Long-term Goal to Provide Health Care, Mental Health Services

January 20, 2010

Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights has sent a team of staff and volunteers to Haiti to establish long-term services for survivors of last week's devastating earthquake. Our initial assessment will allow critical time for mobilizing resources that will be desperately needed once emergency rescue efforts wane.

With our expertise in community-based health care, mental health, and trauma recovery, Heartland Alliance plans to provide long-term mental health services to first-responder relief workers (local and international); to Haitian communities experiencing severe destruction; to Haitian children with severe trauma; and to internally displaced populations experiencing trauma.

Heartland Alliance's team in Haiti is led by Sean Casey, director of International Programs, and Ramsey Ben-Achour, country director for Haiti. They are joined on this trip by two volunteers, Dr. Beth Dowell (a physician) and Dr. Sonali Gupta (a trauma specialist). The team members are fluent in French and Creole. Their base office for now is a tent on the lawn of the CHF International compound in Petionville, just outside Port-au-Prince.

Additional volunteer mental health workers will travel to Haiti in the coming weeks.

Heartland Alliance continues to need financial contributions to deliver direct aid and services - and to fund travel of volunteers. All donations to the Heartland Alliance Fund for Haiti will be used to support Haiti. Contributions can be made to Heartland Alliance/Haiti at www.heartlandalliance.org/haiti.

About Heartland Alliance:

Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights helps people who are threatened by poverty or danger to improve their lives and realize their human rights. For more than 120 years we have been providing solutions – through services and policy – creating paths from crisis to stability and on to success. Our work in housing, health care, legal protections, and economic security supports more than 200,000 people annually, helping them build a better future. 

Media Contact(s):

Amy Carlton
312.660.1317
acarlton@heartlandalliance.org

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Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights helps people who are threatened the most by poverty or danger improve their lives and realize their human rights. For more than 100 years we have been providing solutions—both through services and advocacy—creating paths from crisis to stability and on to success. Our work in housing, health care, legal protections, and economic security supports more than 200,000 people annually, helping them build a better future.