... helping haiti

(facebook 'u2u' to see video of our trip to Haiti January '09 - become a fan)

... recently a team of friends headed up by Justin Dowds from Lemon Aid returned to Haiti where they delivered emergency medical supplies after the earthquake (www.lemonaid.org.uk)

.. interested in joining a team that is going out to Haiti? (contact us for more information on facebook - u2u)

... interested in sponsoring a child either through us or direct with Compassion (www.compassion.org)

... support a project financially

A recent post from the Lemon Aid Website ...

Haiti Trip Update (24th Jan 2010)Posted by Tim Thomson (www.lemonaid.org.uk)

"Jan 24th 2010 : The team has arrived safely back into miami at 7am your time. What a trip. We have all seen things that no man would ever want to see. Its been a terribly emotionally draining trip but we have experienced Gods protection and answers to prayers like never before. Its been like everything we have asked for God has provided. For example we travelled to Lagonave and delivered the emergency meds to the hospital. They were almost completely out of antibiotics as all 4 wholesalers in the capital were destroyed in the earthquake. Without these supplies the hospital would have been without. The hospital continues to treat refugees from the mainland in greater numbers. Whilst at the hospital we met a beautiful small girl. She had been trapped for three days in the earthquake in the capital. Her family managed to dig her out and got her to the Lagonave hospital the next day as they could not find medical care in the capital. She had badly crushed and diseased feet. The doctors worked hard for three days to treat the wound but could not do any more without an orthopaedic team. We decided we would take her to the mainland and drive around all the field hospitals till we found the care she needed. Adrian and Charlie returned to the mainland by boat so that we could fly her to the mainland quickly. We were praying that God would come through as we knew not what we could do for this girl. As we landed justin saw a group of a doctors and joked with Dan that it would be kind of funny if those guys knew any orthopaedic colleagues. Dan went up to this team and in one of the best moments of the trip the doctors confirmed they were a complete orthopaedic surgical unit. They were overjoyed to have another patient. They had two seats on their plane and within an hour had the girl and her mother in the air on way to their orthopaedic unit north of the capital. Wow what an instant answer to prayer and we continue to pray that this team can save some of this girls feet. Just one example. In another our great friend Pastor Thimothee was in a church with 2000 when the quake struck. The church was completely destroyed and flattened and no one can explain in the natural but all 2000 escaped without injury. As a result of this in the last week 860 have given their lives to Christ including voodoo priests and witch doctors who were amazed at Gods power to protect his people. We look forward to sharing more with you. These supplies we have brought out were absolutely essential emergency supplies. What a privelege to be able to help in such a practical way."

... pablovens in Haiti - www.compassion.org

... after our visit to Haiti in January 2009 we were able to arrange to start sponsoring Pablovens through Compassion - an incredible organisation for whom we are now advocates - if you are interested in sponsoring children in Haiti (only $38/pm) get in touch with us - we hope to visit March 2010 and build two playgrounds - one at Pablo's school and one at the local hospital - we need a team to go with us and money for the project. We will be visiting and taking presents for children sponsored by our friends.
These are AYSO uniforms we sent to his school on the island of Gonaive (off Haiti).

... ayso soccer uniforms to Haiti

Greetings from the Haiti office,

I want to thank you for allowing some of our children and young people to enjoy the summer vacation physically with the soccer uniforms. We were able to send a bag of uniform to HA-675 as requested and eight other projects benefited from the uniforms. Please find attached a few photos and two lists of items send by two projects as requested. I have a video, and I am trying the best way to send it to you.
Keep on enjoying the day!

... playground in Ensenada summer 2009

... summer 2009 Jez and Ritchie Roofer our mate from London went with a small team from Kids Around the World headed up by Chris Marshall and put together the much longed for playground next to the La Commission Project in a poor area behind Ensenada, Mexico. 

It has brought a safe place for the children and families to play, socialise and build community ... it has made such a difference to the area and is helping transform the community.

Many thanks to Rumblefish, our friends and good mates who worked together to make this happen

'we built this city, we built this city on rock n roll ...'

HOT OFF THE PRESS "Things are good here! The kids LOVE the playground! There is always a big gang of kids hanging all over it..."

... Benjy's selling lemons for Lemon Aid

... if you're local the 'lemon stand' is opposite Ballard School in Ballard. The lemons are gorgeous and he's selling 20 for $2.00 - a bargain!

We visited Haiti in January ’09

... and part of our visit was a hospital on the island of Lagonave.
We are working alongside a charity called Lemon Aid (a registered charity based out of Scotland - Justin Dowds) which operates from UK.

Justin set about trying to ascertain what would benefit the islander the most. Over a period of 6 months it was decided to focus on 5 main areas -

• Vaccination Clinic
• Hospital Rebuild
• Digging Wells
• Road Access
• Goat Distribution

Lagonave ...

Officially one of the most water scarce places on planet earth, Lagonave, is in dire need of investment and development.

Suffered catastrophic events with Hurricane' Ike, Hannah and Gustaf all in the space of ten days in September 2008.


Currently over 50% of children on the island suffer from Typhoid and access to healthcare is extremely limited.
The only hospital on the island was built over 50 years ago and has just 33 beds. Since its grand opening the population on the island has grown, clearly overstretching the resource that can be provided at such a small hospital.


1. Vaccination Programme
‘Lemon Aid’ is sponsoring a vaccination clinic May 1-15th 2009

Health Screening, training, vaccination. Children on the island have no access to life saving vaccines for Typhoid, Hep B, Men C, Hib. We know there is a prevalence of many of these diseases and we have decided to begin vaccination programmes on the island.

As part of the vaccination programme each child will receive a full healthcheck. They will also be tested for malaria, HIV, Typhoid, Anaemia and treatment will be provided for all ailments that are diagnosed.

A team of 8 medics from Scotland will travel to Lagonave for 2 weeks in May (1st – 15th) to run the programme. Training will also be provided to local staff. Follow up will be maintained on the ground by Compassion staff in partnership with the hospital. All positive HIV cases will receive family tests, counselling and immediately put on life saving anti retro virals. In May we aim to treat and vaccinate over 700 children.
We need about another $10,000.00 USD to meet the budget for this trip. All the medics are giving their time free of charge and coming in their holidays.
They are also all covering their own flight costs. Total budget for the trip is around $70,000.00 USD plus travel.
Contact us if you'd like to be part of a team for part of or the entire project.

On the Saturday in the middle of the trip we want to arrange a "free medic day" where we can provide medical checks for locals free of charge that we have not seen during the kids clinics.
As well as this we want to run a football tournament

...if we can (still need soccer uniform donations - if you played with AYSO ask your team to donate their team's uniforms
... and have some locals cooking loads of food that we can give away to the poorest.

2. Hospital Rebuild

The hospital is in desperate need of supplies and equipment. The dream here is for the very best. We want to construct a western standard hospital on the island. I dream of top teams of UK, USA, Australian doctors, surgeons, opthalmologists travelling down to run clinics at the new hospital for a week at a time. For that to happen we need to construct good western standard accommodation for visiting medic teams and a complete hospital and surgical wing that will allow visiting medic to treat serious cases within this hospital. I want to build a paediatric clinic and have paediatricians on staff all the time. It's a
massive dream but we have to start somewhere. We need $500,000.00 USD to get phase one off the ground which is the surgical suite and we have been pledged equipment to fit it out if we can build it. We have pledged for over $350,000.00 USD now and so if we can get just over $100,000.00 USD more we can at least make a start as we move forward with the plans. I have an architect coming in May to begin assessing what is there and what needs to be built and where. I dream of starting the build however in 2009. The Wesleyan Mission on the ground would assist in the build as they have been running the hospital for 50 years and have a great passion for the work there. Its going to be exciting to see this take off.

3. Digging Wells

Island wide provision of clean water. LEMON AID has partnered with Compassion and Guts Church Tulsa to develop a plan for providing clean drinking water across the island. A drilling rig has been shipped to the island and well drilling has begun. In 2008 13 wells were dug of which 11 were fresh water, each serves up to 1000 people per day with clean drinking water. At the 2 salty sites plans have been put in place to install solar powered reverse osmosis systems at a cost of $32,000 USD each.
The first system will open in March 2009. Each system when operational will provide 6000 litres per day of clean drinking water, powered entirely by the sun.
4. Road Access

To ensure that we can provide clean drinking water across the island it has been necessary to carry out construction work on the dusty paths that line the island. We cannot at this stage afford proper roads but we have plans in place to allow the development of solid rock roads that will at least allow access to remote communities of the drilling rig. The lack of roads is the single most limiting factor in drilling for water.
In 2008 we were able to invest $18,000.00 USD to allow 18km of road to be made good enough for the drilling rig to drive on. In 2009 we will spend $50,000.00 USD on the next stretch of roads to allow the drilling rig access to remote communities to continue drilling for water.
Where we pass a school we are drilling extra wells in the schools to ensure the children have clean water to drink all day at school.

5. Goat Distribution

Goats produce Protein rich milk daily which will help build the nutritional state of the child. They breed easily which allows the young to be sold or eaten. The waste material is also a great fertiliser for the owner to use to facilitate planting of crops at home.
As part of this programme we have included a budget for veterinary care, goat vaccinations,
husbandry skills development. The first born must also be given to the a family that does not have a goat, and in that way skills are passed on.
A goat can sell for $60.00 USD which would feed a family for two months on Lagonave. In February 2009 another 200 families on the island will receive a goat in the next wave of goat to be distributed. This project is being overseen on the island by Compassion staff.

... we want to give these beautiful children a chance

... soccer uniforms in Haiti

Jez and I were so excited to this time be able to personally deliver the soccer uniforms collected - pumping up valuable balls donated by Santa Ynez AYSO - thankyou so much

... handing out the uniforms - so much excitement and so much fun!

... they loved to see the photos of the children from California who donated the uniforms and we try to bring back photos for you of the children who received your uniforms

... we managed to take 5 sets of uniforms - I've never had such heavy handluggage - thankfully in two airports the scales were broken


Uniforms donated by BU14 2008 'Silver Knights' from the Santa Ynez Valley - thanks guys.

... uniforms from the last few years of All-Star teams also Santa Ynez Valley


... Donated by Coach Gino Fillipine's team 2008 BU12 'Adrenaline' - really appreciate the effort you all made.

... we collect the uniforms 365 days of the year - have so many requests - we will collect from you or if you are in the Santa Ynez Valley the bin is at 'Jim's Service Centre' - tell your friends.