Haiti volunteer expands focus of help

Sue Walsh was preparing suitcases for a flight home from Haiti the next day.

A pediatric nurse practitioner, she had just finished a week of serving at a clinic outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with her husband, Brian, a carpenter, and a team of more than 20, including graduate nursing students, medical and nonmedical personnel.

While she packed, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the Caribbean nation. The quake brought unimaginable destruction, pain and death to a country already living in extreme poverty and hardship.

Two years later, 1.5 million Haitians are still living in tents the size of cars where there is a lack of food, clean water, adequate sanitation and where cholera persists. And, two years later, Walsh is still serving the people of Haiti — and has expanded her service to children at home trying to make sense of such world disasters.

Children in Haiti and in the U.S. are alike in all the ways that make a child a child: they are spontaneous, playful and love surprises, says Walsh, who lives in Glenview. Children in Haiti, however, have a much more advanced level of coping. Their lives are filled with adversity and hardship from birth. Basic needs such as food, water, shelter and safety are not a given, and for many of these children, the focus is on survival. Before the earthquake there were hurricanes, famine, lack of water and education. Walsh's respect for all Haitians is profound: “The people of Haiti, children included, are strong and resilient. They face inexplicable levels of suffering with astonishing dignity and hope.”

Walsh believes that adults and children often respond differently to tragic news. With all the media attention after the earthquake, she was concerned that children here at home were hearing very sad stories, seeing overt images of suffering, yet were unable to process the tragedy or find resolution.

“As adults we become desensitized, even indifferent, from a constant barrage of bad news, whereas children are much more sensitive to tragic events,” she said. “Because media is so accessible, parents may be unaware of the information their children are receiving. Parents can be making dinner or helping with homework, tuning out the television in the background, but children are focusing in on disturbing images, listening to every detail. Often times, children are left with bad news and don't know what to do with it. Unlike their parents, they don't have a repertoire of experiences to help them cope.”

The way children process tragedy depends on their age and level of development. When preschool-aged children see repeated footage of an earthquake, a tsunami or planes flying into buildings, they think the events are recurring. They do not understand that the video is one event being played over and over again. When hearing bad news, school-aged children typically feel sad for the people that are suffering.

Kids are very good at empathy — walking in someone else's shoes. But when they don't know how to talk about what they are feeling, when there is no resolution, that empathy can turn into anxiety: kids become worried for those who are hurting, then become afraid that the same events could happen to them. They may also feel that the problem is their fault, especially when the situation hits closer to home. A parent leaves, gets sick, or loses his job, and the child may think, “This is because of the time I made Dad late for work.”

Since the earthquake, Walsh has spoken at several area schools, using stories and pictures to help students process the events. Children were then able to respond: some students raised funds to purchase supplies; others volunteered their time to make health packs for Haiti, boxes filled with supplies such as bandages, toothpaste and soap. Some children made cards to include in the health packs.

Walsh taught the students about the most common health problems facing Haitian children. Intestinal worms, scabies and malnutrition are rampant yet treatable with the proper medications. She designed a Haitian health market where kids could buy coupons for various treatments such as a $2 antibiotic injection, a 50-cent scabies or worm treatment, diapers and vitamins. The children kept the coupons to remind them of how they helped a child in Haiti.

“The experience became very positive when children were able to process their feelings, put their empathy into action, and see an outcome. Kids need resolution — it is basic human nature to respond.”

Walsh encourages parents to recognize and foster their children's empathy and sensitivity without allowing it to swirl around and become anxiety.

She recommends taking action by engaging kids regularly in service in their own neighborhoods, not just when global disasters strike. By modeling healthy processing followed by action, parents can guard themselves and their children from becoming apathetic, and children will develop a pattern of coping and service to others.

ŸWalsh is the founder of Little by Little, a nonprofit that partners with Mountain Top Ministries to provide health services to those in need, specifically in Haiti. Her book, “Walking in Broken Shoes,” tells the amazing story about the earthquake and her experiences with the people of Haiti. For information about Walsh's nonprofit, visit littlebylittlehaiti.org.

Putting tragedy into action

Sue Walsh began serving Haiti began during a time of personal tragedy.

She had joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in Chicago in 2004, teaching graduate nurses in a pediatric nurse practitioner program. At that time she was recovering from injuries after being struck by a car, as well as grieving the tragic death of her 21-year-old son, Brad, just a few months earlier.

Walsh says that although the timeline wasn't purposeful on her part, the idea of teaching and service learning (adding service orientation to the learning process) was exciting, and Haiti was in great need. She has been doing service trips to the country since 2006.

“It wasn't about doing something to make myself feel better or take my mind off of my grief. An opportunity presented itself, and I responded.

“I do believe, however, that on many levels, action is healing. I have been surprised by these paradoxical experiences.”

Today she spends time talking with schoolchildren about her experiences, the needs of Haitian people and how children can put their empathetic response into action by providing services such as raising money or packing and sending health supplies.