Guest bloggers: Kate Dennis and Susan Waltman
On January 18, Global Healthcare sponsored four IPSOS employees* on a working visit to Cabaret, Haiti. We volunteered alongside Industry Leaders as part of a Market Research Educational Foundation visit. The 2010 earthquake devastated the country’s infrastructure, and there is still so much need. In fact, close to 59% of Haitians live under the national poverty line of $2.41 a day.
The Joseph School’s (TJS) mission is to educate the future leaders of Haiti, and our Ipsos Volunteers quickly felt inspired by TJS’s message “Believe that You Can”. After just four years, TJS already provides a free education to 90 students every day across six separate classrooms. The school also provides lunch – which may be the only meal many children receive each day.
We worked together, helping to lay the foundation for a house for the school custodian; we chopped vegetables alongside volunteer parents, helping prepare Friday’s meal for the Children; we visited the site of a healthcare clinic (currently looking for funding), and visited a homeless shelter, an orphanage, and nearby villages where the Joseph School children live.
The IPSOS team of volunteers rallied their local offices and raised close to $5,000 to contribute to the school; the school purchased a cast iron stove, a freezer and a refrigerator for the newly built kitchen facility. Please reach out to our travelers (listed below) if you are interested in learning more about how to help The Joseph School or visit our YouCaring fundraising site at www.youcaring.com/SupportingTheJosephSchoolHaiti. Monies raised will be given directly to the school. We hope to make this an annual visit, and find more ways to collaborate and contribute to the wellbeing of the school children and their families.
*Jane Wilson, Montreal Office, Federico Gallo, NY Office, Sara Vergara-Muro, London Office, and Kate Dennis, Cincinnati Office and Susan Waltman