Any use-based lactnetters want to take this on....there seems to be a heck of a lot of harmful aid in the form infant formula comint to Haiti from the US...in this case i't going to the maternity hospitals. Why, oh why do they not see that it would be cheaper and safe to feed mothers so they can feeb heir babies.
Karleen Gribble
Australia
http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090420/NEWS/904200313
Helping hungry babies in Haiti
Saint Francis pre-med student is raising funds to buy formula, cereal.
Want to help?
What: Formula for Life 5K Run/Walk and Silent Auction
When: Noon Sunday; silent auction starts at 12:30 p.m.
Where: University of Saint Francis North Campus Auditorium, across from Doermer Family Center for Health Science Education
Why: To raise funds to purchase baby formula and cereal for Haitian infants
Details: $12 per person or $10 per person for family of three or more; purchase "head start" minutes at $10/minute up to $50 to get ahead of the crowd; food and beverages; five bands will entertain.
To register: visit http://usfformulaforlife.blogspot.com or the USF Web site at www.sf.edu.
Still needed: Donated silent-auction times; consider donating things for themed gift baskets; also needed are food/beverage donations from restaurants and other vendors. For more information, e-mail Cortney Shepard at shepardcs@ studentmail.sf.edu.
By Jennifer L. Boen
of The News-Sentinel
Long before four hurricanes struck Haiti last summer, the country was considered one of the poorest in the world. But when the storms destroyed croplands, aid workers such as Doctors Without Borders sounded a desperate alarm. Children by the dozens were dying because there was no food.
While contingencies from the U.S. and around the world, including former president Bill Clinton, have in recent weeks visited Haiti to assess needs, a University of Saint Francis senior is doing her part to feed the littlest Haitians.
In 2007, Cortney Shepard, a pre-med student, went on a medical mission trip to the Dominican Republic with Brookside Community Church in Fort Wayne. It was there she met a tiny infant in the makeshift clinic that she and other volunteers had set up.
"The mom brought her to us. The baby was very malnourished and was getting two crackers a day," crushed in water, Shepard recalled. "I was really upset."
So Shepard offered to drive to town to find milk or baby formula, but it was too far. Besides, locals said they could not give formula to just one child. There were many, many babies like this one. The mothers are too malnourished to breast feed, and milk and formula are not available.
"So they give them crackers and water," Shepard said.
She returned to Indiana and discussed what she saw with biology professor Amy Obringer, who saw some of Shepard's pictures and listened to the distress in her student's voice.
"I remember when Cortney came back from the trip and said, 'I'm never again going to open up my cupboard and say there's nothing to eat.' I thought if this moved her that much, I said, 'Why don't you do something about it,'" Obringer said.
That was the beginning of the unversity's Formula For Life, initially a one-person cause for which Shepard began to raise money to buy baby formula.
It was through a relative of Obringer's who works for the aid organization One Brick at a Time in Haiti that Shepard found a way to get formula to that country, which is even poorer overall than the Dominican Republic.
Through several fundraisers in 2008 held by various clubs at Saint Francis, enough money was raised to purchase formula and baby cereal to provide 4,600 meals for babies at a maternity hospital in Haiti.
Obringer's relative helps deliver the formula and cereal, so Shepard knows it is reaching the right destination.
Shepard's face beams when she talks about reports coming back that babies who surely would have died are now thriving until they can eat regular food.
The hospital has requested another shipment, so amid preparing for finals and waiting for a much-hoped- for acceptance letter from at least one of the several medical schools to which she's applied, Shepard is organizing another Formula For Life drive on Sunday at Saint Francis.
Shepard hopes to go to Haiti this summer when the shipment is sent.
No specific monetary goal has been set for the upcoming fundraiser, she said, noting, "I hope we raise lots. These babies are dying."
Her challenge to others: "I will save a life on April 26. What will you be doing?"
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