Corning Rotary Club's International Service Committee presented a $3,000 grant during the club's regular noon meeting on Thursday, November 9, 2017 at the Radisson Hotel Corning. The funds will support much-needed occupational and physical therapy education in Haiti
In the wake of the onslaught of natural disasters to befall Haiti over the past decade, the need for qualified practitioners of rehabilitation in Haiti is astronomical. More than a million Haitians suffer from disabling physical and mental disabilities and currently there are only 50 practitioners in all of Haiti.
To affect a lasting impact on this disproportion, the grant funds were awarded to the Faculté des Sciences de Réhabilitation de Léogùne (FSRL), a new department offering degrees in occupational and physical therapy at the Episcopal University of Haiti (UNEPH) campus in Léogùne. The FSRL's mission is to educate highly skilled professional therpaists. Accepting the grant on behalf of the FSRL was the department's founder and dean, Dr. Janet O'Flynn. Dr. O'Flynn founded the Occupational and Physical Therpay program in 2015, with the first five students accepted in October of 2015 and new admissions each year.
Those first five students, now juniors, will be the first graduating class of the FSRL. The FSRL students do not currently have their own classroom. The grant will result in the gift of necessary equipment that will allow the students to set up their own permanent classroom, complete with new whiteboards, desks, and various other classroom needs, fulfilling Rotary International's goal of strengthening the capacity of communities and supporting education.
Each year the International Committee raises funds to help people in need all over the globe through their International Evening.