GRAND GOAVE, Haiti (WSVN) — Ten years after a devastating earthquake claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in Haiti, despair and hope live side by side.
7News cameras captured contrasting sights along the island nation’s Southwest coast over the past week. Along with open markets and families cooking outside, garbage was piled up along muddy, damaged roads.
Resident Len Gengel, who lost his daughter Britney in the natural disaster, said, despite the big challenges that the people of Haiti face, it is possible to make a difference.
“I got very good advice: don’t take on Haiti, but do your piece,” he said.
On Jan. 12, 2010, Gengel was a Massachusetts home builder and a father of three.
In 2020, he is “Papi Len.” His family includes 66 Haitian children.
He said Britney came to Haiti two days before the earthquake.
“Three hours before the earthquake, she sent her mom a text saying how much she loved the kids and how much she wanted to move here and start an orphanage herself,” said Gengel.
Just hours later, the 19-year-old Lynn University student lay dead in the rubble of the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince.
But a decade later, her father made her dream of Brit’s Home a reality.
“People from around the world sent us notes of inspiration and money and said, ‘Make her wish come true,'” said Gengel.
Not only do children live at Brit’s Home in the town of Gran Goave, but 100 people are employed by the Be Like Brit Foundation.
One of them is Joenelson Joseph, who coordinates missionaries who come to work at the house.
“Be Like Brit helps my family, my friends, even people who live around me,” he said.
“I have friends who died in the earthquake,” said staffer Mirlaine Edmond.
Edmond said her family’s home was damaged, but she was able to pay for her education and her own house by working at Brit’s House.
Some of the communities get better, but not all. After the earthquake 10 years ago, it’s still difficult, more difficult place,” she said.
When asked why that is the case, Edmond replied, “I don’t know.”
Across the country, dozens of aid groups have built thousands of homes since the earthquake.
The Champs de Mars tent city across from the Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince is now gone, as well as the palace itself.
Clearly some things haven’t changed, though. Entire families will spend a whole day at a landfill looking for things they can sell, that they can use or that they can even eat.
Millions of dollars in donations to jump-start industry have largely failed. Late last year, political violence ground the nation to a halt.
Despite these challenges, Gengel said, he remains hopeful. He visited Hotel Montana, now rebuilt and reopened.
“That tree I remember vividly, and the gold drapes hanging out her window, so it’s hard,” he said. “It’s sacred ground. It’s where our daughter or sister took her last breath. It means something to us.”
In a memorial garden that pays tribute to those lost in the earthquake, he remembers not to take on Haiti, but to simply do his piece.
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