Although many sites were visited during our first few missions, numbers have always been low except in Plaisance (near Limbe) in Northern Haiti, where Pastor Amos Myrtil has such a positive influence over the community. The problems with Northern Haiti are (1) flights to Cap Haitien are infrequent, slow (turbo-prop planes because the Cap airport cannot handle large jets) and expensive compared to flights to Port-Au-Prince (PAP), and (2) our Medical Director Dr. Fritz Lolagne is based in PAP, and travel to the north is, for him, expensive and time-consuming.

Our goal has been to establish a site close to the PAP airport so that NSVI teams can come and go quickly from and to a number of US airports. We are now focused on Delmas, a section of PAP close to the airport, as our best option for a number of reasons:

(1) Through Pastor Amos, we have been introduced to two professionals familiar with Delmas who would like to help our missions (Myrtho Joseph, Ph.D. and Anael Hyppolite). (2) The PROFAMIL clinic on Delmas 31 in has offered the use of their facility for the mission. (3) I have done vasectomies on a number of Haitian-American men familiar with Delmas, and they have expressed an interest in helping NSVI start a vasectomy program there.And (4) from Delmas, we can rather easily get to Fermate where the Mission Baptiste has graciously hosted NSVI during prior missions.

Posters were just recently prepared and delivered by Dr. Lolagne to our two sites. We will be joined by Dr. Michael Werner, who recently expressed an interest and was able to open his schedule on short notice to attend the mission. Numbers may be low, but we will be busy scouting and reserving billboards for our next mission later in 2013.

NSVI’s Frohnie Cagalitan, MSW, has prepared a marvelous 2013 calendar for distribution to many health care workers and family planning promoters throughout the Central Philippines in an effort to raise awareness of the upcoming 2013 mission.

Frohnie spent many hours composing, formatting, and revising this work of art and information. And she will donate even more time traveling to teach calendar recipients about the benefits of NSV and to inspire them to refer patients to our mission sites. How wonderful it is to have someone of her energy and talent on the NSVI Team!

In addition to the Philippines team members featured in our About Us page, 7 new NSVI missioners and one “veteran” will provide free vasectomy services at 3 sites in the Central Philippines February 5-12, 2013.

Dr. Sarah Miller is the “veteran” of the 2012 Mission who brightened the procedure room with her bright smile. All of these experienced vasectomists are using personal funds to cover travel and accommodations, and all have donated $1500 to help cover the costs of the mission, including travel and lost wage compensation for our patients as well as expenses incurred by our Philippines staff and supporting facilities. They are truly dedicated to the Mission of NSVI.

The 2013 Team is composed of talented physicians from across North America.

For those donors who see a need for NSVI services here in the USA, NSVI has rolled out its Florida Initiative. Men whose difficulty keeping up with with child support payments has led to arrest or loss of driver’s license are offered FREE vasectomy. Details are in our Florida Page. Here Dr. Ramon Suarez, President of NSVI, celebrates the installation of the billboard announcement along a busy stretch of Interstate 4 in Plant City.

Under the leadership of Mission Director Charles Ochieng, MD, (second from right) NSVI President Ramon Suarez, MD, and Development Director Doug Stein, MD, joined a team that performed 53 vasectomies in 3 days in Busia, Kenya, nearly as many vasectomies as had been performed in the whole of Kenya during the entire year of 2011. To read about how NSVI got involved in Kenya, a country whose population increases by over 1 million per year, click here. To read about this first mission to Kenya, click here.

Third Mission to Plaisance, where our 25 patients had fathered 123 children. In Ft. Bourgeois, 11 men had sired 83 children. And Limbe may be a third site in North Haiti. To read about how NSVI got involved in Haiti, click here. To read about this 4th NSVI mission to Haiti, click here.

Thanks to their enthusiastic support for the mission of NSVI, 5 additional vasectomists are joined our team this year. They donated their time, paid their travel expenses, and each donated $1000 to NSVI to help the cause. Please highlight the “Where We Work” tab above, then “The Philippines”, then click the “Mission of 2012” link above to watch an excellent video and read more.