Whatever it Takes
If asked, would you be willing to work 48 hour shifts?
Would you use a large portion of your income to get to work? Would you slip cash into your pockets and use it to secure a ride on the back of a rickety motorcycle—one that can navigate roadblocks and weave through narrow alleyways? Would you pay bribes to gangsters on street corners to pass through their territory, all so you can get to work?
If you and your coworkers had to curl up on the floor together because the gang war had finally reached you, and gunshots punctuated your prayers, would you come to work the next day?
This is how we keep mothers alive. This is how we bring the next generation into the world. This is the fight and what it asks of us, what it takes to save lives in Haiti.
This is Youseline, and she’s doing whatever it takes.
Youseline
We’ve written about Youseline and her incredible story before. She said something beautiful then:
“It is a fabulous human adventure to do this job in these ideal conditions, with time and availability and the opportunity to know and understand the experiences of each pregnant woman we follow.”
Those ideal conditions are gone. Youseline, like many others, decided it was best for her and her family to leave Port-au-Prince, and she left the Maternity Center and returned to rural Hinche with her husband.
We were sorry to lose her, but we would never begrudge anyone leaving for their own safety. Nothing is more important, which is why we pay staff members through closures, and why Haitian leaders on the ground decide when we stay open and when we close – not Americans.
Not long after she left, two of Youseline’s former colleagues had their own babies and went on maternity leave. Staffing was thin at the Center. The team scrambled to find someone who had the skills to fill the gaps, and at one point reached out to Youseline, not expecting her to be willing.
But Youseline came back. Hinche was peaceful by comparison, and she certainly wasn’t going to move again, but she had a mission in Port-au-Prince, a cause she believed in, and she wasn’t done with it. So she would commute. She’d brave a 2.5 hour journey (on a good day), once a week, to work a 48 hour shift at the Maternity Center.
She had every right not to. She had every right to say, “I’ve done my time. I’ve done all I can.”
But this is what Haiti is, what Haitians are. The most brutal and terrifying conditions are, as they say, “mountains beyond mountains.” Just another thing to climb, another obstacle to overcome.
It’s not easy. Traveling the 64 miles between Hinche and the Maternity Center requires not only bravery, but also an incredible ability to negotiate and stay calm under pressure.
“I work from Thursday to Saturday,” Youseline explains. “Every Saturday, I leave Port-au-Prince to return to my home in Hinche, and I return to Port-au-Prince every Thursday. This journey costs me, every month, nearly twenty thousand gourdes (about $152 USD). Fear accompanies me at all times,” she continues. “Not only am I scared, but it exhausts me enormously.”
We don’t know how long she’ll need to do it, or how long she’ll be able to – but every Thursday, there she is.
Youseline begins her journey home.
Whatever it Takes
“Whatever it takes” is not an American mantra handed down to our Haitian team members. There is nobody sending orders, commanding people to come deliver babies, teach classes, visit prisons, even at great personal risk.
“Whatever it takes” is how Haitians live in a time of crisis. For them, there is always something to hope for, something to believe in – something to do whatever it takes to protect.
For Youseline, it’s moms and babies. “I can’t abandon these women,” she says. “They need us, and I’m willing to take risks to be there for them.”
At the Maternity Center, she is a pillar. Her smile and reassuring attitude bring comfort and hope to patients. She provides prenatal care, assists with deliveries, and offers postnatal counseling, ensuring that every mother and baby receives the proper attention. Despite the tumult outside, Youseline and her colleagues keep the Center peaceful – a sanctuary, a place of respite.
Clients at the Maternity Center call her a guardian angel. “Without her, I don’t know what I would do,” says Marie-Claire, a young mother who gave birth at the clinic. ”She’s always there for us, even when the danger is there.”
Youseline isn’t looking for recognition. Only her nurse’s scrubs differentiate her from any other Haitian woman on the street. But to so many mothers, she is a silent hero. She is a symbol of what can be, rather than what is.
Youseline in her element at the Maternity Center.
The Fight
Truthfully, Haiti is not getting better. There are little steps in the direction of peace, individual lives being changed, tentative moves toward justice, but the violence is more brazen than ever, the danger more all-encompassing
Haiti is not yet rescued, not free of its bondage. But every day, Haitians like Youseline do whatever it takes to rise to the occasion, pressing forward against the storm to rescue each other.
In 2023, we celebrated our 1500th birth at the Maternity Center. Our maternal death rate stands at zero. Mothers fight through battlefields to get to us, and we are there to meet them. Young women take a pregnancy test and quickly find out they won’t be going through it alone. Babies play together while their moms learn about infant care.
It’s not just the Maternity Center. Children are attending school across the country, because their tuition is paid for. Families have their rent taken care of. High school graduates make plans to attend colleges and trade schools.
This Christmas, we ask you to think of them. Heartline’s faithful donors are their allies in the ongoing battle to save lives and ignite a new and brighter future. Every wonderful thing that happens at Heartline happens in part because of your support; your gifts, big or small, are the reason this mission still stands.
There are countless Youselines at Heartline: so many Haitians still fighting, who continue doing whatever it takes to rewrite their country’s story. Their story is one of hope, of progress, of little victories that together add up to something much greater.
You can be a Youseline too.
