CEO Jim Lange: Week of Exceptional Meetings on HR&DC Initiatives

It’s right around 7:30 pm and I have just landed in Miami. All around me the hum of life fills my senses and I am thankfully for this much-needed infusion of energy.

As my recent posts had indicated, over the course of the last 8-days I interacted with scores of people in a wide-array of settings on HR&DC initiatives.

• I spent time with the masses in Titanyen and sat with the First Lady of the country in the shadows of the collapsed Palace.
• I looked on in wonder as I explained the concept of Haitian Exceptionalism to a group of young people who never thought such a term could be applied to them.
• I spoke at length with the President’s main advisor regarding Haiti’s resettlement camps, most notably the Corail camp in Croix des Bouquets.
• I also traveled to a local hospital to support a colleague whose sister survived an assassination attempt.

Though these and other events are certainly worthy of reciting, my most powerful encountered occurred while walking the mass grave site on the third anniversary of the 2010 earthquake.

There I held a young man in my arms after he spoke, for the first time ever, of his experiences with the mass graves. In short, he had personally directed the retrieval of the dead bodies and their burial for days on end.

When he finally paused from reciting the horrors that he had witnessed, (and participated in), I hugged and thanked for performing the unspeakable. I said that he was a hero and that I was honored to know him. As his tears fell to upon the earth it became apparent to me that he was ready to rejoin the living and this is a moment that I will never forget.

This is all I have to say for today.