I recently returned from my second trip to Haiti in the past 9 months and I can't wait to return! While it is nearly impossible to find an encouraging word about Haiti in the U.S. press, I found plenty to celebrate at Wings of Hope, a school and community for children with severe special needs in Fermathe, Haiti.

The list of Haiti's problems is endless: once the richest country in the Western Hemisphere, it is now the poorest; average life expectancy, 53 years; Haitians below the poverty level, 80%; unemployed, 70%; GDP per capita, $1,340; roads unpaved, 75%; poor public health, a non-existent supply of potable water and of course violence and kidnapping. These issues can't be minimized.

Yet, at Wings of Hope I found an extraordinary oasis. Founded in 1993 and today led by Maya Fond-Rose, a former restavek, Wings is a team of volunteers and stipend staff members who have created a family for thirty-five formerly abandoned children with special needs. At Wings, food, clothing, shelter, education and therapy are coupled with love, compassion and dignity. Many of the staff members, like Maya, were street children in their youth.

As the President of Cotting School in Lexington, MA, the nation's first day school for children with physical disabilities, I know firsthand the obstacles facing the children and staff at Wings of Hope. In Haiti neither the culture nor the government supports children with special needs. At Cotting School our teaching, clinical and medical staff work in partnership with our students' loving and nurturing parents to provide effective services. In Haiti, children with special needs are often abandoned.

At Wings I met Reginald and his best friend Dadzi. Reginald's mother died during labor. Doctors needed to amputate Reginald's arm near the shoulder to remove him from the birth canal and save his life. Since he was born prematurely and had health problems, no one came to claim Reginald at the hospital. The hospital staff cared for him for several months until he was adopted. When his adopted mother died, he was taken to Wings of Hope. Dadzi buttons Reginald's shirt each morning to prepare him for school.

Dadzi sees nothing. He is without eyesight, in total darkness since birth. He was brought to Wings of Hope after being abandoned at a hospital.

After breakfast one morning, I watched Dadzi frantically looking for another student named Pierre. Without a cane, guide dog, or a sighted helper, Dadzi moved from room to room touching each person, feeling for Pierre, a sixteen year old with Down Syndrome. Dadzi found him. Then I watched as Dadzi helped Pierre gather the night's laundry. One led and helped the other. Dadzi and Pierre each took two loads of laundry two stories up the ramps of Wings of Hope. It is amazing what Dadzi sees!

This is the second year of a mutually beneficial relationship between Wings of Hope and Cotting School. Children from Haiti have visited our students at Cotting and staff members from Wings of Hope and Cotting School have trained intensively with each other both in Haiti and in the U.S. Cotting School and Wings of Hope students share ideas, stories and their cultures with each other via e-mail. Photos of Cotting and Wings students can be found on the walls of the each others classrooms.

Near the entrance to Wings of Hope hangs a memorial plaque that lovingly lists the names of the nine children who were members of the Wings of Hope family when they died. When I first saw the plaque it struck me that only the first names of the children were listed: Noe (1995), Jasmine (1996), Tijan (1996), Timarie (1998), Pepe (2002) ... Then I remembered that all the children at Wings of Hope had been abandoned - no histories and no names. During my visits to Wings of Hope, I met 35 smiling children with no last names.