Vocational training is often called the ‘sweet spot’ of charity, the ‘give them a fishing pole rather than a fish’ approach to philanthropy.
Caring Friends, Inc. is asking for donations to continue the vocational training of Haitian medical equipment repair technicians. The need is great for additional electronic and medical instrument training.
After the 2010 earthquake that killed 300,000 Haitians, forty plus Haitian students (40+) each received 16 weeks of biomedical equipment repair training in a Rotary sponsored program in Haiti from 2011-2014.
Haitian doctors made a plea for the program, and called broken medical equipment in hundreds of hospitals a major crisis that only got much worse after the earthquake. Haiti had literally no professionally certifed
biomed engineers in the entire country.
Caring Friends, Inc. was a significant adjunct funding partner of Rotary International in this 3 year vocational training effort, and along with The Rotary Club of West U, and other Houston area Rotary clubs, we saw some amazing repair results in the ability of hospital technicians after so little training.
Yet with only 16 weeks of training, Haitian students need additional, sophisticated diagnostic testing to determine their strengths and
weaknesses, and the diagnostic tests cost $100 per student at Canada’s vocational school.
USA biomed engineers have almost 4 years of full time training in addition to mentoring by master level engineers. Additional training is a must for Haiti.
If you are interested, you can contribute via PayPal at our website
caringfriendsindeed.org