This Is Why We Show Up

Our team recently returned from the Dominican Republic, and one story has stayed with us.

We met a 10-year-old girl who came in with a cough, a cold, and a sore throat. Her mom couldn't be there because she was working, so her aunt brought her in. It sounds simple, but behind that visit was a reality that so many families in her community face every day.

This family is Haitian, living in the DR under the constant threat of deportation. That fear keeps families close to home and hesitant to seek help even when they're sick, making them vulnerable in ways most of us will never have to think about. Getting to a clinic isn't just inconvenient. It can be dangerous.

When we visited her home, we saw a tin roof, no electricity, dirt walkways, no running water, and temperatures pushing 95 degrees with nowhere for the heat to go. Trash was burning nearby because the government doesn't collect it from Haitian communities. These are the conditions that make staying healthy a daily challenge, and going without care so often the only option.

Those conditions don't just make people sick. They make them vulnerable. Haitian families in the DR live without legal protection, without recourse, and without a voice, and that vulnerability is exploited daily. Forced labor, sex trafficking, and manipulation are rampant in communities like hers. When survival is the only priority, everything else becomes a weapon someone else can use against you.

HealEx exists to close that gap.