The University of Notre Dame’s Haiti Program will sponsor a panel discussion titled “Haiti in the News: What is Really Happening?” in Room 131 of DeBartolo Hall at 4 p.m. Tuesday (March 16). The event is free and open to the public.
The discussion will center on the current political situation in Haiti, its impact on society, Haiti’s economic problems and related topics.
The University’s Haiti Program is currently working, in collaboration with domestic and international partners, to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (LF) from Haiti. LF is the leading cause of what is commonly known in the tropics as elephantiasis. More than 2 million of the 8.3 million residents of Haiti are infected with the mosquito-borne parasitic worms that cause LF.
Panelists for the program are:
Jean Marc Brissau , administrator, Lymphatic Filariasis Program, Hospital Ste. Croix, Haiti. The University’s Haiti Program has helped Hospital Ste. Croix develop a research and training center in Leogane which facilitates the education of health workers on how to treat, prevent and, ultimately, eliminate LF.
Karen Richman , assistant professor of anthropology, Kellogg Institute fellow at Notre Dame. Richman has studied the connections between religious conversion and the experience of migration among South Florida’s Haitian population.
Michele Sexton , program manager, Notre Dame Haiti Program. Sexton spends half of the year at the University and the other half at the training and research center in Leogane.
Rev. Thomas C. Streit, C.S.C. , director of the Notre Dame Haiti Program. Streit, an assistant professor of biological sciences, has been studying LF in Haiti since 1993.
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