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Tuesday, August 29, 2000

Man strives to ease the plight of homeless children in Haiti
Nurse Michael Brewer plans to fly to the nation and establish a shelter facility
By Dan Parker and Guy H. Lawrence
Caller-Times
He's not Santa Claus, but he does plan to fly to Haiti in December with a long-term mission to bring happiness to impoverished children on the island nation.
   Michael Brewer, a civilian nurse at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, has formed a nonprofit organization, Haitian Street Kids Inc., dedicated to helping children who live on the streets in Haiti.
   Brewer, director of immunizations at NAS Corpus Christi, decided to form the group after traveling to Haiti in May to visit St. Joseph's Boys Home, a facility that takes in homeless, abandoned and abused boys.
   Helping children
   Brewer has been helping children around the world since the early 1980s. In Turkey, he held a toy and clothing drive at an orphanage. In Honduras, he gave immunizations to children.
   But visiting Haiti, where he saw dire poverty and an abused, malnourished child near death lying on a street, persuaded him he had to do something bigger than what he'd done before.
   "This is the first time I've come across something that appeared to have such an urgent need," Brewer said.
   Street children live in constant peril in Haitian cities like Port-au-Prince, said Johnny McCalla, executive director for the National Coalition for Haitian Rights. The New York-based coalition is concerned about human rights in Haiti, including the selling of children into servitude, he said.
   "This is at the heart of the inequality in Haiti," McCalla said.
   Thousands of children are homeless in Haiti, some because their parents passed away, and others who were sold into domestic servitude by their parents.
   "They essentially turn over their children to some families that are a little better off, in hopes the family will provide the children with education, shelter and care and love," McCalla said. "They essentially become their house slaves. The care and love is not in the equation."
   Children often are kicked out of the places where they work and have to live in the streets, McCalla said. Once on the streets, the children turn to crime, including prostitution.
   "Some kids as young as 7 years old are used as prostitutes," McCalla said.
   The Haitian government could do something about the plight of the homeless children, but there is no will to address it, he said.
   "It is a non-functioning government," McCalla said. "If the people leading the government had the willpower to do it, they could do something about this situation. They are not doing anything about it."
   'Everything a child deserves'
   In the short term, these children need the kind of help that Brewer is talking about, such as food and shelter and an opportunity for education that could lead to a better future, McCalla said.
   Brewer has spent his life savings obtaining contacts in Haiti and establishing a World Wide Web site - www.haitianstreetkids.com - designed to increase public awareness of the plight of Haiti's children. The Web site also allows people to make donations to the organization.
   Brewer plans to fly to Haiti in December to scout out properties where he hopes to eventually establish a facility where up to 50 street children can find food, shelter and more.
   "As it is now, they think they don't have anywhere to go," Brewer said. "We want to make it widely known in Haiti that they have a place where they can go and be protected and they can regain their childhood. They'll have an education, health care, everything a child deserves."
   Reaching out
   Brewer's organization has no money yet, so he is saving his own money to make the trip.
   Brewer said a foundation has contacted him, interested in possibly helping Haitian Street Kids Inc. financially, depending on how the organization progresses.
   Brewer said he will work hard to make impacts on children's lives in Haiti.
   "I just don't like to see helpless, innocent children being abused," he said. "It's something they just don't deserve. It takes someone who's stronger - or thinks they're stronger - to stand up for them."


Staff writer Dan Parker can be reached at 886-3746 or by e-mail at parkerd@caller.com. Staff writer Guy Lawrence can be reached at 886-3792 or by e-mail at lawrenceg@caller.com

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