Alumni Spotlight

Dawn Johnson

Building a Better Haiti

DAWN JOHNSON poses with her preferred local transportation for fieldwork at Hospital Albert Schweitzer in Haiti.

While a student in high school, Dawn Johnson ’89 told God that she wanted to do something really helpful with her life.

“He took me up on it,” says the new director of community development at Hospital Albert Schweitzer (HAS) in Haiti. “People think I’m insane to stay in Haiti during this rough spell. I answer, ‘Insanity’s contagious. You catch it from your Lord.’ There’s no question He’s hanging with me in all this.”

In her previous role as assistant director of community development since January 1997, Johnson quickly realized that medicine alone could only make a modest impact in the underlying Haitian dilemma, and that to cure people and return them to the same environment that fostered their diseases was only treating the symptoms.

Instead, the HAS community development program focuses on sanitation projects, education and agriculture. As director, Johnson’s role is to help HAS and the community plan and implement sustainable improvement projects in these and other areas.

“Usually at least one community group will come in each day wanting to plan a well or road improvement or other community development project,” she says. “Nothing is simple or easy in an environment with virtually no infrastructure.“

Each day she spends considerable time troubleshooting problems with transportation, money and materials.

“We do have to consider that people who can barely feed their children are limited in what projects they can make 100 percent sustainable, but there are ways to do so that preserve the possibility that a community can take full charge in the future,” she says.

Johnson thinks it’s important to develop plans that support existing local enterprises whenever possible.

“’Oh those poor people, let’s just give them a solution’ approaches are counterproductive because they increase resentment rather than helping people work together,” Johnson says. “They also guarantee that as soon as the funds stop, the benefits will also.”

One of the most difficult aspects of her job is when she is forced to lay-off staff members because of a lack of money.

“The most satisfying part is when I can help a community group figure out what they most want to pour their sweat and effort and resources into and how to do it in a way that they can manage and keep functioning,” she says.

Johnson, a native of Harrisonburg, Virginia, majored in geology at Earlham and received a master’s degree in international watershed management from Colorado State University. She has worked with the Peace Corps in Haiti and Costa Rica, and with the Mennonite Central Committee in Zaire and Taiwan.

Throughout her days in Haiti, Johnson says she often falls back on knowledge she acquired at Earlham.

“Developing my critical analysis and writing skills in the humanities courses certainly helped,” she says. “I get many compliments on my ability to analyze a situation and clearly summarize it along with solutions. I also get to use some geology and hydrology training as we choose well sites, and the summer abroad in France got my French up to speed, which is critical in dealing with the ministries and non-U.S. organizations in French.”

HAS serves as a model for health care organizations in developing countries around the world. An integrated rural health system, HAS provides medical care and community health and development programs for 285,000 impoverished people in a 610-square mile district. More than half of the patients seen at HAS are children suffering from malnutrition and trauma. The hospital is located in rural Deschapelles, about three hours north of Port-au-Prince. The largely Haitian staff includes nearly 800 employees and 2,000 community based workers. The hospital receives financial support from partner organizations and individuals around the world.

“I am often asked why the hospital has a community development division when the health system is stretched so tight,” says Johnson. “Since (founder) Larry Mellon first put down his stethoscope and picked up a shovel, the hospital has been deeply involved in improving water and land use, agriculture, literacy, and financial opportunities in Haiti’s Artibonite Valley.”