Hands Up for Haiti Inc.

Hands Up for Haiti is a medical humanitarian organization that delivers preventative and acute health care to the people of Northern Haiti through community-based, Haitian-led, Haitian-run clinical programs. Haitian Run + Haitian Led: A Vision Realized Our staff of 50 Haitian medical and lay professionals deliver life-saving programs in their own communities using not only their professional training but also their knowledge of the cultural life of each community. The vision espoused by HUFH capitalizes on the inherent capacity that already exists on the ground, a vision that empowers Haitian professionals to effect lasting and positive change in their communities on their terms. Inspired by our Haitian staff's strength, hope, and resilience, we continue to provide them support, education, medical, public health, and administrative guidance as they lay the groundwork for an even more significant impact.

Haitian Run + Haitian Led = Lifesaving Programs that Build a Better Future.

Goal One: To focus on the health of the community as a whole, adding programs such as well-baby to reduce the incidence of illness and malnutrition as children grow older.

Goal Two: Evaluate accessibility to our programs, provide missing services and collaborate when appropriate with similar organizations to more effectively reduce barriers to care and increase output and impact.

Goal Three: Educate and support staff on the ground, provide necessary supplies and equipment, to ensure that they can deliver our programs despite the continuing challenges they face in Haiti.

Two Board Leadership Workshops: one on general governance and Board function, the other on Board member role in development and fundraising. For staff on the ground, we created an Education Fund that allows our Haitian staff to pursue higher education and take leadership and management courses.

In the last year, between Covid, increasing civil unrest and travel bans, many NGOs working in Haiti closed their doors and expats left the country. While we stopped sending visiting teams, our work continues uninterrupted: our Haitian staff of more than 40 health professionals, community health workers (in Haitian Kreyol Travayè Sante Kominotè - TSK) and laymen, who know best how to deliver healing care to the communities in which they live, is empowered to deliver our lifesaving programs on a regular basis. These on-the-ground, Haitian-led programs are key to achieving our mission and our goal of reducing barriers to care, improving medical compliance and reducing childhood malnutrition, infant and maternal mortality and premature death. To effectuate this, HUFH invests in deep-rooted relationships that empower Haitian professionals to affect change in their communities, on their own terms. Today, we hold regular remote meetings with our Haitian leadership, including our Haitian Medical and Nursing Directors, listening carefully, providing targeted program support and education, and together modifying our programs for better impact. HUFH uses our TSKs, well-respected, motivated community residents recruited in consultation with community leaders, trained by HUFH and supervised by our local professionals, as the bridge between message sent by the health care provider and message received by the community. The TSK model employed by HUFH capitalizes on the inherent capacity that already exists on the ground, To help address the current challenges in Haiti, we have grown that program. HUFH believes that lasting positive change is measured in human capital, specifically through the increased capacity of the hands on the ground. This concept represents the maxim at the core of HUFH’s Haitian Run – Haitian Led vision statement, one that has guided us through the last year. For HUFH, this is the only way to achieve live-saving programs that build a better future.