(water trickling) (ambient piano music) (birds chirping) (wind blowing) (villagers chattering) - [Ron] Ouch yea.

- [Cherie] Can you tell her it's gonna hurt a little, tell the baby?

(person speaking in foreign language) Hold very still.

(baby crying) Tell mom that this is numbing, it's to stop pain.

Good.

Good job.

(baby crying) - Now he's gotta make the clot so you gotta stay.

(person speaking foreign language) (baby crying) - There it is.

(group chattering) What happened, Ron?

It's okay.

(dramatic vocal music) - [Scott] Not exactly a typical visit to an urgent care in the US, right?

Well, this is Haiti, and if you don't know Haiti, things are just different here.

- In Haiti there is no governor that's gonna provide you with the best schooling, the best healthcare there is.

There is no 9-1-1.

If you have an issue, gotta resolve it on your own.

So at a very, very early age, you have to learn to actually survive, and your parents make sure that they teach you that as you grow up.

In 1971, my father decided to take a chance with me.

We're gonna sell the few pieces of lands that we have, and we're gonna send you abroad.

But you have to promise us one thing, if you go and you make it, remember the others.

(dramatic vocal music swells) (somber piano music) - [Scott] Now many of us have various opinions on this small Caribbean island nation, just over 800 miles off the coast of the US.

Some of the first words which may come to mind when people hear "Haiti" might be earthquakes, hurricanes, and dictators, and not necessarily in that order.

Others might say, third-world, poverty, corrupt.

(dramatic ambient music) My name is Scott Sniffen and I'm a Connecticut filmmaker.

And there is no question, Haiti has its challenges, but I have had the opportunity to travel to Haiti with a team of medical volunteers, mostly from Connecticut and the Boston area.

These individuals take time out of their lives and try to make life just a little better for some of the people in Haiti.

So how did this all come about?

First, it started with this guy.

Well, actually this guy, well, in a way, it really started with this guy, but we'll hear from him later.

Back to Ralph Mira.

Ralph has worked in healthcare all his life and we met years ago working together in Connecticut.

Ralph wanted to go to Haiti as part of an assignment for his master's degree.

Guinxe recalled the words of his father many years ago, and the plan was hatched.

- I reached out to Guinxe when I thought about going out to Haiti, and asked him if he knew how we could possibly gain entrance to the, to the country.

- Of course, I'm from Haiti, but I left Haiti for so long.

I have no idea, but I said, however, there's something else we can do.

Where I'm from, my parents can actually help me and I know people that can help me.

If we can gather enough medication and people to go, we can actually help the people over there.

- [Ralph] Day by day, I reached out to healthcare professionals who are my friends and colleagues and asked them, would you consider going to Haiti on a medical mission?

And I got almost universal yeses every time I approached someone.

So I think I had a team gathered probably within a month's time.

(upbeat marimba music) - I was excited.

I hadn't been to Haiti.

I had always wanted to do medical missions.

I always wanted to explore that part of my life that I'd never gotten to do before.

I was excited and anxious obviously, cause we were getting a lot of reports about Haiti being a dangerous place, a lot of disease, a lot of risk in going there at the time.

- From 8 years old until I was 17 years old, I hadn't gone back to Haiti.

So growing up in the States, that's pretty much what I knew other than contact with my family via phone or stories my parents would tell us or photos.

- The idea of going to Haiti was just exciting to me because it was going to a different place.

And the way that countries like Haiti are portrayed in the media by journalists and you know, by our own politicians speaking of Haiti, we get a very skewed perception of what the country actually is.

- [Scott] A quick geography lesson here.

Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.

And Haiti sits just 120 miles from Jamaica.

The capital is Port-Au-Prince, where the main airport is located.

(airplane flying) (travelers chatting) Upon arrival in Haiti, and like so many other developing nations, you are met with a large group of people eager to help you in any way they can.

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, but as you'll see, Haitians are survivors and are not afraid of work and will take on any task to make ends meet or in some cases, feed themselves for that day.

(ship horn) Some of you may know Haiti from this point of view: it's Labadee, located at the north end of the island where cruise ships drop tourists to visit and shop.

It's a very controlled area and arguably does not offer the most honest, culturally rich Haitian experience.

But to be fair, parts of Haiti are quite beautiful with lush forests and sandy beaches.

However, these images fail to illustrate the day to day struggles of this country and its people.

(somber music) - Port-Au-Prince is extremely overpopulated, I would say this is a place that was made for 200, perhaps 500,000 people, you have close to... 2-3 million people living there.

So you can imagine, okay, how messy it is.

- [Ralph] The roads, the infrastructure is still awful.

Very difficult to traverse any area of Haiti in a vehicle or to walk.

- [Guinxe] Haiti I always call it: the the land of great contrast.

Okay, the more you think things have changed, the more they remain the same.

So when you go over there, you say, "Okay, can I navigate?"

And you realize that it's pretty much the same thing, except you have more people pile up in a smaller place.

- [Scott] This was only a few years after the earthquake and many international groups were still deeply entrenched in relief efforts.

And our last trip was in 2019 and little had changed.

Many asked "why?".

(shouting) (weapon firing) Well, Haiti has a long history of corruption and political turmoil.

And forces both outside and inside this country, including a rich Haitian elite, continue to create hardship for the people of Haiti.

With barely a functioning economy and other factors, including the assassination of its president in 2021, Haiti is still trying to find its way.

(somber piano) So with only 40% of Haiti's population with access to basic healthcare, our focus was going to be rural.

A 3 & 1/2 hour drive up into the mountains, where people are truly living on the edge.

- [Ralph] Out in the countryside, there's almost no healthcare whatsoever.

So we wanted to really go out far from the confines of the city and provide healthcare to those who have not.

- [Gerard] So imagine driving, through these bumpy roads when you see poverty all over the side of the roads and there's dirt, filth, cacophony of colors and noise and things like that.

And then you get to an area that's kind of open and there's not much going on, but you see a few houses and shacks and things like that.

And then all of a sudden you see kind of a clearing and there's these rice paddies and these mountains in the background and it looks so majestic.

(soothing music) (birds chirping) - [Scott] We are now 3 and 1/2 to 4 hours outside of Port-au-Prince, depending on road conditions and traffic, but mostly road conditions.

- I didn't know what to expect, but I do know one thing, that my parents who actually love me dearly, okay, they were there waiting.

They felt that this was like, one of the greatest things that I could have done, if I can bring my friends to help my people.

- [Scott] As you recall, I said it started with this guy, Guinxe's dad and mom too, can't leave her out.

But what a treat to hear from this proud father speak about his son upon returning after so many years.

- This is such a big day.

And I remember he said to me, "You know something, I am the president today."

I say, "Why you say that?"

He said, "Not even the president ever do anything like this."

"So I am the president today because I'm your father."

"You bring all of these people to come over."

- [Scott] Petite Rivière is a small town nestled right next to the Artibonite River.

with a mix of dirt roads and cobblestone, most of the town is lined with homes and small businesses.

(upbeat marimba music) (villagers shouting) Like the house we stayed in, some are made up of concrete and stucco, while others around town range from small wooden structures, to tiny shacks with metal roofs.

There's no rhyme or reason to any of it, but people seem generally pleasant, with many busy on their way somewhere, either on foot or scooter.

(scooter horn) The town is quaint in its own way, but always with a constant sound of generators running.

Power is intermittent, and without warning just shuts off for days at a time.

- It actually is, from my mind, quite safe, very different than the urban city.

You're really going out into the community and becoming a part of the community and we're living within the community.

- We arrived, got settled in the house, got our beds set up.

You have to put up mosquito netting to avoid malaria, we have to set up a water filtration system, which is just a portable filter because the water comes out of the floor out of a well.

So we have to make sure that water's gonna be as pure as it possibly can be.

And we have a briefing prior to going to bed as we talk about how the day's gonna go, where we're gonna head the next day, bunk in for the night, maybe get four or five hours sleep.

We're up at at the crack of dawn.

(rooster crows) - [Scott] Contrary to popular belief, the roosters here start their squawking well before dawn.

As we discovered, most of the town's people are up early and on their way to work, school or the market.

This is our basic mode of transportation.

They are called tap taps.

It's kind of a town bus.

We chartered one so we could get around town and to the clinics.

The main objective for the week is to provide simple medical care to the area residents.

We'll be highlighting activities among all the clinics the group has set up over the week.

- Was he born with that?

- [Ralph] We'll arrive at the towns and it's astounding, there'll be 100, 200, 250 people waiting for us.

We're just gonna set up a makeshift clinic.

But to them it, it's as though we're setting up a hospital.

- Chairs, tables under a tree that is our clinic.

- Most people don't have transportation, so they have to walk here.

- People would stand in line in the hot sun in their good clothing.

Everyone was really organized and polite and just couldn't wait to speak with the doctors and explain to them what was going on.

- How many people do you think here really had seen a doctor in their lives?

- I would say half of these people haven't seen a doctor in their lives.

Last time we came, so about 500 people in this line, and almost 80%, that was the very first time they were seeing a Doctor.

Today is a great day for them.

You see people well dressed, putting their Sunday best.

Some people may not have it, they woke up.

And that's pretty much, they feel they gonna meet others that coming over to help us.

It's a great day, let's show it off and, show it off may not mean that much to us, but it means a lot to them.

- She's going put, lotrimin cream.

- Okay.

Can you tell him he does have high blood pressure and I'm gonna give him some medicine.

- Yeah yeah.

- Alright any trouble breathing at all right now?

- He can't wash it off for two days.

- And it looks like it went into the chest a little bit, but usually... Usually when you see this.

- Yeah.

- So it's with the wrist drop, it's as if he had a nerve injury to his axilla.

- Yeah.

- So tell mom that, I mean, it's not gonna spread to other parts of his body, right?

So he's safe from that.

It's not cancer.

- Okay.

- But, and I think she understands this, he's not gonna get the use of his arm back.

- Well this is an 11 year old boy that got triaged over to me because he has, a large amount of swelling in his jaw.

It's actually been there for eight years, since he was three.

Turns out he became blind when he was a year or two.

Otherwise he's been healthy, he's eating well and growing and this thing has been growing in size.

And they recently saw a specialist at some hospital called Con, it's closer to Port-Au-Prince.

I don't know, they took a biopsy of it, which is great.

She doesn't know the results.

She hasn't heard from them.

They told her, mom, that they'll call her when they're ready to operate on it.

So that's good, they're sort of plugged in, but it's been four months now, and I'm very concerned about this thing.

It's not right, it's growing in size, whether it's malignant or not, it's gonna take his life at some point.

And they don't have any money to get to Port-Au-Prince 3 hours away to get to the children's hospital to figure it out.

And my heart goes out to him.

I mean, she spent a lot of money to try to get him help and they don't have answers yet.

And I wanna get this child help.

That's what I'm thinking now.

But man, talk about a hopeless feeling.

(people chatting) - A woman has infections of both breasts.

It looks like it's oozing and it has to be lanced and it has to be cleaned out.

So, you know, we have the minimal amount of equipment to do that, but we we're gonna put together some needles, some lidocaine and numb area, just try to get the infection as cleared out as we can then follow that up with antibiotics.

So, and here we are in this clinic.

It's filthy.

And we we're trying to cobble together some equipment to do this.

- Well, she's got a sugar of 541.

She's got bilateral breast abscesses.

Tell her also she's gonna get some numbing medicine, and then she's gonna get the abscesses opened up and drained.

Okay?

- Okay.

- Alright Steve, here we go.

So sorry.

So sorry.

(woman muttering in foreign language) (woman screaming) - Go de-glove and grab some tape.

- Gotcha.

- And I'll just hold it.

- Gotcha.

(women talking in foreign language) - It worked out very well.

She had infections that were severe, and had been there for a long time.

That was very painful for her, we were able to numb it.

But you know, you saw the conditions, they were very tough.

- Trooper, she's a trooper.

- She's tough.

- [Scott] Tough and resilient.

And yet seemingly in good spirits.

How can people be so pleasant in the face of such day to day struggles?

- Growing up in Haiti when I left, I was like 22, 23 years old.

There is a certain, stoic aspect.

People take everything with pride.

I believe if any advanced country were to be in the same situation as Haiti and see what's going on, everybody would be on Prozac because we would be depressed.

But these people are not.

Why?

- I believe the Haitian people get a sense of resilience from their sense of pride, survival instincts, their history.

I mean, this was one of the first free black countries in the western hemisphere, actually the first.

So I think that's a sense of pride.

- [Scott] That's right.

First black country to win its freedom.

But that war-torn and bloodied freedom would come at a huge expense.

A cost many believe has contributed to this nation's storied challenges.

Why is it, with so many other Caribbean island nations in far better economic condition, Haiti has struggled?

- Haiti not only fought two superpowers, France and Spain, and won.

Haiti also fought England as well too, because England wanted a piece of the pie.

And so in the very beginning, that was the struggle between these three superpowers trying to get a piece of what was called "The Pearl of the Antilles", which is Haiti.

- When the country became independent, no country in the world would actually recognize Haiti as an independent nation.

It was thought that blacks could not rule themselves, to have a black republic was something that would've been unheard of.

- So after Haiti gained its independence in 1804, many of the superpowers, the United States and all the countries in Europe, decided that they would not deal with Haiti on any meaningful level.

It was a global embargo.

- There was also an arrangement, with France that Haiti was to pay 450,000 in gold.

Not just in money or paper money, but in actual gold, which Haiti paid for nearly a hundred years and it had to pay all of it to France.

- Translated now it would be billions of dollars.

You had no trade coming in and out of the country for over a century.

But it wasn't until 1863/64 when President Abe Lincoln recognized Haiti as a nation, that Haiti now the embargo was lifted and other countries started somewhat, to trade with Haiti.

And so now you have almost a century of this country being crippled by other countries, where there's no trade, there's nothing going on, import-exports, nothing.

And essentially you have a, system of people that are ex-slaves that are also not being educated.

There was no public school system.

There was nothing for at least a good 40 years.

So Haiti's greatest sin was asking for its freedom.

(somber piano) - [Scott] I guess we'll never know if Haiti's tumultuous beginnings had led to a history of unrest, corruption and poverty.

True, the dictators and political unrest that has plagued this country for years has certainly contributed to much of Haiti's issues of today.

We can only speculate how Haiti would look today, if their price for freedom wasn't so high.

- Unfortunately, you know, Haitian history is, marred often by disaster or civil and political turmoil.

But the people themselves are incredibly patient and incredibly resilient.

You will not find more resilient people, I believe on the planet.

- One of the things I love about Haiti is, especially the people, is that they're, they're industrious and they're ingenious in some ways.

- [Scott] Indeed, that Haitian work ethic was very evident as we toured the small town.

Remember, jobs are scarce here, especially in the rural areas.

There are no factories or any real large businesses of any kind.

So as we walked through town, we found almost everyone had their own little business or service.

(metal clinking) These gentlemen run a repair shop of sorts.

This man is a steel fabricator and welder, and all along the town streets, you'll find someone trying to sell something.

This woman sold coffee, it was instant, but it worked for us.

Our interpreter is Dominique, and when he's not working with groups like ours, he's scraping out a living any way he can.

- [Off Screen Man] So you did all this, this was all taught to you, huh?

- Yeah.

- [Off Screen Man] So you make a chair.

Is there a chair here?

- Yeah, something from hills and fix it.

10,000 gourdes.

- 10,000?

- Yeah.

- For one chair?

- No no, dining room.

- Oh okay.

- [Scott] And using the currency exchange from the Haitian gourde to the US dollar, that's about a hundred bucks for a complete dining room set.

Later he was happy to bring us to a small apartment he rents.

It was maybe 10 by 10 with a dirt floor.

There were family photos, some furniture.

He told us the rent was $60 for 6 months.

(wind blowing) This is rice drying in the midday sun.

And if there is a local industry in the area, it's rice.

Mostly grown by locals on their own land.

But with all the so-called help from outside the country, including the US, the last thing you want to send to Haiti is rice.

- Even in the 90s I was like, oh, Haitians are starving so they must need this rice.

And it just destroyed the agricultural economy.

So Haitian rice farmers from the rural areas cannot sell their rice to the buyers from the urban areas because they're getting their rice for much cheaper.

- So now you have a culture of people, a country that was known for exporting sugar cane, and agricultural products.

Rice, coffee, cocoa.

Now actually being the greatest consumers, bringing that stuff in from other countries.

- We used to be exporting, exporting food in Oslo's, Perific islands we have here like Bahamas, those French montiniquans and so on.

We used to produce enough to be sold outside.

We used to beat Turkey by the second (unintelligible).

Of sugar here.

Now we are importing sugar here.

- Food is very important to any country, and if you can't eat, you have problem.

And if you cannot make your own food, you can even a bigger problem.

- Nothing is getting exported.

You know, everything is getting imported.

And that just keeps, you know, the markets in this, you know, low, yes, submissive and just static.

- [Scott] One thing is for sure, Haitians aren't waiting around for someone to give them a job because for the most part, like I said, there aren't any, but an area which illustrates the spirit of entrepreneurship and survival is the town market.

(upbeat marimba) (people chatting) This is a makeshift mall of sorts, and almost anything is for sale.

Covered with tarps and tin roofs.

There are many selling fruits, fish, poultry, goat, and in this case a goat head.

Leaves seeds, even charcoal.

(people chatting) Sorry for the quick nature of our camera work here.

We had to move fast.

The heat and the smell was getting the best of us.

Away from town, we visited small villages with no running water, electricity, or any real services at all.

(people talking in foreign language) This young boy was happy to show us a natural well in the ground.

(water pouring) (metal knife sounds) This man hollows out kalabasa shells, and sells them for uses bowls.

(scrapping) People here are living on the edge, extreme poverty.

The villagers heard that we were with the medical group and directed us to an elderly man living in a stone hut.

The man was gravely ill and our group was miles away and would not get here.

Medical groups from all over the world cycle through Haiti throughout the year.

We could only hope help would arrive soon.

It was gut wrenching to leave him there.

And I wondered how many in Haiti sit dying or sick in their homes with little hope.

It was very frustrating.

As we made our way back to town, we came upon large rice patties.

As we talked about, Haiti really is, or was a farming nation.

These gentlemen were showing us the challenges of just irrigating their fields.

- This river way, this canal is really the lifeline of this whole plane area here.

And as you can see, it's really bottle up.

It doesn't flow.

And what they do is they clean this by hand with machetes and hose.

But if they had some sort of equipment or some system that would maintain this on a regular basis, it would exponentially allow them to grow a lot more rice and just feed the people and be a better use for them.

(water splashing) - Across the street.

I saw this man Edward, working the fields by himself all by hand.

His crop is many acres and is mainly rice, but grows anything he can sell.

- On all of our trips, one consistent observance was that even in the most challenging conditions, many of the children are seen walking to school dressed in uniform.

So I took this time to ask Edward, was education important to him?

- Even the poorest people in the country send their children to school and they wanna make sure that the children's uniforms are cleaned, impeccable.

- Most people don't have the opportunity to buy a house, don't have an opportunity to buy a car, but they can provide opportunities for education to their children.

So they will scrape and scrap as much money as they can, to provide a good education for their children in the hopes that they can have a better life than they did.

- [Scott] I then asked him, if the government should be more involved in helping the Haitian people.

- [Scott] Finally, I asked Edward how he feels about outsiders coming to Haiti and should they be fearful?

(man laughing) - No, no, no, no he's being cool.

(somber music) - [Scott] Edward is a proud, hardworking man.

He soldiers on trying to provide for his family.

I will never forget our roadside conversation.

(somber music) Now, back in town there is a small hospital, really more of a clinic.

There might be two doctors and a couple of nurses on staff.

And people wait up to two days just to see anyone.

- For that area.

You have one clinic for, I don't know, close to over 200,000 people because you know, there's only one clinic for the whole area.

And when you come in, you go to the hospital, you may have to stay two, three days before you are seen.

Okay?

Young children, little babies dying right there in the hospital ground because you have two doctors, okay?

Couple nurses.

(somber music) - [Scott] The people were so patient waiting in cramped, hot and humid conditions, that most of us would find unbearable.

This is the day I texted my wife back in Connecticut: "The world is broken."

(somber music) (woman vocalizing) This day our team assisted with the care of an almost lifeless infant.

- She's been sitting here since five o'clock in the morning, in the morning.

It's only now we intervene.

So that gives you an idea about that.

- So this is a mark of dehydration.

This kid is absolutely 100% dehydrated.

- [Scott] The team has decided that the baby is critical and needs to be transported to the Albert Schweitzer Hospital 45 minutes away.

But this is Haiti.

There is no 911.

There is no ambulance where we are, the team hires a driver, and will take the infant to the hospital.

- Back here.

Keep going.

Go, go, go.

You're gonna bend down, you're gonna bend down and you're gonna sit in the seat.

Yeah, close it.

(car door slamming) You know, we wish we could have called an ambulance, but there was no ambulance available.

So we put the baby in the back of a car and, and resuscitated the baby in the back of the vehicle on the seat, you know, just like an ambulance, but beeping the horn instead of blowing the siren.

And you know, we've been through traffic as we would back in the states.

- [Scott] The following day.

We were notified that the baby did survive and the mother was able to take him home a few days later.

(somber piano) One of our last clinics took us to one of the most rural areas yet.

Traveling over dirt roads and streams.

We were brought to a small village at the base of a mountain.

- The further you go into the countryside, the actually worst it gets because some of these people don't have as access to anything at all.

There is no physician, there are no nurses, and there no pharmacists.

There's really nothing for them.

- In general, it's an area that has incredible poverty.

Doesn't really have real medical infrastructure in that area.

- So if your wife is pregnant, you're gonna have to really learn how to deliver the baby.

- The citizens from Cabo are actually walking down the mountain to a, some are being trucked down by land rovers.

But a lot of 'em are walking and these are people who have never seen a doctor or a nurse or at healthcare before.

(somber music) - Oh boy, okay.

(overlapping conversation) This woman, the end result was she probably has uterine cancer, she said that they did a scan, quote unquote, and thought there might be something wrong with her uterus some fibrosis or something.

Well on exam there's a big mass in there.

It doesn't, it didn't, it doesn't appear benign to me for her to be that severely starved and emaciated.

So it's almost certainly malignant.

We were looking-- explain to the patient and to the two daughters that, this is in fact bad.

It's probably cancer, it's gonna get the best of her.

What we're gonna do is help her feel better.

We gave her some pills, Benadryl for sleeping, some Tylenol for her pains, gave her some gummy bear vitamins.

She got a power bar from me and a granola bar from Guinex to help a little bit of nutrition.

But our message to them was, to get her drink as much as possible.

Keep her comfortable, and that's what you have.

And they actually appeared to be very, very grateful.

Said thank you and yes, a lot and smiled that they finally got the truth.

That was a sense I got from them.

They finally got the truth that something was not good.

So.

(speaking in foreign language) (somber music) Okay, Bye bye now.

Bye-bye Bye -bye.

Okay, bye-bye.

Okay.

Can't really help her live, but.

Sorry.

In some way make, her last days a bit more palatable I guess.

(woman vocalizing) - [Scott] As we toured the village, we were witness to the worst poverty we encountered on the trip.

This man cares for his grandchildren by bartering leaves at the roadside market.

This man with his family had been trying to finish this very modest home for three years.

He tells us he earns three to four Haitian gourde a year.

That's less than 40 cents.

- When you leave a country like Haiti.

And the, sites that you saw stay with you and the, patients that we treated and the smiling faces, you know, stay with you.

But then you wonder about the other 365, you know, 364 days of the year when, folks aren't there that are medical professionals.

- I'm gonna use that as my marker.

So we're just gonna move over.

- [Scott] In the years since following this group, Gerard has donated his time and architectural skills to a more sustainable effort close to Port-Au-Prince.

- Sustainable Healthcare for Haiti started about nine years ago.

And what we learned very quickly was that our mission really wasn't to build a building.

Our mission was to actually teach children that they had a right to healthcare, to give them the tools to actually access that healthcare and to teach them how to actually take care of themselves, their communities, and their friends.

- So we actually, spent a lot of time thinking about what would be the best location for the building.

And putting it up at the crest of the hill where one can see it from the road was extremely important to identify this is here for the community.

This is here as a new beginning for the orphanage to provide care and the best care possible.

- This gave us the opportunity to, really control the flow of patients, to keep the patients comfortable, to give them some privacy when we took care of them, which we never had before.

- You know, one of the great points about this clinic is that.

we wanted to make sure we were working collaboratively with the orphanage, with the local caregivers and with local labor.

- I came in today, and I told one of my colleagues who was also a Haitian, and I told him what I was gonna do.

He said, Hey, he has, he'll take half a day off and he'll, he'll come and help Dr. Das.

He came and help and I'm Sandras Haitian and regionals Haitian, yes, it's, we have plenty of Haitians also that wants to help.

- The kind that come in and swoop down and build something and then leave is not really a way that helps either.

A, support the, the economic structure here and then B, the opportunities for education or skill building, which I thought we, believe was extremely important in this project.

- The best way to do it, like if you train the people and then they, you come with the project and then you create jobs for them.

And then again, like yes, we really need like to have a supervisor or like someone who got the expertise from America or wherever to lead the team.

But the Haitians will be happy to work, to have the training and then break and get paid and feed their family.

- [Scott] Get paid and feed their families.

Not much to ask.

Right?

Stefan reminded me of a young Guinex.

Which brings us back to the mountains, and the place where this whole story began.

- On the last day, we went to, another dilapidated concrete building with, with a tin roof.

And that building was actually Guinex's school when he was a child.

So we worked out of his old elementary school.

At the conclusion of the mission that day, we walked about 2, 300 yards down the road, and I wasn't sure where we were headed.

And we went down a dirt road into a field.

I think it was a cane field.

And there was a small hut in the middle of this field, the middle of nowhere.

And, I didn't realize until Guinex told us that this was the home that he was raised in as a child.

- This is it.

This is exactly nothing has change except that now, we no longer live here, that somebody else is living in it.

But it's the same thing, the same little house.

That's exactly where I was born and this is where I grew up and until the age of 14.

Could I say God bless America?

And there is a place in the world that people with willingness and, the know how to actually do something for themselves.

Don't just asking for something.

I think that's exactly what these people, in particularly here and this area is asking for.

They're not asking for a handout.

They pretty much asking, Can you show me how to do it?

And once I do it, I'll be okay.

And you've been out today pretty much everybody telling you, if I can get a pump to pump the water from the canal, I can actually irrigate my land and I can actually plant more rice and I can have rice for my family.

So therefore everybody will be nourish.

And that's pretty much what it is.

- Yeah, that, that was a, an astounding, and I have to use the word astounding moment for all of us because we all stood and I think he said...

Sorry.

- It's Phil, (somber piano) (crying) Phil I'm blessed.

I think I'm blessed.

That's all I can say.

And, I'm very happy that I can come back and I and help the others.

I could have been any of the kids you see today.

I could have been any of the guys that you saw today.

I can have been any of them right.

But because of this man, actually I must give through to him.

I wouldn't be anything if it wasn't for him.

And when he first started, this is all we had.

That's all we had.

It was a very touching day.

It was a big day for me.

It was a really, really a greater day for my father and my parents and everybody who know me.

I think my father was even prouder.

The fact that, I cannot believe my son put all of these people over to help.

- That moment.

I, for me, galvanized everything that we had done together from, you know, caring for the poor to reuniting Guinex with his family and his country and, ending where he began, It doesn't get more powerful than that.

- I wouldn't be able to really be sitting here today and doing this interview with you if my father didn't take the chance.

I just happened to be one of the lucky one and the privilege one and he took a gamble and he gamble on me.

But I really believe also from the field, there are others that could have done exactly the same thing that I did If they had the chance.

(man laughing) - [Scott] Sadly, Guinex's dad, the man who gambled on his son, passed away in 2019.

We will miss him.

(somber music) Certainly, traveling to Haiti with Guinex, Ralph and the team over the years changes you.

And it's ironic, this group, are at their best when working in some of the most challenging conditions.

They are special people.

The embodiment of human kindness.

- Can you, have more swings in emotion in a single day or in a single week?

Cause it was just, it was beautiful and horrible all at the same time.

- To actually give up some time and come here and form a connectedness and a relationship and realize that, you know, we're all connected is awe-inspiring.

- When you put hands on someone and you get to intervene in that one little tiny shred of their life, it could be huge or not.

- Every trip I've done, there's at least four or five people who are really literally critically ill. And we made an intervention that absolutely saved their lives.

- You go to give someone some medicine, you hand them a bag.

It's the little things like putting their hand on their shoulder and just, you know, look at them in the eye contact, and try to show them love in some way.

- It's just amazing, and looking in their eyes and seeing their beauty.

- In a way, it's hard to know that they're not gonna get the care that they need.

But you're at least helping them in a way.

To give them what we have, to make their symptoms manageable for the time.

- People should travel to places where they are hesitant to, they should travel to places that are completely out of their comfort zone because that will give them the ability to see the most, the best in people.

It will really give them an ability to, see what they haven't seen before in just other people, in other people's faces and interactions.

It'll give a completely new appreciation to what it means to be a human.

I think.

- Every time I go, I think I'm gonna change the world, but realize that I can't.

All I can do is, as much time as I can spend there, give the best that I can to the people that I meet.

- [Scott] So what does the future hold for Haiti?

When I talk to people about this country back home and show them films and pictures, I say "Haiti is a country which has been let down by the developed nations of the world and its own government."

- If we can help people stay here and thrive and have this economy thrive, then they become good partners and global partners.

And then we don't have refugees, and then we don't have asylum seekers.

- They want that Haitian dream, American dream.

They want to educate their child and they want their children to have a better life in order to raise up their country, raise up their household, raise up their communities.

- And I don't think people in Haiti want anyone to feel sorry for them.

I mean, these are very proud people.

- It would be great to have one of these kids in 20 years just replace me.

One of them who becomes a doctor, who becomes an engineer, who becomes an architect, a lawyer, you know, that would be great.

So we have to let 'em know that it's possible.

We have to let 'em know that they too can, be where I'm standing here right now.

- I'm hoping that one day, the Haitian kid would have access to what any of the kids in a developed country have access to.

- [Scott] For me, I will always have a relationship with this country.

I understand many will never travel to Haiti, but the next time you see so much unpleasantness, that has come to define this country.

Please know, it is a nation inhabited by some of the most proud, gracious and kind human beings.

People who have touched my heart, I hope they have touched yours.

- People used to say, a lot of people said that, there's no way to have change in Haiti.

And I say yes, that we cannot change in Haiti.

I go to every university in Haiti, I create my company in Haiti, I create my foundation in Haiti.

So everything that I got now, it's Haiti, it's because of Haiti.

So that means yes, we can have some change.

Just further what way?

Having faith in God, having motivation and then, you know, keep working hard, like day by day, little by little we gonna see the change.

And I really believe that we're gonna see it.

(somber music) (children singing in foreign language) (applauding)