photo courtesy of Roger Lemoyne, rogerlemoyne.com

521,000 cases of cholera in just over a year reported The Haitian Ministry of Public Health and Population on December 18th, 2011, with nearly 7,000 reported deaths.  Dr. Paul Farmer, UN Deputy Envoy to Haiti and founder of Partners in Health, terms this epidemic one of the worst in history by it’s size and scope.  Conditions are simply ideal in the negative sense for the continuation of the epidemic.  Dr. Farmer is now pressing the international community for wide scale distribution of the cholera vaccine (see this related article: CHOLERA VACCINATION AN ESSENTIAL STRATEGY FOR HAITI).

Wyoming Haiti Relief is working to addressing the issue of waterborne illnesses, such as cholera, in collaboration with Pure Water for the World.  Working together with Susan Thomas, wife of the late US Senator Craig Thomas, we are working to increase the number of water filtration systems available to the poorest of the poor in Cite Soliel, a neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, said to be the poorest shantytown in this hemisphere.  Through filter systems installed in school that offer pure water to students and their families and the rebuilding of the Soliel 4 water purification plant, we hope to offer clean water as a basic human right.

Today, January 9th, 2012, Susan Thomas and Pati Smith, who traveled to Haiti in October to install water filters, are launching an educational campaign on the situation in Haiti.  You, too, can be a part of this effort to alleviate suffering in Haiti on this the two-year anniversary of the earthquake which left Haiti in shambles.  Follow their campaign here on our website and in local media, learn more, contribute generously!