Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in”.
~Author Unknown

1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Our speaker, Dr. David Ehrenkrantz, was joined remotely by two nurses, Gretha Fievre and Dr. Marie Charles, to tell us about HEAL Pignon. This project provides practical training to Haitian nursing students.
As we are all aware, Haiti has been undergoing severe economic and political distress recently. It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Trained medical professionals are desperately need. Because the medical education programs are poorly funded, nursing programs are focused on learning theory and lack hands-on training. There is minimal access to hospitals or clinics to get practical training.
HEAL Haiti was established by Gretha Fievre and others to supplement the nursing education programs in Haiti. The goal of HEAL Haiti is to provide hands on guidance and practical training to experienced Haitian student nurses and recent graduates.
HEAL Pignon is part of HEAL Haiti. The HEAL Haiti staff considers HEAL Pignon to be a pilot program. They hope to expand to more cities in Haiti. It was established in partnership with the Rotary Club of Pignon, Haiti, to conduct a training program at the nursery school at Pignon. The Rotary Club of Pignon runs the program.
The training is a two week intensive program, which includes clinical practice with patients, and training in areas where gaps in knowledge have been identified. It is conducted by five Haitian-American nurses plus Haitian assistants. They trained with 25 nursing students or recent graduates. The nursing staff supervised the students working with patients at a nearby clinic as part of the training. This training program prepares the students to take their licensing exam.
The five Haitian-American nurses who went to Pignon to conduct the training live in New York City. They include Gretha Fievre and Dr. Marie Charles. Dr. Ehrenkrantz is the President of the Rotary Club of NE Philadelphia Cheltenhan Rockledge, and has been instrumental in marshalling Rotary support for the project.
In 2020, under Bill Hale’s presidency, Swarthmore Rotary donated $1,000 to HEAL Pignon. The training session was scheduled to take place that year. Unfortunately, training was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic. They finally went in 2022.

As we heard last week, Brian Casey and Joy Charlton have received District Distinguished Service Awards. The following is taken from the District Newsletter for April, 2023. A biography for Joy will be in the May edition:

Brian Casey first learned about Rotary nearly 20 years ago. A friend was a member of the Rotary Club of Whitby, east of Brian’s native Toronto, and he joined his friend for a club service project.

This isn’t when Brian joined Rotary, though. It wasn’t until several years later, after he and his family moved to the US, that Brian joined the Swarthmore Rotary Club in 2009. He was pretty quickly pulled onboard to help with his club’s website.

It wasn’t long after that when Past District Governor Al Marland asked him to help implement DACdb for the district and he’s been immersed in it since then. That role morphed into Technology Chair, which is one he’s held ever since – with the exception of one year when he took a sabbatical.

Brian served as president of the Swarthmore Rotary Club in 2011-12. From 2017-2020, he represented Super Area 3 as a Member-at-Large on the Rotary District 7450 Board of Directors. He was the webmaster for Rotary Leadership Institute Northeast America from 2019-2021. Brian has served as the webmaster and registrar for District 7450’s RYLA since 2011, and for Mid-Atlantic PETS since 2015.