We noticed quite a few ‘Decade in Review’ posts on the internet, so we thought we’d do one of our own.
The 2010s was a big decade for Second Mile Haiti. In it, Second Mile was born, grew, and gained solid footing as an organization transforming the way aid is executed in Haiti and changing lives in the process.
The story of Second Mile Haiti began ten years ago, when Amy Syres and Jenn Schenk first came to Haiti to volunteer at a local orphanage. A decade later, and they run their own nonprofit that keeps children out of orphanages. What happened in between? Let’s take a look.
Although Jenn and Amy had the intention to help children who were in vulnerable situations- those who had been abandoned at a young age, who were undernourished, or who fell sick in infancy, they quickly realized that orphanages wasn’t the way. It didn’t take long to learn that 80% of so-called “orphans” had living family members, and so Jenn and Amy began to take a deeper look into what was causing parents to resort to orphanages.
Chairs were not left empty for long after Second Mile Haiti opened its doors.
After speaking with parents who came to the orphanage to give their infants, it became apparent that these families did not want to give up their children— they did so out of necessity. Due to their dire poverty, the "orphanage" was their last hope to get their child the food, medicine and care they so desperately needed.
Not only do orphanages keep families apart unnecessarily, Research has shown that they harm children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development. And in Haiti, they are four times more expensive than more holistic solutions that focus on family health, education, and social support. The $100 million donated to Haitian orphanages is not being well spent because orphanages are a false solution.
It’s hard to imagine how unbearable that decision must be for the parents who feel that they have no better options. To just hear about this situation is heartbreaking. And to witness it first hand was enough to make Jenn and Amy take a totally new approach, one that would center the needs and desires of whole families-- an approach that would keep children out of orphanages.
In comes Second Mile Haiti.
Their vision was to build a live-in recovery center where malnourished children could be cared for by their parents, with the support of health educators and nurses. This would give caregivers the opportunity to gain a better understanding of health and nutrition while simultaneously promoting confidence in their ability to care for their children. Parents would also take classes in business and graduate with a stipend to launch their own micro-enterprise. Not only would these caregivers leave with a healthy child, they would leave empowered with knowledge, confidence and opportunity to assure they both continued to thrive.
Eager to put their dream into action, Jenn and Amy left their volunteer posts in Haiti in October 2011, and returned to the United States to gather support. By January 2012, they were back in Haiti. Along with four Haitian collaborators, they purchased land, planted gardens, built three multi-function buildings— all while spreading the word of their program and building relationships with the community around them in Northern Haiti.
Then, on Mother’s Day in 2013, the Second Mile Haiti Treatment Center opened its doors for in-patient treatment.
In the last half of that first year, we welcomed 13 caregivers of children who had severe acute malnutrition. Now we treat over 100 children per year, and each and every one of these children remain a miracle in our eyes.
The model of the Treatment Center focuses first on the immediate needs of malnourished children, then on the caregiver. Caregivers are offered daily education classes, access to health and wellness resources, and business training and support. Second Mile continues to follow up with 600+ families who have passed through the Center, making sure that everyone is healthy, that families are able to send their kids to school, and that they are able to access healthy food through gardening and income-generating activities. During our follow up visits, we have been heartened to observe that 98% of children who have been treated at the Center have never relapsed into malnutrition.
Second Mile’s natural products brand Tou Natirèl was started in 2016 as a way to provide sustainable employment using local resources. We have experimented with yogurt, cream cheese, mango jam, honey, moringa powder, moringa oil, soap, and coconut oil. Today we are the only producer of consumable coconut oil in all of Haiti! The business provides employment for eight local men and women, and we hope to continue expanding.
After four years of successfully running a Malnutrition Treatment Center and providing educational, social, and economic support for caregivers to prevent future cases of malnutrition, we wanted to see how we might prevent malnutrition from occurring in the first place.
On March 21, 2018, Strong Start Maternity Center was opened for its first day of operation as a prenatal clinic. The Second Mile Nurse-Midwives went on to provide comprehensive prenatal testing, evaluation, and treatment to more than 200 women during the first nine months and more than 700 women to date.
Almost a year later, on February 28, 2019, Strong’s Start Birth and Postpartum Unit facilitated its first safe birth. At 11:00 AM on that first day, baby Stanley was born to a grateful set of parents. Since, we have facilitated over 114 safe births. Each and every one is a celebration.
Haiti was rocked with protests, political crises, soaring inflation, and gas shortages throughout 2018 and 2019. Despite these formidable challenges, the Second Mile Centers continued to be a safe place for community members to find reliable care.
Since day one, we have valued sustainability and resiliency. We are entirely run on solar power; we have organic gardens that have provided produce for hundreds of thousands of nutritious meals; we compost in order to give back to the topsoil that gives us food; we keep livestock like goats as well as chickens for dairy, meat, and eggs; a nursery for many varieties of fruit trees; and we have bees for honey. All of this provides local resources to sustain our Centers as well as a hands-on learning opportunity for community members of all ages to expand their knowledge in gardening, animal husbandry, and nutrition.
The decade closed off with a landmark moment when all 193 of the United Nations member nations officially recognized that orphanages harm children, that most children in orphanages have family, and that children should be supported to stay with their families.
This has been Second Mile’s rallying cry since we started this journey a decade ago. We’re thrilled, for families and for children, that it is now being echoed across the globe.
Today, we stand with two Centers offering holistic family health and wellness services, maternal health services, effective educational programs, and business support. Beyond that, we are an integral part of the community and the environment around us. And there is no place we would rather be.
We could not have completed the journey that was this decade without our network of supporters, the tireless work of the Second Mile staff members, and the courage of so many families who have placed their trust in us and who fight alongside us everyday for a healthier and brighter future.
