Stuff about me
My name is Keith Michaud and this is “Letters From Away,” a blog written by a Mainer living outside the comfortable and sane confines of New England. The blog is intended for Mainers, whether they live in the Pine Tree State or beyond, and for anyone who has loved ’em, been baffled by ’em or both. Ayuh, I am “from away.” Worse still, I live on the Left Coast – in California. Enjoy! Or not. Your choice.
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Tag Archives: Haiti
Program finds Maine sponsors for Haitian children
TERRIER ROUGE, Haiti — Terry Johnston works through her list, using an interpreter to question the 20-year-old woman who is in her last year of classes.
“Is your mother alive? Your father?” she asks the student, Guerda Valmyr. “Mama, papa?”
“Non.”
“Do you have problems with your eyes?”
“Oui.”
“Dizziness?”
“Oui.”
“Have you had typhoid, malaria?”
“Non.”
“Do you hope to go to university?”
“Oui.”
“To study … ?”
“Nursing.”
“We need that now,” Johnston murmurs as she makes a note with her purple Crayola marker.
Johnston, of Jefferson, Maine, has been coming to this rural village about 18 miles from the city of Cap Haitien each year since 2002.
Click the link to read the rest of “Program finds Maine sponsors for Haitian children” by Matt Wickenheiser of the Portland Press Herald.
Haiti dispatches from Maine journalists
Here is a link to more dispatches from and about Haiti.
‘Earth had turned to Jell-O’ during quake, Mainer recalls
Austin Webbert and a group of his college classmates were relaxing at a downtown restaurant in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, the day a 7.0-magnitude earthquake turned most of the Carribbean capital into rubble, killing tens of thousands.
Webbert’s group was taking a break from the volunteer work they had undertaken in Cit Soleil, a slum on the outskirts of the Haitian capital.
“We had just left the building and gotten into our SUV when the earthquake happened,” Webbert said. “I was shocked to see the restaurant heave up and down off the ground before slumping over.”
The 22-year-old college student from Wayne was on his fourth trip to the nation of 9 million. He evacuated to the Dominican Republic late last week, then landed in Miami on Saturday.
Click here to read the rest of “‘Earth had turned to Jell-O’ during quake, Mainer recalls” by the Kennebec Journal’s Matthew Stone.
Tagged aid, Cit Soleil, earthquake, Haiti, Mainer, Port-au-Prince, volunteer
Mainers prepare to help Haiti amputees
Even as initial responders to the Haitian earthquake struggle to get food, water and medical care to survivors, some Mainers are working to prepare long-term help for hundreds who were maimed in the disaster.
Adam Cote, a former congressional candidate, is heading to Haiti on Monday with a group from the company he works for, Global Relief Technologies, to gather data on amputees who need artificial limbs. He will use the technology the company designs to collect names, addresses and medical data, make measurements of damaged limbs, snap photos and generate wrist bands with bar codes that will help doctors and nurses identify the patients and access their records.
The information will be sent to New England Brace, a New Hampshire-based company with an office in Lewiston, which plans to lead an effort to provide prosthetics for the injured.
Cote, who lives in Portland, said the company is donating the time and equipment. He plans to be in Haiti for up to two weeks, working with Helping Hands for Haiti, a group that has been staffing hospitals and building schools in the impoverished country for about a decade. The organization’s hospitals were destroyed in the earthquake, but it has set up field hospitals in the capital, Port-au-Prince, which was devastated by the quake, Cote said.
“They are telling us there are probably 2,500 to 3,000 amputees” who will need help, Cote said.
Click here for the rest of “Mainers prepare to help Haiti amputees” by the Portland Press Herald’s Edward E. Murphy.
Idealist.org: The long road to recovery – and how you can help
The first thought might be to rush in to volunteer when faced with such a tragic situation as the earthquake in Haiti. The images and stories coming out of that very poor country are terribly sad and rightfully are spurring incredible generosity to charities helping there.
But, as this Idealist.org blog entry by Erin Barnhart indicates, waiting may be the very best thing to do for those not trained to deal with such disasters. Follow the link to the bog.
Maine plant ships canned meat to Haiti
Posted in Disaster, Food and Drink, Maine
Tagged aid, B&G Foods, B&M Backed Beans, earthquake, Haiti, Portland, relief, Stop Hunger Now
More dispatches about Mainers helping Haiti quake victims
Here is a link to more “reporter’s notebook” items from the MaineToday Media crew writing from and about Haiti.
Posted in Disaster, Journalism, Maine, News and Newspapers, Newspapers
Tagged aid, eaqrthquake, Haiti, Mainers, relief, reporter's notebook
This time Mainer’s not hunting treasure, he’s delivering it – to Haiti
Normally when treasure hunter Greg Brooks embarks on his 220-foot ship Sea Hunter, he’s not 100 percent sure what he’s going to find.
Not so this time.
“I love the people of Haiti and I know that they’re suffering,” Brooks said Thursday. “Because of this tragedy, everybody’s willing to give to Haiti. I can transport the stuff they want to give.”
And then some.
Click here to get the rest of “This time Mainer’s not hunting treasure, he’s delivering it – to Haiti” by Portland Press Herald columnist Bill Nemitz.
Tagged aid, Bill Nemitz, earthquake, Greg Brooks, Haiti, Mainers, relief, Sea Hunter, treasure hunter
Maine public TV, radio providing info on Haiti quake, relief
Just a reminder that Maine Public Broadcasting Network has a landing page including information on the Haiti earthquake and relief effort.
Click here to go to the page.
Time Warner: Calls to Haiti from Maine, NH to be free
Time Warner Cable today announced that all calls placed by its digital phone customers to Haiti will be free through February.
The program will be retroactive to Jan. 12. Calls to both landline and cellular telephones are included in this program. Time Warner Cable has over 100,000 digital phone subscribers in Maine and New Hampshire.
Customers who are making calls to Haiti during the eligible period do not need to make any changes in order to take advantage of this program. The program will cover any Time Warner Cable digital phone subscriber.
Click here to read the rest of this story.
Posted in Maine
Tagged aid, callls, earthquake, Haiti, phone, relief, Time Warner Cable
Mentor, Sullivan to perform in Maine for Haiti relief
UNITY – Opera singer Phillip Mentor and Grammy Award-winning Maine composer and pianist Paul Sullivan will perform a benefit concert for Haiti relief efforts at the Unity College Centre for the Performing Arts on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $10 per person with all proceeds to benefit Haiti relief efforts by the American Red Cross and Water Projects International. Tickets are available online at http://www.unitymaine.org/theater/, by calling 948-SHOW, or at http://www.unitymaine.org. The Unity College Centre for the Performing Arts is located at 42 Depot St. (off Route 202) in Unity.
Click here to read the rest of this story.
Here are links to purchase online tickets for the concert.
Reporter’s Notebook | Portland Press Herald
Here’s another “reporter’s notebook” from the MaineToday Media covering the earthquake in Haiti.
Posted in Environment, Journalism, Maine, News and Newspapers, Newspapers
Tagged aid, earthquake, Haiti, MaineToday Media, Portland Press Herald, reporter's notebook
Making a difference for poorest of the poor
CAP HAITIEN, Haiti — The pickup jostled through craters in the dirt road, pushing farther into Petite Anse, a packed collection of tin shacks, squat cinder block homes and abandoned trucks on the outskirts of Cap Haitien.
The three women in the back climbed out as it stopped and headed down one long dirt path, toward an opening piled with mound after mound of densely compacted garbage.
They are part of a team of outreach workers who go into Cap Haitien’s poorest slums, working out of a health clinic at Fort Saint Michel and funded by Konbit Sante, a Portland-based nonprofit.
The clinic is one of only two that serve the devastatingly poor neighborhoods bordering Cap Haitien, offering maternity care, tuberculosis testing and treatment, prenatal care, emergency care and other services.
Traveling Wednesday into Petite Anse, which is built on refuse, the women walked across a causeway built up with old tires, dirt and trash that held back the fecal-contaminated pools of stagnant water.
Click on this link to the rest of “Making a difference for poorest of the poor” by Portland Press Herald staff writer Matt Wickenheiser.
Posted in Maine, Newspapers
Tagged aid, Cap Haitien, earthquake, Haiti, Konbit Sante
MaineToday Media’s landing page has much on Haiti
I was so busy the past couple of days passing along links from the home pages of Maine newspapers that I failed to take a look at the landing page set up on the Web site of MaineToday Media’s Portland Press Herald.
Here’s a link to the landing page or you can move from the Portland Press Herald’s home page by clicking on the icon showing a crying Haitian child and the text: “Haiti Quake: Mainers respond to catastrophe.”
That will bring you to a landing page with a multimedia presentation. There are local stories and commentary, wire stories, tweets, slideshows, and information on how to donate to the Haiti relief effort. It’s not a bad collection of what’s been written by MaineToday Media so far on the earthquake in Haiti.
The one thing it lacks – at least from a cursory standpoint – is video. But that is highly understandable under the circumstances; newspapers are not set up to broadcast video via satellite and getting a memory card to the mainland to be edited and sent to the MaineToday Media websites wouldn’t make sense. My hope is that the reporters and photographers – perhaps a videographer – are taking video so that can be added to the landing page later.
I’ll post other landing pages if I spot one by a non-MaineToday Media paper.
Posted in Environment, Journalism, Maine, News and Newspapers, Newspapers
Tagged aid, earthquake, Haiti, MaineToday Media, Portland Press Herald, relief
Lack of information slows efforts to aid quake refugees
CAP HAITIEN, Haiti — The numbers are slippery; information is hard to get a handle on.
According to Justinian Hospital’s medical director, the hospital saw 130 patients through the weekend who were earthquake victims. At the end of Tuesday, he didn’t have solid numbers for Monday or Tuesday.
There were reports that a gymnasium in the city was set up as a shelter for victims. There may be 300 people there. Or 1,500. Or nobody. And it’s unclear who’s in charge – if anyone is.
Amid the confusion, Nate Nickerson is trying to coordinate efforts to get aid – particularly U.S. medical personnel. Nickerson is executive director of Portland-based Konbit Sante, a nonprofit that has been working with partners to improve northern Haiti’s health care system at Justinian Hospital and at a clinic at Fort St. Michel, Cap Haitien’s poorest neighborhood.
Here’s a link to the rest of “Lack of information slows efforts to aid quake refugees” by the Portland Press Herald’s Matt Wickenheiser.
Posted in Environment, Journalism, Maine, News and Newspapers, Newspapers
Tagged aid, Cap Haitien, earthquake, Haiti, Konbit Sante, nonprofit
City helps sponsor telethon for Konbit Sante
Here’s a link to “City helps sponsor telethon for Konbit Sante.”
Maine shipwreck hunter eyes Haiti relief
Here’s a link to “Maine shipwreck hunter eyes Haiti relief.”
Portland Press-Herald ‘Reporter’s notebook’ from, about Haiti
Here’s a link to a series of “reporter notebook” items by Portland Press-Herald reporters and photographers covering the earthquake in Haiti. These are the sorts of things that reporters find interesting and jot them down in their notebooks, but often they do not make it into the bigger, overall story.
Here’s a link to the rest of the reporter notebook.
Posted in Environment, Journalism, Maine, News and Newspapers, Newspapers
Tagged aid, earthquake, Haiti, Mainers, Portland Press Herald
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