Soaring: “Back 2 School” in Haiti

For the first time in five years, we’re excited that school is set to start on time in Haiti. On Monday, Sept. 4, kids across the country—including those sponsored by Soaring—are scheduled to return to the classroom for the 2023-24 academic year. 

Our hope and prayer is that nothing like the pandemic or other disease outbreaks such as cholera, nor political violence, civil unrest or assassination will intervene to delay the start of school as they have unfortunately every year recently.

The return of the school year a month from now is also the perfect time for our school sponsors to make your donations.  We welcome both returning sponsors and new ones to contribute to our Soaring Sustainers’ Fund and designate for a school sponsorship to ensure that we can sustain this key program! 

With inflationary forces in Haiti’s economy, elementary student sponsorships are now $250 a year, & secondary student sponsorships are $400.  This covers tuition, books, uniforms, school supplies, and toiletries. Yet this is still an amazing return on investment, and we can also combine smaller donations where necessary to create full sponsorships.

Our goal this upcoming academic year is sponsoring 65 kids.  Jeana, Olivier & Carline  are 3 of our available student sponsees, among dozens of others. Soaring launched an Education Committee last year, and its members have worked hard to reinvigorate our school sponsorship program which is Soaring’s longest-standing program. Each sponsor will be matched with a Haitian student & receive their educational details and a photo. Thank You for your prayers & consideration!  ~PastorLaura

Women’s Micro-Loans Promote Entrepreneurs & Financial Help

Just as we are empowering women’s healthcare in Northern Haiti, likewise Soaring is empowering women financially. Over the course of the last two years, we have launched two Women’s Micro-Credit Groups in our village. Some 25 women are receiving small business loans to help support their families and build economic strength in the community! More groups can be started to expand this program, and you can be instrumental in helping provide these new opportunities by donating to our Sustainers’ Fund! Our current focus is on sustainability for the new and existing programs and services that Soaring delivers. 

EMPOWERING HAITIAN WOMEN

Moms and their children deserve a healthy life and stable financial circumstances! At Soaring Unlimited Haiti, we are empowering women to be leaders and entrepreneurs in the community, and to care for their health and their families’ future. Thank You for helping us make a difference ~Pastor Laura

I want to share the latest news and sincere appreciation regarding DUMC’s fundraising campaign for Soaring Unlimited Haiti’s Women’s Health & Birth Center. Around this time last year, as Soaring approached the completion of construction on our new building, generous donors from this congregation began contributing toward a fundraiser to furnish our Women’s Center in Northern Haiti. 

Thanks to your amazing response, we have been able—throughout the course of this calendar year—to purchase and install major appliances and cabinets in the kitchen and laundry area; move in furniture for the birth and recovery rooms; setup the reception and office areas; help furnish labs, pharmacy, and exam rooms; and equip the in-house training facility with internet and presentation equipment. The new building will be called “Sante Fanm” which means “women’s health” in the Haitian Creole language, and we are on track to open it for regular operations just after the start of 2023.

Soaring has hired three Haitian Midwives to primarily staff the center ~ all of them graduated from a U.S. nonprofit called Midwives for Haiti which operates in the central region of the country and provides in-depth education and training of Haitian women interested in becoming professional midwives. In addition, Soaring is also newly hiring an administrative assistant, an electronic medical records technician, and a cook/housekeeper as additional staff for the new center. We are currently contemplating an early January 2023 launch of the facility’s operations.

A million thanks again to DUMC! I’m grateful for all the ways in which this congregation has embraced my Haiti ministry! If you would like to remember us again this holiday season, we are included in the DUMC Christmas Catalog. Your support of the birth center helps save the lives of women and children in the most dangerous place to give birth in our hemisphere! Christmas Blessings to You & Yours, Pastor Laura

NEWS RELEASE ~ JANUARY 2023 ~ OPENING OF NEW WOMEN’S CENTER

Soaring Unlimited Haiti is pleased and proud to announce the opening event and launch of its long-awaited “WOMEN’S HEALTH” & Birth Center ~ “SANTE FANM.”  The new facility will be dedicated during an Opening Event on Wednesday, January 25, at 2pm on Soaring’s “Dorothy Frederickson Community Health & Education Campus” in Pistere Village, Limonade Region, NorthEast Haiti.

The following day, Sante Fanm will open to women in the local village community and surrounding area. Patients who come will be able to give birth with expert care and support from our highly trained midwifery staff, as well as receive a comprehensive array of women’s and children’s health services. Our “continuum of care” includes programming from feminine hygiene support that helps keep teenage girls in school, to prenatal pregnancy care, to postpartum follow-up, to infant and child health and developmental assessments, to family planning services.  Soaring has also been providing classes for local traditional birth attendants to enhance their skills, and will continue to work with them culturally in the community through our new facility and its programming.

“We are gratified and humbled to finally see this dream and vision come to fruition, after many years of planning, fundraising, and building ~ it is truly a miracle to have completed the project during a global pandemic and the ongoing civil and political unrest in Haiti,” said Rev. Dr. Laura Alexander Elliott, Missionary in Haiti and Executive Director of Soaring Unlimited. “It’s our hope and prayer that the presence of this new facility in the community will improve the health and lives of women and their families in the region we serve in Haiti, as well as significantly contribute to the reduction of maternal and infant mortality rates in Haiti where they are the highest in our hemisphere.”

The new facility is an expansion of Soaring’s existing Medical Campus and Health Services. The faith-based U.S. nonprofit—which acts as an NGO in the developing nation of Haiti and partners with many other organizations in-country—has been operating a Primary Care Medical Clinic for nearly 15 years in the rural outskirts of the northern city of Cap Haitien, which is the second largest city in the country after the capital of Port au Prince further south. Soaring will celebrate 30 years of service in Haiti next year, and also provides programs to Haitian families and children in education, nutrition, and sanitation. Along with expanded health care facilities, the new building will include a conference room equipped for in-person and online training classes, as well as local community gatherings.

“We want to thank all of our funders, donors, congregations, partners, and supporters who have made this facility possible, which is an answer to prayer,” said Tom Hanna, President of the Soaring Board of Directors.  “We are especially grateful to Building Goodness Foundation of Charlottesville, Virginia, which served as our design and construction partner. Their expert staff, devoted community volunteers, and funding sources have helped us in major ways to ensure we completed this project."