HPIC at Work

Graduating into life

At the nutrition centre of the Northwest Haiti Mission, a graduation ceremony is held for four year olds. These are the children who were brought to the mission in third stage malnutrition, and would have died without care.

The children generally live at home and are brought to the centre every day by their mothers or older siblings. In the special nutrition program, they are given three meals a day, vitamins and medical attention. Canadian Tina Simpson-Leslie regularly carries medicine from HPIC to be administered by the doctor at the mission's clinic.

When the children at the centre are restored to health and strength, they get dressed up, have their pictures taken, and participate in a ceremony that celebrates survival and serves to launch them into life. They each receive a gift and a diploma, and have a party.

Leslie recognizes the essential role of the medicine and nutritional supplements from HPIC. "Because of your work, many were healed of diseases that would have cost them their lives," she says.

"This is a generation of people who would not have lived, who will grow up to change their land."