Improving life in Haiti

In Haiti’s Central Plateau, an experiment is under way to see whether a personal assistant can help families make headway against their many problems.

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This is an organizational meeting of new household development agents in Boucan Carre, Haiti. Half of the commune's 10,000 households are being assigned a "household development agent" — a neighbor who will work as a health educator, vaccinator, epidemiologist, financial analyst, social worker, scheduler and advocate all at the same time. With the agent's help, a family will assess its needs and come up with a plan to make things better. Leading the discussion is Adrienne Noel, the woman in the red shirt, a 40-year-old nurse with Zanmi Lasante (the Creole translation of Partners in Health, an American nongovernmental organization).

Maggie Steber / For The Washington Post

Faimi Dumerand, 13 months old, lies in the cholera ward in the hospital grounds of the Centre de Sante St. Michel hospital in Boucan Carre. Her family walked for six hours to get her to the hospital from the community of La Plaine. Boucan Carre is in the Mirebelais province where Haiti's fierce cholera epidemic broke out, claiming thousands of lives. The hospital, one of the few in this commune, is run by the Haitian government but partners with Zanmi Lasante in an attempt to improve medical care in rural Haiti.

Maggie Steber / For The Washington Post

At an organizational meeting in Boucan Carre of new household development agents, it is discovered that they have mixed their lists of items needed by families instead of separating them and would have to rewrite the lists. They check with one another and look at the materials handed to them explaining it.

Maggie Steber / For The Washington Post

At an organizational meeting in Boucan Carre of new household development agents, Jean-Pierre Claudner looks at the map showing the homes of families he is responsible for and consults with Roseline Thaleran on zones they work in.

Maggie Steber / For The Washington Post

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