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After its third mission to Haiti since a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated the country in January, the Perth Amboy-based Jewish Renaissance Foundation is moving forward with plans to build a hospital, a safe-haven for orphaned children, and housing in the destroyed city of Leogane.

From April 25-May 2, JRF, founder of the Jewish Renaissance Medical Center (JRMC), sent a delegation of 18 American and Canadian medical professionals who -- working in a makeshift hospital of plywood and tarps and dealing with daily temperatures of over 100 degrees -- treated over 2,000 earthquake victims in Leogane, providing services such as pediatric, obstetric, and gynecological care, and distributing over 1,500 pairs of glasses.

Through meetings with Leogane Mayor Santos Alexis and the National Police Cabinet of Haiti, JRF secured the promise of a 400-acre parcel of land for its hospital and other projects. JRF employee Yves Theodore, a former police commissioner in Leogane, played a key role on the trip and will continue to be a major contributor in the organization's rebuilding efforts in Haiti, Dr. Alan Goldsmith, president and founder of JRF, said in an interview with The Jewish State.

"I said 'you're the person, you are great to set up the mission and do what we need to get done,'" Goldsmith said he told Theodore when learning of his connection to Leogane.

A coastal city located 18 miles west of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capitol, Leogane experienced 30,000 deaths in the earthquake -- half its population -- and had 95 percent of its buildings flattened.

The first phase of JRF's project will be the building of a 13,000-square foot medical facility, with the second phase including the safe haven for children and a factory to create jobs for Haitians, Goldsmith said. In the third and final phase, JRF will construct a planned community with a school, park, recreation center, pool, and soccer field, he said.

Since the project has a Canadian builder and contractor, the Canadian government will cover 15-20 percent of the project's $6 million budget, Goldsmith said. Sixty-three Haitians will be hired to run the safe-haven, he said, furthering JRF's goal of creating jobs in the region.

JRF is well-accustomed to taking on international projects, with past initiatives in Cuba, Hungary, Israel, Dominican Republic, Ukraine, and the Republic of Georgia among other places, but the Haiti effort "is immense, it's really a very big project," Goldsmith said. The Haitian government is in the process of recruiting citizens they can pay to give up their land, similar to the eminent domain process in the United States, and "this government works very slow on the ground," he said.

Additionally, the situation for Haiti's inhabitants hasn't improved much since the earthquake, with civilians living in tents, drinking contaminated water, lacking electricity, and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Goldsmith said.

"Everything looked as you saw it on TV right after the earthquake," he said.

The humidity in Haiti "was the worst I ever experienced," Goldsmith said. Before the mission, Goldsmith warned his staff that it would be unlike any previous JRF missions because they would be sleeping in tents without electricity or lighting, rather than air-conditioned indoor facilities. Three doctors couldn't take the heat and returned to New Jersey after the first night, Goldsmith said.

In the early morning hours each day, the group was awakened to the sounds of roosters, cows, dogs, goats, and even Bob Marley music, Goldsmith said.

"At 3 a.m., everything seems to come alive," he said.

JRF also provided prosthetics for 10 police officers who underwent amputations because of the earthquake, and plans on bringing some Haitian officers and doctors to Perth Amboy for training in the medical center's shadow residency program. Despite the harsh working conditions in Haiti, "all the doctors bonded, it was a tremendous experience," Goldsmith said.

Dr. Puneet Babbar, chief medical officer at JRMC, said in a statement that "This is an experience which none of us will ever forget. One thing stood out -- our work was a drop in the ocean of work that still needs to be done in Haiti. We at JRMC, through collaboration, hope to be the voice of the Haitian people, a voice that still needs to be heard despite the lack of current media coverage."

"The Haitian people have been through a horrendous ordeal and are still suffering the effects with no basic medical care, no clean water, no houses and really no structure or order to their daily lives... I am leaving with a tremendous feeling of guilt, as the people we saw don't have the luxury of leaving their horrible living conditions," Alona Yacobovsky, a certified trauma specialist from San Diego, Calif., who joined the JRF mission, said in a statement.