MONROE COUNTY, Pa. — For months, the people of Haiti in the capital city of Port-Au-Prince have experienced gang violence. In February, gangs launched several attacks on the government.
"Now it's gotten to the point where it is really out of hand and it's unsafe. It's become a humanitarian crisis for the country overall," said Helping Hands and Beyond Founder Herline Raphael.
Herline Raphael was born in Haiti but moved to the states at the age of five.
She now lives in Monroe County. She created a non-profit in 2009 called Helping Hands and Beyond to serve the people of Haiti. She said seeing what is going on in her home country is heart wrenching.
"There's a lot of political violence, political oppression, food oppression, basically the necessities of life, and mankind are oppressed by the gang activity," said Raphael.
Raphael's non-profit also runs a community hospital that serves upwards of 150 people each week in Haiti. She says the nonprofit's biggest challenge during the violence is getting medical supplies to the clinic.
"The main ports have been blocked by the gangs. The main roads have been blocked by the gangs so we are experiencing major challenges of getting our supplies from Port-Au-Price to our clinic which is in the outskirts of Port-Au-Price," said Raphael.
She says right now, travel is not safe, so everything their organization collects needs to be purchased and then shipped.
To learn more about the mission of Helping Hands and Beyond, you can click here.