Canadian Friends of Hopital Albert Schweitzer - Haiti Thank You For Caring 2010

Better known as Canadian Friends of HAS or simply CFHAS, we are a Registered Canadian Charity that operates with the following objectives:

To provide medical, health and support services for the general public at one or more community health care centres in Haiti.
To develop and promote public health in Haiti by educating and instructing the public on prevention of, and curative measures for, health problems and by researching and documenting changes in the health of the community.
To improve skills in health care, forestry, agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, water management, small industry and business management in Haiti and to assist in the preservation of the environment in Haiti.
To relieve poverty in Haiti by providing basic supplies to persons in need.


In pursuit of these wide ranging objectives, our primary focus has been on assisting HAS to meet the maternal and child health care needs at the hospital and surrounding areas.

While many people played an important role in bringing Canadian Friends of HAS into existence, our roots can be traced to two sources:

Dr. Ev Sargeant and his wife Arlene who worked at HAS for one year back in 1985. They took the first work team from Hamilton to HAS in 1996.
The Berquist family led by Debbie who worked at HAS from 1989-1994 and from 1997-2008, plus Brad Berquist and his wife Elinor, who worked at HAS from 1997-1998.


In early 2003, a group of Hamiltonians who had visited HAS on work teams, and who had been moved by the vision of Dr. and Madame Mellon and their philosophy of Reverence for Life, decided to form an organization that would raise funds for HAS and create an awareness of the great work that was being done to help the Haitian people. It all started on April 1 when Peter Johnson, Co-CEO of the hospital at the time, sent an email to Hal Devins and Dave Shuttleworth. Peter started his email by saying There is interest in setting up an HAS office in Canada, and ended with I wonder if you could discuss this and let me know if there is any interest.

Well, interest there was! Soon a group was formed made up of Brad Berquist, Hal Devins, Peter and Cathy Johnson, Arlene Sargeant, Dave Shuttleworth, Mark Skuse, and Roy Sheldrick. On August 1, 2003 we became directors of the Canadian Charity called Canadian Friends of HAS - Haiti.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

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