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| * Beyond the mountains, more mountains. |
The Inter-American Foundation (IAF) encourages
Haitians to face our mountains. At significant crossroads in young people’s lives IAF has collaborated
with Haitians learning marketable skills like film making and dressmaking. Our farmers have partnered with IAF to diversify
production and increase profits. IAF’s current commitment to build up the
Haitians who are taking charge of Lakou Lapè to forge peace among neighbors
reveals IAF’s commitment to empowering citizens to transform communities. Meanwhile,
MamaBaby Haiti has joined with the women in the rural areas around Cap-Haïtien at
a critical juncture in their lives—pregnancy and childbirth. We are seeing the opportunity for community
transformation because birth makes more than babies. It makes women strong, confident,
and competent if they are prepared to recognize the power of their own bodies
through the ante-natal mentoring and birth attendance of trained Haitian midwives
in a clean 24/7 clinic—the MamaBaby Haiti clinic in Mourn Rouge. An IAF partnership with MamaBaby Haiti can
loose the power to transform marginalized, rural communities through the newly discovered
strength, fitness, and knowledge of their mothers—mothers who are stronger than
our mountains.
I have wrestled with this paragraph this week. I still think it is too long. I’m trying to imagine being the voice for
Haitians that I have not gotten to meet.
The RFP requires that the locals be the initiators. I have also reviewed many IAF projects and
have not discovered any others that focus on healthcare. Business incubation, community leadership and
democratic values tend to be the foci of IAF grants. Still, after discussion, my client wants to
go for this particular award. That
leaves me focusing on the broader, long-term effects of the program rather than
the obvious reduction in mother and infant mortality. These other effects are real and part of the
trained midwife mindset, making this approach legitimate, though it seems
circuitous. I am wondering if there is an ethical problem with a U.S. 501c3
ghostwriting for a Haitian organization that is expected to be initiating/planning
this project and grant request.
Really enjoyed reviewing your preproposal memo for your first application packet. Some thoughts:
ReplyDelete- I put this one preproposal in both app packets in your ePortfolio for the class
- wish you well, btw, on your MATC ePortfolio; sometimes not easy to pull together, especially since you've been working in the program for some time now
- good research on the organization, which we discussed more while you were in Lubbock recently, too
- if you can, I think numbers will be persuasive; that is, how many people are born with the help of midwives in Haiti? Is the trajectory not likely to change? Can you explain even more in your work reasoning behind the changed role of the midwife due to lack of emergency care? I think that discussion that we had in person about this was particularly important and significant to explain
- the focus on medicine for the small project makes sense
- for the first project, if you're successful, this could be scaleable to help more people with more medication from other RFPs; perhaps the foundation center will be useful to you
- I mentioned MERX, too, for your business, which may or may not be related to your class work: see http://www.merx.com/English/NonMember.asp?WCE=Show&TAB=1&PORTAL=MERX&State=1&hcode=tAF08b5PaGBuUkl43CRDCg%3d%3d
- for the second project, breaking it down into measuerable will be important, and perhaps finding a workaround for salary if RFPs you want to eventually work with don't fund salaries; getting creative, as we talked about, is important
- ghostwriting sounds like the immediate solution; perhaps something else will present itself once you have success with them getting a few grants, justifying their working you into their program in other ways, if you wanted to
- as Michelle at Foundation Center mentioned, be very specific about the technologies and resources that you need so as to demonstrate ethos and due diligence in the proposal preparation
- the numbers from 2012 are very compelling; wonder if that would be useful in graphical form too, perhaps projecting growth and importance of the program to reach so many people
- excellent research about the staff at the Morne Rouge Clinic
- you are doing excellent work, Julie