Liz Clarke shares some of the exciting changes happening with Thrive for Five! With the kickoff of the new year, we have new faces, old friends, and great staff working together to transform for a better future. Keep reading as Liz shares the details!

 

Yesterday was the first day off the third season of MH4H working with Moms and their kiddos in our little neck of the woods of Sylvain, Haiti! 

This year has brought about some big and some not so big changes to the way we have chosen to continue serving our fellow humans through this mom and kids program. A BIG change, for those of you who did not know, is that the program has a new name!

First Thousand Days is our new brand. In Creole, Premye Mil Jou or PMJ for short.
This because we will primarily be working with children who are in the first 1,000 days of their life, that is, from conception until age 2. Rob is working on our awesome new logo!! Can’t wait for the reveal!

Many of the following pictures may appear as familiar scenes from our previous years of Thrive…and rightly so. We’ve simply taken the best version of the previous program and ramped it up!

Yet while it looks familiar, here are some things you might not notice from simply looking at these beautiful photos:

Hand washing station Early arrivals patiently waiting for lunch

The top two photos show 2 members of our new Staff team. More on that to come…

Nutrition is the basis of everything we’re doing here at PMJ! Two weeks ago we hosted a Nutrition Specialist who did a training with our kitchen staff, encouraging ways we can re-organize our menu items and “re-plate” for healthier meals. We also discussed the importance of good nutrition as a means to prevent sickness! Things also we will be teaching the moms! Keeping these kids healthy with good food is prevention at its best!

Corn meal, bean sauce, and legume, a typical island favorite. Tastes like Haiti!! Very nutritious & Yummy!

 These next pictures showcase some of our new participants! This year we made the decision to expand our enrollment territory. In the past we’ve stayed strictly within our zone of Sylvain and capped each new group at 20 participants. This year however, we moved out into some neighboring communities and raised our participant number to a grand total of 28! Thanks to God for how He has provided as we expand to reach even more of these cute babes with health and wellness through nutrition and Jesus!

Feeding a picky eater. This mom knew all the tricks! She will be a model mom in this program!!

Empty plates mean full bellies A full belly makes for a sleepy baby Introducing the Premye Mil Jou team

Those top two photos had glimpses of 2 out of our 4 new Program Assistants and this year we’ve added “many more hands” to help with our grand total of 73 babies and parents who are participating in our activities!! 
Our new hands are as follows:

1 (NEW) Principal Program Professor – Juna (yes, our preschool teacher) +
1 Nurse – Miss Lerosane +
1 Admin Assistant – Jean Willio +
4 (NEW) Program Assistants +
5 (NEW) Cooks +
Liz =
_______
13 Heads and Hearts & 26 Hands, working to make this program a blessing to those we serve!
(Of course with me included we make a baker’s dozen…always the oddball!)

Some familiar sweet faces who were excited to be back! Lots of hugs and kisses were shared this afternoon as we welcomed back some dear friends!

In addition to the program name change and Staff changes we’ve also changed our class structure for both Mom’s and babies. One day a week, moms will participate in a class where they will receive either Spiritual Development & Biblical Parenting Strategies with Juna and/or Health Education with our program Nurse. While the moms receive this information, we have brand new, age-appropriate “play” stations for the kids!! These stations will be tools to help with both physical and social development. As we won’t start this part of the program until next week…keep posted for more fun pictures of the kids in their new environment!

Thank you for all the prayers, support, and care you all have for our program participants!
Please keep praying for their health, both physically and spiritually. We have a unique advantage of being a Christian Organization here in Haiti. We are free to speak about Jesus and encourage all who enter our gates in the ways of the Lord! And where the Lord is, there is freedom. Pray that this program would help break the chains of spiritual oppression and of cyclical poverty. And that God would be glorified in all!

Peace to you all in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord!