Blaze in Haiti, Day 5: Secretary of State Dr. Michel Pean Greets BlazeSports America

Travis Mushett    Articles    

Dr. Michel Pean (far left), Haiti’s Secretary of State for Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities, meets with BlazeSports and NPC Haiti.

Dr. Michel Pean, Haiti’s Secretary of State for Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities, and his assistant Gurline graciously met with Carol, Duncan, Mr. Sanon, and me this morning at his office in Pétionville. The warm greeting and insightful discussion covered a broad spectrum of topics including the impact of sport and physical education on young people with disabilities. The conversation quickly evolved into a broader and more comprehensive discussion of rehabilitation. Dr. Pean demonstrated a noteworthy blend of compassion and conceptual knowledge, discussing the multinational medical response teams’ understandable focus on prostheses but without addressing the true interdisciplinary nature of comprehensive rehabilitation for persons with a variety of disabilities. During his tenure as Secretary of State, Dr. Pean has proven to be an eloquent orator and advocate for persons with disabilities and has spoken directly to and with Parlympic athletes and their family members at the extremely successful sporting events hosted by the NPC. Dr. Pean proposed the development of a formal partnership that would utilize the many rehabilitation physicians, therapists, and professionals that make up the BlazeSports America network and the broader Paralympic community, a proposal that holds great promise for the BlazeSports-Haiti partnership.

After the meeting with Dr. Pean, we paid a visit to the NPC Haiti headquarters in downtown Port-au-Prince. Though the building survived the earthquake, it did not escape the ordeal unscathed. The plaster walls bear cracks and missing chunks, and a section of the wall is currently held in place by some ingeniously arranged weightlifting equipment. The staff at the NPC hasn’t let these less than ideal conditions slow them down, however. When we arrived, one young woman was busy entering the demographic data from the displacement camps into a computer, and we all pitched in to load bags of rice into the truck for the SoHaMO camp in Cité Soleil. It was heartening to see the speed with which NPC Haiti manages to react to the needs of its constituents. Just yesterday, members of SoHaMO spoke of their food shortage, and today Mr. Sanon and his NPC staff were able to assist them. It was clear that the camp had no expectation otherwise; rather than react with jubilation or dramatic displays of gratitude, they accepted the rice with the simple dignity of people receiving a shipment. When the NPC makes a promise, the SoHaMO camp has confidence it will be kept.

The NPC staff enters canvassing information from the camps into a computer database.

Looking out of NPC Haiti’s headquarters. The light illuminates damage inflicted by the earthquake.

Meeting with residents of the SoHaMO camp.

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