In May 2015, Beyoncé took a humanitarian trip to Haiti, visiting local programs like St. Damien Hospital in Tabarre.
St. Damien Hospital is the only hospital in Haiti treating childhood cancer. The hospital provides high-quality medical treatment on a sliding scale to children in Haiti reading more than 90,000 children and adults annually. St. Damien provides children of poverty and emergent distress the quality and dignified healthcare they need. Funding from the hospital comes from NPH Worldwide’s network of benefactors around the world.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere where nearly 10% of children die before their 5th birthday of largely treatable illnesses.
Due to reductions in funding commitments, the hospital lost the equivalent of two months of funding and significant cutbacks in staff, therefore reducing the number of children that can be treated.
Beyoncé released a t-shirt through BeyGOOD to solve the urgent funding crisis with all proceeds from the t-shirt sales doing directly to St. Damien. Proceeds will be used to re-open a previously empty ward, bring on additional doctors in training, and increase the number of children St. Damien is able to serve.
For more, see Beyoncé on Good Morning America discussing her fundraising effort for St. Damien Pediatric Hospital.
Featured image via beyonce.com
Originally posted June 9, 2015