Guyana adventure

It is quite an adventure just traveling to Guyana. First, we boarded a flight from Miami to Trinidad, having a layover in “Trini” of about seven hours.  A late-night flight from there brought us to Georgetown, the capital of Guyana – a little after 11:00 PM.  Then, after an hour’s drive from the airport, we finally arrived at our hotel accommodations.

Our layover in Trinidad was used to good end as we visited our friends and partners at “Living Water Community.” We work closely with this organization in Trinidad to distribute goods we send for the poor of this country and also to oversee any projects that we may realize there. My old friend, Rhonda Maingot, is the leader of this organization. After a tour of the warehouse with Bronia, Rhonda took our group (Mike Anton, Projects Director, Susan James, Country Manager for Jamaica/Guyana/Trinidad and me) to dinner and some lively conversation. Another old friend, Lailas, joined us at the restaurant and afterwards, with Rhonda, they dropped us off at the airport outside of Port of Spain.

Guatemala -- After the floods

In early June 2010, after severe flooding occurred in Guatemala, a small team from Food For The Poor (FFP) – including Alice Marino, Director of Marketing, and Mark Khouri, Director of Goods In Kind - traveled with me there to meet with our partners, Caritas Arquediocesana. The purpose of our trip was to visit some of our joint programs in the country. Traveling at the same time was a team from a very large and reputable (not to mention generous and charitable) corporate leader in the food industry, which included their president. This giant U.S. corporation with a heart of gold has been developing a vitamin and iron enriched, turkey based, protein product to help combat the frightening incidence of malnutrition, which often results in death or stunted growth.  FFP and Caritas have partnered with this corporation in order to help with testing and distribution of the nutritional product in Guatemala City and its environs. This is successfully accomplished through nearly 30 Mother and Child (M & C) programs administered by Caritas and supported by FFP through its USDA McGovern-Dole Food For Education Program.

This canned turkey product, together with our rice, beans and oil received from the USDA, has been distributed over recent months to all eligible mothers in the program. In addition to the food, the Caritas staff has trained community leaders in each of these centers to educate women in the program about proper nutrition and care of their children, including teaching them about aspects of their growth and development. We witnessed some of these educational sessions and the Caritas staff  is to be congratulated for a job well done.

During our visit to the centers, the weight and height of each child was recorded, and the level of hemoglobin in the blood was measured in order to compare current information with data that had been captured when the program began. While the research and development (R & D) people were busy taking measurements, some of us visited homes, which proved to be very educational and moving experiences.

Haiti Diary: After the earthquake

THE BEGINNING

About two hours before the “sinister” hit Haiti, I was on my way to the Miami Airport to take a flight to the Dominican Republic (DR) to meet with the country’s president. On my way there, I received a call advising that he would not be able to meet with me. I decided to cancel my flight.

When we first learned of the earthquake, we could not have imagined the extent of the devastation, despite the announced 7.0 magnitude. Food For The Poor had a missions group traveling in Haiti at that time including 12 Lynn University students, two faculty advisors and our director of Food For The Poor’s (FFP’s) Mission and Travel Department, Leann Chong, who was leading the “Journey of Hope.” As part of their curriculum, Lynn students had established a program with us which included their students traveling with us to Jamaica and Haiti, their purpose being to see first-hand and come to better understand the extreme poverty of developing nations and learn more about some of the possible solutions. This was their third trip with us.

Their first trip to Haiti with FFP, one that I was fortunate enough to share with them, inspired them greatly. Upon their return, they formed an organization on campus called “Students for the Poor.” This organization would bring awareness to others of the suffering of the poor which they had witnessed, as the members would organize activities to raise funds for different projects that would help alleviate the tremendous suffering.