Games aren't just good stress relief, they can also help nurse the sick and feed hungry children.

That is the philosophy behind a fund-raiser to be held on Saturday by Bermuda charity Haiti Village Health.

Money raised from the games night, hosted by Nick Jones, will go towards supporting a clinic built by Haiti Village Health in one of the poorest parts of Haiti.

Some of the money will also go towards Bermuda charity Coalition for the Protection of Children's breakfast programme. The Coalition is currently providing breakfast for every child in four different schools in Bermuda.

The Royal Gazette sat down with Haiti Village Health founder, Dr. Tiffany Keenan, who works in the emergency department at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

Imagine being sick and having to walk an hour-and-a-half to the nearest clinic, only to find there is no physician on staff.

This was the situation that Dr. Tiffany Keenan found when she visited fishing village Board de Mer Limbe in northern Haiti during a vacation in 2006. She had been volunteering in a hospital in the Haitian city of Cap Haitien (CORRECT).

Life expectancy in Board de Mer Limbe was 53 years. Almost two in ten children died before their fifth birthday. There was no clinic and no school.

"People didn't have much hope," she said. And the villagers' prospects were "not much".

"The region had been largely abandoned," she said. "Right then and there I decided I wanted to do something. Had I taken a moment to think about what I was getting myself into I may have gotten back on the plane."

She formed Haiti Village Health to provide for the development of sustainable front line medical care and public health education and infrastructure to villages in rural Haiti.

After taking several groups of medical teams to the village, she decided something more permanent was needed.

Last year the village's first clinic opened. It was called 'Sante Pou Yo' meaning 'Health for All' in the local Creole.

The clinic has examination rooms, a laboratory and a pharmacy stocked regularly with medications bought through IDA in the Netherlands and through Health Partners International in Canada. It also has a guesthouse for visiting medical teams.

It is staffed with a full-time doctor, a part-time nurse and a full-time health manager. Teams of doctors and nurses from overseas also regularly fly in to volunteer their time.

The clinic provides basic health care, and also birth control, prenatal services, seniors' services, vitamins, immunisations and health education.

"Many people are anaemic," said Dr. Keenan. "Their diet is basically rice and beans. Most people eat one meal a day. They are a fishing village, and there should be lots of protein with the fish but many times it is better to sell the fish to buy rice. The rice fills you up for longer."

Dr. Keenan said it was overwhelming to figure out what problem to tackle first in the village.

"They needed everything," said Dr. Keenan. "Our philosophy from inception was one of self-sustainability, no question. Haitians want to help themselves. They are however faced with severe obstacles from access to education, financing, resources and opportunities."

She asked people in the community what they needed most. Besides the clinic, people wanted a way of dealing with the many malaria-carrying mosquitoes in the area and they needed fresh drinking water.

So next month, workers from Haiti Village Health will hand out mosquito netting to pregnant mothers and families with small children, and in August, they start a clean water programme.

"That will be a chlorine based water treatment system," said Dr. Keenan. "That will be distributed to people in our village and in the surrounding areas."

There are about 10,000 people in the charity's catchment area.

"The device we have now costs $125," she said. "It will treat 5,000 people.

"You have a solar-powered battery. You put in salt water and you get chlorine, and then you treat the household water with that. It is a completely renewable resource."

They are also starting a microcredit programme with six women in the village, and hoping to expand that.

"Since the clinic opened, we have definitely seen an impact through the children," said Dr. Keenan. "We have started to see a lot less malnutrition.

"There are a lot less infectious diseases like respiratory illnesses that go along with nutrition.

"And you really get a much more positive tone as you walk through the village. I have been there now 13 times. The people seem happier. The children appear to be better nourished. I think having hope is also a positive thing."

Haiti Village Health also wants to soon start a community health worker programme. Selected health workers from the village will receive basic hygiene, health and wound care education. They will then be sent out into the community to visit families, particularly pregnant mothers, and mothers with babies.

"We are paying them $75 a month," said Dr. Keenan. "We want to empower them. I think we will get a lot of bang for our buck from this project.

"A healthy child means that parents can put more resources into the growing and purchasing of food and improvements in living conditions which in turn further improves the health of the child and the family as a whole.

"Malnutrition is down as are water borne illnesses. Skin conditions, common among children in unsanitary conditions, are down."

The clinic operates on a budget of less than $30,000 a year.

"Most people believe that only big donors can make a difference but that is a myth," said Dr. Keenan. "Support of small, focused, dedicated and knowledgeable organisations who are on the ground can sometimes have a greater impact, dollar for dollar."

Dr. Keenan is now working with an American charity to rebuild the main Cap Haitien (CORRECT) Hospital.

"I am providing direction to the hospital with respect to re-establishing their emergency department," she said. "In a city of over 200,000 they do not have an ambulance and if you require blood then a relative must be prepared to donate to replace what you need. There is a long way to go here."

She said as the "new kid on the block" she has noticed a lack of coordination among the myriad of small independent medical groups operating both in the north and south of the country.

"As a result I have established the Haiti Health Network which allows these groups to gain input from local Haitian physician staff, coordinate resupply, share resources and better utilise volunteers," she said. "On my most recent visit from which I only returned this week we hosted our first meeting in the south for all the medical groups operating in the region, which was a resounding success."

For more information about taking part in the games night or about Haiti Village Health, e-mail Dr. Keenan at

Haitivillagehealth@yahoo.com or telephone the Coalition for the Protection of Children at 295-1150.