Haiti: Heroes, Parasites and Shame
At the ripe old age of 28, Aaron Jackson has delivered medicine to cure over 1.7 million Haitian children of the intestinal worms that eat away their bodies, and slow their brains and drive into a nutrient-depleted lethargy.
Long before the Earthquake, Haiti saw its share of tragedies. The devastation caused by intestinal parasites was one. And the cure so easy: one pill that costs less than five cents. As water systems become tainted, and water lays stagnant, the parasites will increase. But make no mistake: the trouble is in Haiti but the real tragedy is in a surrounding world so insulated in lazy, narcissistic self-satiety, that more people would prefer to pay an extra two cents for a brand name green bean that to expend the effort needed to send two cents to cure a child of a future-robbing medical ailment. A child.
In 2005, when he founded Planting Peace, Aaron Jackson chose to live himself in a homeless shelter in South Florida, to make available every penny possible available to cure every child possible. And this- before the Earthquake. Aaron Jackson is a hero. CNN reporter Anderson Copper recognized it when Aaron was featured on the 2007 CNN Medical Marvel Project. Aaron Jackson is a hero because he sees and tackles head-on what most of us would find easier to overlook:
- one dollar will cure 67 children
- fifty dollars will cure 3,330 children
- five hundred dollars will cure 33,330 children
- one thousand dollars will cure 66,660 children
- fifteen thousand dollars will cure over one million children
How many children will you cure today? One dollar: 67 children. Will you cure a child today? Will you cure 67 children? Are you ashamed that you only have one dollar with which to help the children of Haiti? Don’t be ashamed. Be a hero. Use your one dollar and cure 67 children.
