An extra-extra-ordinary man: Sebastian Velez

Sebastian Velez is an Evolutionary Biologist at the Musuem of Comparative Zoology and a PhD candidate at the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology of Harvard University.  As a biologist, he tries to answer questions in Island Biogeography and Systematics, having worked in the Caribbean and New Zealand. 

During one of his field trips to the Dominican Republic, Velez came to know two groups of people in the area, the Dominican community of Pedernales and the Haitian community of Las Mercedes, just inside the border of the Dominican Republic.  Since this association began seven years ago, Velez has become profoundly involved in helping the Haitian people live healthy and dignified lives.  Velez’s project “Children of the Border” has successfully managed projects in healthcare supplementation, family planning, water access and purification, treatment of pediatric malnutrition, and defense of human rights. 

Maureen George in the Dominican Republic

In August, 2010, Sebastian Velez, Director of the NGO Children of the Border led a team of volunteers to help administer the programs on water access and purification, women’s reproductive health and community building.

Children of the Border (CotB) has been at work in the Haitian village of Las Mercedes just inside the Dominican Republic for seven years.  Here a family listens to the importance of the census that took place in August 2010.

The children were fascinated by the digital camera and their image that materialized immediately, prompting squeals of delight.  See the child in the front left with signs of malnutrition in her yellowing thin hair.   She is holding a piece of bread that the child in the front right is looking at.  Everyone is hungry.

 

Rainwater is collected in large plastic barrels from make-shift gutters of corrugated metal.  Until the well in Las Mercedes was repaired in August 2010, collecting rainwater was the principal method of getting water for cooking and sanitation.