Thursday, February 25, 2010

Cuban Program Initiated in Haiti to Address Psychosocial Trauma


PORT AU PRINCE, February 20.— More than 4,000 Haitian children and their families so far have joined in a Cuban program aimed at helping Haitians recover from post-earthquake psychosocial trauma.

Cuban psychologist Alexis Lorenzo, an expert from Havana’s Latin American Center for Disaster Medicine, explained that the program being implemented by the Cuban medical mission in Haiti will serve as the methodological base for a national psychosocial support program for children and young people to be implemented by the Ministry of Education.

The initiative also incorporates Haitian experiences from previous disasters and that of long serving International organizations in Haiti, reported the Prensa Latina news agency.

One of the goals of the Cuban project, which held its 41st activity on Friday, is to help Haitian children deal with the horrifying memories of the January 12 earthquake, and from the bleak aftermath of the disaster and the daily hardships of life in the makeshift camps set up in parks and plazas. The classroom for most is only a memory and their current depressing panorama is a real detriment to overcoming the tragedy.

Cuban psychologists, along with teachers from the Haitian National School of Arts who have joined the program, continue to work hard to help children recover from the earthquake-inflicted psychosocial trauma, carrying out activities that include games, singing and drawing.

(Juventud Rebelde)
Reinforcements: International Team of Cuban-Trained Doctors Arrives in Haiti


An international team of some 50 doctors trained at Havana's Latin American Medical School (ELAM) has arrived in Port-au-Prince to join Cuba's medical relief contingent in post-quake Haiti. Coming from a dozen countries, they are the first wave of ELAM graduates expected to number over 200 from 24 countries in the next week.

They will join the 1,147-strong Cuban-led International Henry Reeve Emergency Medical Contingent, already comprised of 736 Cubans plus 402 ELAM graduates from Haiti, 7 from the USA and 2 from Nicaragua—together the largest medical relief effort in Haiti.

Read more from MEDICC.org

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Cuban-trained US doctors arrive in Haiti

NEW: CNN Video report on Cuba's increased presence in Haiti


Cuban-Haitian Medical Teams in Haiti
February 2, 2010—Cuban and Cuban-trained Haitian doctors—already the largest contingent of medical relief workers in Haiti since the January 12th earthquake—are being joined by graduates of Cuba’s Latin American Medical School (ELAM) from a score of countries.  Among the first to arrive this week will be several US physicians who studied at ELAM.
Of the 938 health care providers in the teams on the ground thus far, 280 are young Haitian doctors, and at least 60 more are Haitian medical students enrolled at the school. Over the next few weeks, they will receive reinforcements of their peers in a number of Latin American, African and Caribbean countries.
(Read more at  MEDICC.org)


Cuban-style Medicine
Rev. Lucius Walker tells us about the US-born, Cuban-trained doctors headed to Haiti and why their unique training has prepared them for this mission.

Listen to the Tavis Smiley Show

www.cubasolidarity.net/pastors.html