Post-Earthquake Haiti: Community Healing through Music and Medicine

Our plan of action is best expressed in two phases. The first phase involves planning for the music and healing camp in summer 2010. Our primary goal is to provide an opportunity for children in the area to recover and reflect from the events of the earthquake by healing through music. We will achieve this goal by collaborating with prominent musicians, physicians and volunteers to facilitate youth instruction and organize a concert. The second goal of this summer is to work with community members to stimulate youth involvement in sports. We aim to utilize sports such as soccer and volleyball as a vehicle for mentorship and community healing, following the philosophy of such organizations as Play For Hope, which reaches out to youth in Rwanda. Our third initiative for the summer is to provide medical care in the form of prosthetic limb and re-lactation clinics. In the public health arena, we aim to spearhead nutrition and clean water projects. The second phase of our project involves focusing community development planning on transitioning the summer music camp into a school. Within this project we hope to include plans for a community soccer field and amphitheater. Our plans for this summer's music & healing camps involve an operation on a much larger scale than we have previously been involved in Haiti. Thus, it is necessary that we network with several partners. We will coordinate our efforts through the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. We aim to involve the Episcopal Medical Missions Foundation, which has had a sustained presence in Haiti and has been responsible for founding several schools, hospitals and churches. Community development projects will be guided through partnerships with the University of Texas School of Architecture’s Community and Regional Development Program. We will work with physicians from UTHSC-San Antonio and the Colorado Haiti Project to run medical clinics, re-lactation & nutrition clinics, and prosthetic limb fitting clinics. A partnership with Legs for All will provide our patients with prosthetic limbs. We intend to reach out to musicians and music therapists through partnerships with the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship. The transportation of equipment and supplies will be coordinated by We Hear Your Voice, a 501c3 non-profit organization based in San Antonio. We will also work with We Hear Your Voice to mediate the transition of the summer music and healing camp into a new school for Haitian children with a special focus on children with disabilities. Our core team consists of medical students and physicians. Our long-term goals include providing sustained care to the people of these areas via successive trips in order to follow up on these communities and our nutrition center and prosthetic initiatives. As the school forms, we want to create a partnership in which our medical students can lead health education courses. By continuing to send students and volunteers to the school, we hope to add to the instruction in health, music, sports and academics.