OPI N I ON
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HELPING HANDS: Asheville student Gracelyn Ross, right, gives deworming medicine to an infant in Haiti on a recent trip with Asheville nonprofit Consider Haiti. Photo courtesy of Consider Haiti
3RD ANNUAL CHARITY
Featuring Items From
• Cosmic Groove • Ripley’s Museum • Charlotte St. Pub
• Grail Moviehouse • Dollywood • And much much more
The Asheville Cat Weidos Emergency Fund a registered 501(c)(3) 6
MAY 8 - 14, 2019
MOUNTAINX.COM
I am a local 18-year-old Asheville High School senior and just returned from my second trip to Haiti with a local nonprofit called Consider Haiti. We were there to set up four pediatric clinics for Haitian children. My job was to give deworming medicine to all the children who came through our clinics. This was my second trip traveling with Consider Haiti. I was prepared for the work in front of me, but you are never truly emotionally prepared for what you see in Haiti. Malnutrition, bellies bloated with worms, scabies and skin rashes are a few of the issues our medical team treats each year. This year, we saw a young girl with second-degree burns on her hand. She had burned her hand in a fire on Friday but had to wait until Monday when our first clinic of the week was open. If waiting that long wasn’t bad enough, she had to ride on a motorcycle for four hours to get to our clinic. For most children in these remote villages, this is their only access to medical professionals for the entire year. This is something we in our region and the United States as a whole take for granted. After visiting one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere, you realize how important access to quality health care is. Many of the symptoms diagnosed were preventable in nature by having clean water, sustainable nutrition and early access to health care. One of the many contrasts between the two countries is that in America, if you have a medical condition, more than likely there is a treatment for that condition, and you will recover. In Haiti, people experience the same amount of trauma and disease, if not worse, but they have to live with the fact that they will never have access to health care. Can you imagine not having the ability to visit your doctor on
an as-need basis or being able to call 911 at any given time? Asheville is surrounded by the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains and, although traffic can be crazy here, our town has the infrastructure to allow us to easily get to wherever we need to go. The mountains add so much to our community. In Haiti, the rugged terrain and lack of infrastructure mean that remote villages do not have access to clean water, supplies and medical care. I see Asheville in a whole new light for all of its beauty and charm. For me, my experiences in Haiti have given me a true appreciation for the access we have to health care, clean water and sustainable nutrition, which are the fundamental goals of Consider Haiti. For that, I say, thank you, or as they say in Haiti, mesi! — Gracelyn Ross Asheville Editor’s note: Ross reports that she has been accepted to UNC Charlotte’s prenursing program and will begin studies in the fall. She hopes to use her degree to continue to help children everywhere. For more information on Consider Haiti, visit www.considerhaiti.org.
Statement from Mountain Xpress While editorial cartoons frequently lampoon the features of people and institutions — sometimes creating discomfort in viewers and those portrayed, all in the process of holding the powerful to account — there are limits to what’s appropriate. In our view, the portrayal of Asheville Parks and Recreation Department Director Roderick Simmons by cartoonist Randy Molton that appeared in our April 24 issue crossed that line. Though we didn’t pick up on the problem prior to publication, readers have called our attention to a visual characterization that evokes racist depictions of African Americans such as blackface and minstrel shows. Molton reports that he certainly did not intend any similarity to this offensive racial trope. Yet the responsibility for scrutinizing all material rests with Xpress. In this case, we find that our review was insufficient. We have apologized to Mr. Simmons for our oversight, and we will redouble our efforts to ensure that unacceptable stereotypes do not appear in the pages of Xpress. X