had to go out for review. Presses move slowly. It was one year later when it went out. In the meantime the first editor retired. The new editor never read the book but sent it out for review. The reviewer sent it back saying something to the effect, “He keeps saying that aid is ineffective but he never gives us any evidence.” I think that anyone who has read the book would be as befuddled as me by that comment. The one thing I know that I did was hammer away at the evidence. I think the editor misspoke. I think that for Zed the point was that it was not academic enough and at the time it wasn’t. I had taken out the more academic parts because I was trying to reach as wide an audience as possible. So I put them back in, but Zed wouldn’t give me another chance. Also, there was another problem with the book, one identified by the first Zed editor: it doesn’t fit into any genre. So anyway, I kept trying, for years. I don’t think there is any publisher or agent out there that I did not approach. No one ever read it again. In the meantime I actually added stuff. I couldn’t leave it alone. When I was back to Haiti in 2007 on a rural marketing analysis, I updated all that had happened to the people who were in the book. And what had happened was so unsettling–like the orphanage owner who we had all known for decades and he had been lording over the orphans, beating them, having sex them…with no one holding him accountable. It gave me new inspiration. In the end what I did was publish it on Booksurge. This is a company owned by Amazon, it’s inexpensive (I think I paid $190). That way I could get the book off my desk, didn’t have to think about it anymore. If anyone ever was interested they would be able to find it. It would be out there. But I also did something else. I bought 50 of the books myself and mailed them to every big shot development player I could think of. Sacks, Easterly… I doubt many of them read it. But an exception was Paul Farmer. And that began to change things for both me and the book. Paul bought multiple copies and passed them out to people in the US State Department, including Cheryl Mills–Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff. They actually contacted me, told me that it was terrific book and that they were trying to change US policies toward Haiti. That was a great moment for me. To have experienced so much rejection and then have the people who were most in a position to determine Haiti’s fate contact me. It made it all worthwhile. Farmer himself later wrote me and I went and met him. And that was another great moment because Paul Farmer is one of my heroes. I had always kind of feared his opinion of the book; what he would say if he read it? Would he be offended, see it as an attack on charity? And now, for him to have read it and for him to write and say, “I am your biggest fan,” well, I felt like one of those schmucks on a game show, like I wanted to jump up and down. It was a big thing for me. MD: Did you suffer any repercussions from publishing Travesty? Schwartz: Not yet. At least not from the NGOs or USAID. Guys at USAID generally enjoyed it. Some of them are a little defensive. It does not take much effort for them to imagine me writing about them. It is kind of funny at times. Since the change in political climate I have been getting back involved in Haiti and on more than one occasion otherwise friends have turned to me and said, “Don’t you dare write about me.” But again, I want to emphasize, it is not the people in USAID or the NGOs. These guys are ultimately on the side of the people who need the aid. These guys are former activists and ex-peace corps workers. A heck of a lot of them have a spouse from underdeveloped countries and not from the elite in these countries. If you sit down with these folks almost every single one of them will tell you the same things that I am saying. They just don’t want to do on the record because they have salaries, pension plans, wives
The gospel to the poor
I’m sure I had never seen the above photo before this week. That is to say, I hope I’m not so calloused as to have forgotten such a sight: A lone vulture stalking a starving Sudanese child as she crawls toward a food center more than half a mile away. For the photo famed South-African photographer, Kevin Carter, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography on May 23, 1994 at Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library. Carter’s joy, however, was short lived. A mere three months later in the midst of a severe depression Carter killed himself near Johannesburg. His suicide note mentioned “vivid memories…of starving or wounded children” as a factor for his decision. He was 33. The child survived the situation, but to what end no one knows. For many years, many evangelicals did not give a second thought about the poor; after all, Jesus had told us the poor would always be with us. What were we supposed to do? Lately I’ve been thinking about the poor and the responsibility that Christ-followers in the richest nation in all of history have toward them. This morning I went to a familiar passage, Matthew 11, to read these words: When John heard in prison about the deeds of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’ And Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them.’ (vs. 2-5, ESV) Almost without delay I saw a connection that heretofore had eluded me. The question asked by John the Baptizer was, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” In other words, “Are you the Messiah?” Jesus response was to give proof of his Messiahship: people are healed, the dead are raised, the poor hear the gospel. The poor hear the gospel. The gospel is preached to the poor. Evidence of Christ’s kingship, evidence of His Messiahship, evidence of His anointed reign is that the gospel is preached to the poor. If an evidence of Christ’s kingship is the taking of the gospel to the poor, should that not be an unqualified proof of who is a Kingdom subject? Shall the King be elevated theoretically without being followed practically? It might be easy to overlook two clear connections Jesus is making; I have done so for a long, long time. First, there is an obvious reference to Isaiah 61:1, the text of Jesus first synagogue sermon, The Lord has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. The second is an obvious allusion to the Minor Prophets, nearly all of whom railed against Israel/Judah for injustice regarding the poor. That the gospel transcends socio-economic boundaries will get no argument from the most conservative of evangelicals. There is no person too rich nor too poor to need the gospel or to receive it. What we acknowledge about the gospel’s reach, however, is not the issue. The issue is, What do we do about it? The clear question is whether followers of Christ are as eager to see converted the smelly street dweller who pushes a Publix cart to church as the cologned stock broker who powers a Porsche to the same location? The Apostle James was well aware of the tendency of Kingdom subjects to ignore the ways of the King when he wrote: My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. (vs. 1-9)
Interview with ‘Travesty in Haiti’ author, Dr. Tim Schwartz-Part 2
This is the second part of the interview with Travesty in Haiti: A true account of Christian missions, orphanages, fraud, food aid and drug trafficking author, Dr. Tim Schwartz. (Read the first part here.) MD: Is there a solution to what seems to be the logistics issues that came to the fore after the earthquake? Schwartz: Yes. And I am not the only one. There is a growing sentiment–as per Easterly and a less well know but equally astute guy named Owen Barder at the Center for Global Development–that we need accountability. Just as every other sector of the business community, school, church, the government, the NGO sector needs transparency, accountability, and feedback. That is not hard to implement and it would solve the problems of ineffective aid, cheating, embezzling, lying about the effectiveness of programs. Ultimately it would give way to the coordination of aid agencies, the deficiency of which was fantastically apparent in the miserable disorder that accompanied the earthquake relief. I was unofficially working on this with Paul Farmer and the Special Envoy’s Office but it got canned in December. The explanation they gave me was that they had decided that it was the Haitian government’s responsibility to monitor the NGOs. What I envisioned was a type of Standard and Poor’s of NGOs but with exceptional rigor. The fulcrum would be a small office with maybe six employees–young, hungry, idealistic and fit students of development. We would have an Internet site that listed all the NGOs in Haiti (no one knows how many are out there). On the website we would have the financial data, like Charity Navigator, but we would carry it further, as does the BBB’s charity evaluations. We would publish salaries and percentage of money spent on overhead and we would rate the organization on their disposition to provide us with data. Then we would go out and actually verify this, rate them on the accuracy report on field programs and if whether or not they were doing what they say they are doing. Right there you would expose a lot of bogus organizations and by making that information public donors could avoid throwing their money away. But we would take it even further. We would provide a small but representative and rigorously obtained sample of the opinions of the recipients of the aid. No one ever does that. The NGOs are supposed to do it. It’s in all the charters and stipulations for aid packages so what they do is send some paid consultant out, or one of their own employees, and they write up a report. You can imagine how that goes. As William Easterly said, “If I allowed my students to assign their own grades most would not study very hard.” All this would go into a rating system, made public, on the website, and updated bi-annually. There would also be rating open to reviewers, like the Amazon.com reviews. It all seems so simple and so logical. I am not saying anything that an 8th grade student taking his first business class wouldn’t think of. Why don’t they do it? That’s a different question. This system would also allow us to easily maintain a database of all the resources at the disposal of each NGO. Such a resource, indeed this accountability structure, could serve as a institution for coordination in the event of disaster. The single greatest problem with the earthquake was a total absence of coordination. It was absolutely mind boggling. MD: What percentage of the orphanages in Haiti are being run legitimately, being that there are actual children without parents with outside donations going to their clothing, room or board and where the state of the children is bettered by living there? Schwartz: In my honest opinion? This could get me in trouble. I suspect none; but there are very good reasons for this. And since you asked, here is a rather lengthy excerpt from an unpublished article I just wrote: There are simply not enough orphans–at least not enough to satisfy the aid agencies. There are those orphanage keepers who drive around before the scheduled arrival of overseas sponsors and round up street children to serve as temporary orphans (as a rule street children prefer to be free); but most orphanages provide children with access to education in exchange for fulfilling the role as “orphan” (I detail these finds in the book Travesty in Haiti). For Haitians, it is not a big surprise that orphans are scarce. In a USAID funded report that I wrote at the time of the research mentioned above I explained why. First of all, Haitians have large families. The average Haitian in the region where I worked had 10 full and half brothers and sisters; 20 uncles and aunts (including parent’s half siblings); about 35 first cousins (reducing the average lifetime total by a factor of 4); a maximum of 12 living grandparents (4 grandparents and 8 great grandparents); and a possible 40 great uncles and aunts (the siblings and half siblings of his or her grandparents). In addition to these blood relatives, a Haitian child has two fictive mothers and two fictive fathers (godparents). Any one of these relatives may be disposed, even eager, to adopt the child, especially in lieu of the labor value of children, the second reason why true orphans are scarce. Haitians–at least 65% of whom practice household livelihood strategies involving labor intensive agriculture, livestock and petty commodity production–place a high value on children for the labor they provide in the household survival strategies. This is nothing new to agricultural or pre-industrial societies. Children in early America were also valued for their labor. Pre-industrial subsistence strategies mean intense labor regimes, specifically fetching firewood and water, running errands, washing cloths and cooking. For example, just fetching water in the Northwest Department involves a 70 minute round-trip walk to the nearest spring. Children perform these tasks and in doing so free adults to pursue more gainful opportunities, such as
Interview with ‘Travesty in Haiti’ author, Dr. Tim Schwartz-Part 1
Last week I published a review of Travesty in Haiti: A true account of Christian missions, orphanages, fraud, food aid and drug trafficking by Dr. Timothy T. Schwartz. (Read that review here.) The book was so eye-opening that I immediately started trying to track down the author for an interview. Although Dr. Schwartz has been virtually 100% successful in remaining off the Internet grid, with the help of Dr. Robert Lawless at Wichita State University, contact was made and Dr. Schwartz agreed to this email interview. Over the course of the next several days my interview with Dr. Schwartz will be published on martyduren.com. Following this series I hope to further explore the international aid situation, with an emphasis on how it applies to Haiti, though other global examples will be examined. My hope is that this teeming mass of Americans who have become concerned about the plight of Haiti will educate themselves about why and how Haiti was devastated well before the January 12 earthquake and what might be done to render true assistance in the aftermath. MD: Did any changes take place in food aid after your book came out? Schwartz: Well, no. Except that Meghann Curtis, who works for Hilary Clinton and Cheryl Mills, wrote me and said the State Department was rewriting U.S. policy with hopes it would not resemble the American Plan that was described in Travesty. So in that sense it had an impact. Not because it caused them to change the policy, but it apparently helped them understand the problems they face. The book is just now catching on, but I am no longer among a small minority objecting to food aid. Since I wrote Travesty a growing number of agencies, even NGOs who were involved in food distribution, have come out against it. Oxfam is currently leading the charge. I think this is great but I don’t want to give them too much credit because everyone–that is everyone who is thinking and in the field–has always known that food aid damages the agricultural markets in underdeveloped countries. I mean it is an incredible paradox that agronomists whose first lesson in agro-industrialism was about buying up surpluses were part of dumping food on the agricultural economies they were supposed to be building. They aren’t stupid. They knew. Everyone was always outraged. But quietly. As I detail in Travesty, CARE consultants and even the heads of the food programs were at times outspoken about their opposition to the food. There were heated arguments. Seminars. But the bottom line was that the people on the ground are not making the decisions. For CARE, it is the headquarters in Atlanta that makes the decisions and their decision was to take the equivalent of 15 million US aid dollars–in food–and do what USAID told them to do. And it should be clear that it is not USAID who is making the decision either. They are taking their orders from congress. And congress is taking its orders from special interests. As for CARE, to their credit, the conscience of someone inside must have won out, or at least caused them to stumble. In 2007, USAID was negotiating a new contract with them. I recently learned the details because a new friend was involved on behalf of USAID. The contract was for five years of distributing food aid. CARE had been trying to get away for food aid for over a decade and obviously they were increasingly nervous about it. This is the era when Oxfam and other groups were making a lot of noise. There were/are pages on the Internet dedicated to opposing food aid as well as protests in Geneva. But, as my friend says, “they had a dilemma because food aid was a cash cow for CARE.” So this time, in 2007, they tried to compromise. CARE said they would sign a contract for 2 years, but USAID likes five year contracts. The food aid delivery is a bidding process, and so USAID folks whispered to the ears of those at the World Food Program, which put in a “competitive bid,”–I use the quotes because there are only a handful of NGOs who are allowed to bid on USAID projects–and CARE was/is out the food distribution process in Haiti . MD: Other books have been written chronicling aid problems in places like Somalia. Is the failure of international aid endemic? Schwartz: Yes, I think so. Although I only have firsthand experience in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. I once had a professor, Robert Lawless, who was a really profound thinker; he would recount the calamities of aid throughout the world telling us about these massive projects that backfired. He was a big fan of indigenous knowledge and really respected people. In the years I was working in Haiti I somehow forgot much of that. But since writing the book and corresponding with Lawless again–after I came out of the field–I realized that he had already prepared me for what I found. Also, I have heard similar stories from people who have worked for NGOs in Africa and other areas of Latin America. And, I read Michael Marner’s The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity. I read it after I published Travesty and I was glad; the similarities were so great that it would have made me feel like I copied him. He wrote a terrific book and the portrait he painted of aid in Somalia is chilling, but I am not surprised. When I read the book I felt like I was right there with him, like I had already seen it. And I had. It was the same neglect, waste, economic disruption, self-deception, rationalization, and greed as we see in Haiti, but with even more cataclysmic consequences. MD: In your experience, what has been the single most frustrating thing about US policy toward Haiti? Schwartz: It is not about developing Haiti. It is about developing US business interests;
Kim Phuc, girl in iconic Vietnam War photo, speaks of love and forgiveness
To see her picture once is to have seen it a thousand times; the image is just as sobering today as it was in June of 1972 when it appeared in newspapers around the globe. The children fleeing the fire of napalm bombs in South Vietnam, running down the road from their village and, in the middle, a nine year old girl, completely naked, running, screaming, burning. The photo, rated by some as the photo of the 20th century, was taken by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut. It won a Pulitzer Prize and at once became the iconic image of the Vietnam War. Sunday, February 21, Kim Phuc, “the girl in the picture,” stood three times at the North Avenue Presbyterian Church in Atlanta and told her story of pain and redemption. Kim narrated her enjoyable life as a child with a loving family, a mother who operated a well-known restaurant in the village of Trang Bang and her love of school. Life changed when soldiers began descending on their village, knocking on doors and carrying out inspections. June 8, 1972, the North Vietnamese were entrenched outside of Kim’s village (I believe to the north) when an air-strike, coordinated by the American Air Force, was called in. The adults and some of the children in the village had taken refuge in a nearby pagoda awaiting the end of the bombing. For fear of all the children being in the same place, Kim, an aunt and her grandmother with others of her young relatives were sent out, walking through a cemetery and along a road. Video shot by a British film crew shows a low flying aircraft, on the wrong side of the village, dispensing four napalm bombs, which upon landing, created a wall of fire which engulfed Kim and her fleeing family. The British journalist recounted in a documentary about Kim’s life that one young child was carried by them with what appeared to be tattered clothing hanging from his body. It was his skin. One young cousin was killed immediately while another died within days; Kim’s clothes were burned from her body and her upper left arm was severely burned. She later learned that napalm burns at greater than 800 degrees Celsius. Napalm also burns beneath the skin so the water poured on her by assisting soldiers increased her pain so drastically that she passed out. She was taken to the hospital by Nick Ut the photographer who had moments before snapped her photo. She endured 17 surgeries over the years the last one being in 1984. She ultimately married and defected to Canada with her new husband in the midst of a re-fueling stop in Newfoundland on their honeymoon. They, their two sons and her parents now call Toronto home. Phuc recounted a number of things that she has learned through her trials: growing through pain, the importance of love (especially that of family and friends), that freedom is to be valued and that, as she learned the hard way, life is tough. Phuc also shared how she grew to forgive those who had caused her so much pain. After becoming a Christian in 1982 she noted, “My situation did not change one bit, but my heart was filled with joy!” Her life verse became Psalm 118:17, “I shall not die, but live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.” After reading Luke 6:27, 28 (“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”) she added all the people who had caused her pain to her prayer list. When her church in Saigon was closed by the communist government, she read her Bible and prayed daily. Phuc,who speaks so softly one could not hope to hear her without a mic even from just a few feet away, still speaks with vitality, humor and purpose. Kim Phuc is now an advocate for child victims of war, but had to reconcile her own life before being able to intercede for others. As she put it, “Before we can give hope we have to learn to forgive.”
‘Shutter Island,’ movie review
Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island based on the novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone) opened today. A creepy, dark (not to mention windy and rainy) adaptation of an exceptionally good novel, the 2+ hour faithful rendering will be a surprising movie to those who have not read the book but might be underwhelming to those who have. Oscar-nominated Leonardo DiCaprio (Blood Diamond, The Departed) plays U. S. Marshal Teddy Daniels who, along with his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo, Collateral), are called upon to investigate the disappearance of a female patient at the Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane located on Shutter Island. Shrouded in mystery and located some 12 miles from the Massachusetts coast, Ashecliffe houses the most violent of society’s criminals. Experimental treatment means that chemical lobotomies are not given first choice, rather genuine reform is attempted before psycho-pharmacological solutions are advanced. The investigation would seem straightforward enough, except that the patient escaped from a 8×12 room having a single, barred window with the door locked from the outside. After escaping she managed to walk past seven orderlies playing cards in the break room before leaving the building. Daniels and Aule begin their investigation immediately upon landing on Shutter Island, but find the doctors, nurses and orderlies less than cooperative. Individual questioning of the psychiatrists get almost nowhere and questioning of staff in a group results in more answers with attitude than answers that advance the investigation. Questioning of the inmates proves fruitless after a near flip-out by Daniels and a cryptic message from one murderess. Set in a former Civil War fort, dorms and housing, the Ashecliffe complex is almost breathtaking, while the grounds, manicured by the inmates, are spotless. Escape from the institution is foolproof. Until a hurricane hits, that is. Taking advantage of fractured walls and downed power lines, Daniels and Aule use the distractions to enter the locked down area of the campus, Ward C, where the most irredeemable criminals are located. It’s in Ward C that Daniels hopes to find the person that is the focus of his “off the books” investigation: the man who set the fire in which his own wife died. Much of the story is told in nightmares as Daniels repeatedly sees the murdered children of the escaped woman whom he hunts. He also combats visions of both his wife and her murderer which, combined with stifling migraines, almost render him unable to run the investigation effectively. The movie has a significant number of twists and turns and does have a mind-bending conclusion. Still, I feel Shutter Island is a good movie, not a great one. The first half hour has editing that can only be described as jittery. At one point, DiCaprio swallows a couple of aspirin with some water, but the scene is cut too quickly, only to reveal him in a different position with the glass apparently gone. Another oddity is the film’s score. No music at all in some places where it might have helped the mood or the tone, heavy handed in other places and ham-fisted in a few places. Near the beginning is a benign scene of a car driving a few yards to approach a gate. It seems the score is trying to create a feeling of foreboding, but it has the effect of making the viewer wonder if a meteorite is about to hit. Having skimmed some other reviews, I find myself somewhat in the minority. Roeper, Ebert and Rolling Stone are all quoted as duly impressed on the shutterisland.com site; I was not as impressed. (SI currently rates only 69% on Rotten Tomatoes-significantly less than stellar.) Though it has been several years since I read the book, I still felt it was far superior. However, when the plot twists are known in advance, it might just take away from the movie watching experience. Rated R for disturbing violent content, language and some nudity, Shutter Island also stars Michelle Williams as Daniel’s wife, Dolores, Ben Kingsley, Patricia Clarkson, Max von Sydow and Emily Mortimer. Viewer be warned that the movie does have a scene of full male nudity. Although played in a decidedly non-sexual way and shot in shadow, genitals are clearly visible. Shutter Island in paperback and in graphic novel can be purchased from Amazon.com below. You pay the same low price and support martyduren.com.
‘Travesty in Haiti,’ book review
When I returned from Haiti on February 8, the first thing I started doing was looking for books that could help make sense of some of the things I had seen that obviously predated the earthquake: the extreme poverty, regularly being asked for money or things, and nightmarish logistical situations that seemingly prevented needs from being met. What I found was the books on the subject are few, but devastating in their critiques. I decided to purchase Travesty in Haiti: A true account of Christian missions, orphanages, fraud, food aid and drug trafficking, by Timothy T. Schwartz, Ph. D., an anthropologist who graduated from the University of Florida and spent a decade in Haiti doing doctoral research followed by work with non-government organizations (NGOs) dedicated to food aid. The primary NGOs mentioned through the narrative are CARE, PISANO, Agro Acton Aleman (AAA) and the French Initiative Development, whose goal through the 1980s and 1990s was to address the extreme poverty among the peasant farmers living across the country outside Port-au-Prince. When the book arrived, I was immediately cautious because of it’s appearance. It had all the markings of a self-published book: blurry pictures, fuzzy text, lack of publishing information and, most telling of all, a final page that read, “Made in the USA, Lexington, KY, 09 February 2010,” which happened to be the day I ordered the book. So it was “print-on-demand” I realized. That in itself meant nothing since many books (including mine) are now published this way, but there was no ISBN page, publisher information, thank you’s, or credits. What I did find online was a long summary/review in Anthropology Review Database by
Engineers combine faith, skills and passion to rescue Haiti and the world
CHARLESTON, S.C.—Having provided clean water solutions to the world’s largest natural disasters—including the South Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the China earthquake and Myanmar cyclone—engineers at Christian nonprofit engineering relief and development organization Water Missions International know that the worst in Haiti may be yet to come. “For our team, the race against the clock in Haiti has moved from mere survival to preventing deadly diseases associated with contaminated water and sewage,” said chemical engineer and Water Missions International co-founder George Greene III. But how did George and Molly Greene, owners of a successful environmental engineering company in Charleston, S.C., end up in the middle of disaster zones in 40 countries supplying safe water to millions of desperate people? Moved by the plight of Central Americans in Hurricane Mitch (1998), the Greenes quickly developed a unique—now patented—portable water treatment unit to meet victims’ emergency and long-term clean water needs. With a passion to continue helping the world’s 1 billion people who lack access to safe water, this couple morphed their successful engineering company into leading nonprofit engineering relief and development organization Water Missions International in 2001. Water Missions International works with other Christian relief organizations, including Samaritan’s Purse and Operation Blessing, to provide immediate and long-term access to clean water in marginalized communities and disaster areas in 40 countries. The organization began working in Haiti in 2004, where, prior to the quake, some 97 percent of Haitians lacked access to safe water (WHO/UNICEF, 2006). Since the earthquake, the organization has tripled its work in the country, with supplies in place to install 64 water treatment systems-enough to provide the daily water needs of more than 300,000 Haitians—the equivalent of delivering 2.8 million bottles of water every day for the next two decades. “As engineers compelled by our faith to help suffering people, Water Missions International uses its God-given expertise to provide strategic, cost-effective, green and self-sustaining water solutions. Our water systems mean the difference between providing clean water for hours versus clean water for decades,” said George Greene III, currently on his way back down to Haiti. “Sustainable clean water and sanitation are not only things we can provide in the moments following a disaster, but—if done right—it’s something we can leave behind in crisis areas like Haiti…long after our staff and volunteers are gone,” said Molly Greene. “I can’t think of a more tangible way for a bunch of engineers to put our faith and God-given skills into action than that.” Water Missions International is a leading nonprofit engineering relief and development organization providing quick-response, cost-effective, sustainable clean water solutions to people in crisis areas. Launched by engineering experts during Hurricane Mitch, Water Missions International has, since 2001, responded to the world’s largest natural disasters including the South Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the China earthquake, Myanmar cyclone and Haiti earthquake. With at least a 20-year operating span, Water Missions International’s patented sustainable clean water and sanitation systems continue to provide those hard-hit communities with life, health and the basis for viable economies. Currently providing sustainable clean water to people in 40 countries, Charleston, S.C.-based Water Missions International has received top ratings by Charity Navigator for four years in a row.
What do you believe about the afterlife? A martyduren.com poll
Of course this is an unscientific poll, but I’d like to get responses across the board. Email this to friends and family, post to Digg or reddit, or on message boards. I’m curious as to the worldviews of folks who stop by this site. Thx. [poll id=”2″]
A collection of photos from Haiti
Articles and other photos from my Haiti trip: My relief trip to Haiti, Part 1 Medical missions in Haiti, Part 2 The Haitian government is right to hold 10 Americans for kidnapping A few of the books available on Haiti: