Founded by Danita Estrella in January 1999, the Hope for Haiti Children's Center began with a small rented house and fourteen children in Ouanaminthe, Haiti. Since that time we've started and completed several projects, beginning with the church in 2003. Our campus has grown to include a new orphan home for boys and cafeteria (right), a school building and playground and soon, the Danita's Children's Medical Clinic and Hospital.
We now have over 100 orphans, nearly 550 school children, as many as 18,000 meals are fed each month through our feeding program, and a church and congregation of more than 500 Haitians provides a place of spiritual hope and healing.
See the progress in the construction photos.
OUR CURRENT PROJECTS
2010 Projects
In addition to our regular ministries and programs, we have underway in 2010 three big projects.
--The Medical Clinic
--The Children's Hospital of Hope
--The New Children's Homes
Please take a look at each of these important projects and see where you or your organization might like to get involved.
The Medical Clinic and Hospital
There is a crisis in Haiti when it comes to adequate medical care for children. As the photos on the left illustrate very clearly, local clinics are unable to provide appropriate medical care in this, the poorest country in the western hemisphere. 60% of children in Haiti don't have access to even the most basic of medical care and currently, thousands of children are dying from preventable and curable diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia.
The loss of one of our children, Rose Carline to tuberculosis, the nearly fatal illness of Robenson, and several other serious medical needs with our children, has increased our determination and resolve to quickly provide a place of hope for children with medical needs.
Our Response
We've broken ground for our Medical Clinic and a state-of-the-art pediatric hospital. The Danita's Children's Medical Clinic and Hospital will provide much needed life-giving healthcare and education to our children, and children in the surrounding region. The focus of the clinic will be pediatrics, centering on treatment, education, and prevention.
The Danita's Children's Medical Clinic and Hospital are planned to provide:
• Treatment and examination rooms
• Pediatric Dental Clinic
• Laboratory
• Pharmacy
• Pediatric Optometry Clinic
• Hospital wards with in-patient beds/cribs
• A Surgical Center
• Two isolation rooms for infectious disease
• Efficiency living quarters for Clinic Manager
• Dormatory rooms to house medical mission teams (up to 20 people)
• Facilities to house our medical staff and hospital mission teams.
Utilizing the combined skills of volunteer architects, engineers, medical professionals, doctors, construction experts and others (as seen in photograph) we have been working hard this year to complete the plans and work out all of the details. Bob Miller of R. Miller Architecture in Orlando has spearheaded the surveying, architectural plans and engineering efforts. You can imagine the enormity of a project this size - much more complicated than the construction of a school building and much more expensive.
Why a Medical Clinic and Hospital of this Size and Scope?
Over the past ten years Danita's Children/Hope for Haiti Children's Center, Inc. has been operational in rescuing, loving and caring for orphans and impoverished children in the northeastern region of Haiti. During this time the lack of basic and appropriate healthcare for children has become a major area of concern.
As a result of more than two years of research into the causes and possible solutions to these issues, and ten years of experience in Haiti, Danita's Children has come to understand the depth and need for health-care for children in our region of Haiti.
The Danita's Children's Medical Clinic and Hospital will be fully operational medical facilities that will provide for the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of impoverished children in northeastern Haiti and the surrounding region. What began as a promise made to dying child by our founder, Danita Estrella, has grown in to a full-scale medical facility that will provide care and health education to thousands of children each year who would not otherwise have access to medical treatment.
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Some basic facts supporting the need
for medical care and education in Haiti:
• There are 490,000 orphaned children in Haiti, a country of roughly 8 million people.
• Nearly 1/2 of the population of Haiti are children under the age of 18 years.
• According to UNICEF, only 36% of adults are aware that they can transfer HIV/AIDS to their children. As a result, over 17,000 children are infected with HIV/AIDS in Haiti, most of whom are not on proper medication.
Why YOU are the Hope for Haiti
As you can imagine, a project like this requires significant funding and support. Danita's Children cannot complete the Medical Clinic and the Children's Hospital without increased support.
Please prayerfully consider how you might give to make it possible to
save more children. Here's some ways you might want to consider:
If you are a medical professional or medical equipment or supplies
provider, your help is needed. Lab technicians, nurses, pharmacists,
optometrists, surgeons, doctors, clinic managers and more will be an
important part of the Hospital of Hope. We are also in need of
qualified construction experts, plumbers, electricians, medical
equipment installers, cooks and long-term missionaries to work at
Danita's Children's Hospital .
The cost to complete this much-needed Children's Hospital is greater than any project we've completed to date. This large number may seem
impossible to some, but we believe that the Children's Hospital is part of God's
plan for Haiti, so we are confident He will provide through supporters
like you. Won't you please ask Him how you might be able to
participate in this important effort? Other creative ways you might be
able to participate might be by donating equipment and supplies, or perhaps Frequent Flyer miles to help professionals and staff with travel. 
Please tell everyone you know about the important work of Danita's
Children and the Children's Hospital of Hope project. We cannot complete the
hospital without increasing our supporter base. Contact our stateside
offices for your Tell5 cards to help you spread the word. Tell
your friends and family to log on today and encourage them to make a
donation or sponsor a child like Loveka. (read Loveka's story)
If you'd like to help with the construction of this project:
Read a message from Danita about the Children's Hospital
Are you a medical professional?
If you or a team from your church or community would like to volunteer for a medical missions trip, please contact us for more information. Teams are organized throughout the year for medical and dental missions. Importantly, when the children's medical center is complete, there will be a constant need for medical professionals, pharmacists, laboratory experts, nurses, opticians, and more! French, Spanish, and Creole speaking volunteers are especially helpful. Long-term, short-term and mid-term volunteers will be needed to help care for the enormous number of children we anticipate will need our help.
Future Projects
Before one project becomes a reality, we're on to the next. We believe in the vision that God has set before us. There are several projects up ahead. Visit our Future Projects Page often to see what's next for Danita's Children and the Hope for Haiti Children's Center.
