MIAMI – Just one year after the tragic school collapse in Petion-Ville Haiti where more than 84 school children were buried in the collapse, the Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the Caribbean and the Americas (FAVACA) still receives requests from communities around Haiti to prepare for disasters and emergencies. Volunteer Lt. Nate Lasseur, a Haitian-American firefighter from West Palm Beach, was part of the rescue efforts at the school collapse. Alongside concerned neighbors, Lt. Lasseur worked around the clock putting his fire rescue skills to use.
Lt. Lasseur has served as a FAVACA volunteer several times in Haiti, and in fact he recently taught these same skills to the Cap Haitian fire department. He was so inspired by the need for preventative training that he established his own nonprofit, the International Firefighter Assistance Inc. (IFA), to train firefighters and emergency responders throughout the region. From October 4-8, 2009, FAVACA in partnership with IFA Founder and President Nate Lasseur and IFA Program Specialist Gayl Nye trained 30 staff from hotels around Port-au-Prince last week in medical life-saving techniques, including Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), water rescue, the Heimlich maneuver, and basic fire safety methods. “Our employees…were very satisfied, to the point where they can’t stop talking about what they had learned and seem to be passing on their knowledge to others, including family and neighbors, as well as other employees,” said Hotel Villa Creole owner Roger Dunwell. “I have never seen a reaction like this before, and can only thank Nate and Gayl for their outstanding work.”
For more than 10 years, FAVACA has provided technical assistance to the Civil Protection Department – Haiti’s emergency management agency. Recently FAVACA met with the Haitian Red Cross to sign a memorandum of cooperation and expects to assist in upcoming training opportunities throughout Haiti to prevent or lessen the impact disasters have on communities.
