Rebuilding and Water Health
Through the efforts of two of our early Mercy Team members (Dr. Randy Owen and Doug Buchanan), One Life, in partnership with Infinity New York Church and in collaboration with a Christian Haitian church partner, Le Premier Eglise de Jesus Christ, has applied for and received a grant from CAMA (Compassion And Mercy Associates)/ This grant will fund repair and rehabilitation of houses owned by 12 families, 64 individuals, currently “living” in the camps that One Life has been involved with since the earthquake in 2010. The model requires each beneficiary family to contribute either in cash or in labor/materials approximately 20% of the cost of each individual rehabilitation project.
Secondly, as many of you will have heard, the overall health situation is somewhat predictably deteriorating in Haiti as a result of the toll taken on the already “fragile” water and sanitation health system of Haiti by the earthquake. One Life received a grant of a work truck from the WFP, and further One Life’s Haiti Mission received the gift of a fairly revolutionary water pump/purification that we have used in ‘our camps’ to purify water for drinking. The water system’s filtration package including micro-filtration and reverse osmosis deals very effectively with bacteria including the bacteria which causes cholera. The video on the system, above, shows it being manually “pumped” in one camp in Haiti.
The common theme of the two elements of Phase 4 described above is taking the tools and resources at our disposal and seeking to deploy them in the most leveraged way possible for an immediate and impactful way. One Life has had the opportunity, One Life at a Time, to help without being responsible, or waiting, or solving the gordian knot that is Haiti today.
The CAMA grant is truly a gift and will enable us to fund the expenses for materials and services etc to rebuild homes for families currently living in the camps. However, the grant is quite defined and is focused on “hard” expenses limiting administrative or other “soft” expenses. For clarity, this appeal is not seeking donations to fund One Life “corporate” expenses. Rather, in the deployment of the grant in Haiti it is necessary to have certain administrative functions fulfilled including very tight financial reporting and expense tracking etc. Further, this grant, however, is limited to an amount which will likely “only” fund 12 homes. We are asking to raise matching donations which could fund an additional 20-30 houses we will repair/rebuild.
In order to donate in response to this appeal, please click on the link below or checks may be made payable to One Life Missions Foundation, Haiti Mission, and sent to One Life Missions PO Box 795, Harrison, NY 10528. One Life Missions Foundation is a U.S. 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization.
http://www2.guidestar.org/organizations/26-4143902/one-life-missions-foundation.aspx
