“The emphases should be placed on building small communities to help with the overflow of people from Port-au-Prince, to act as a center for providing housing as well as a new sustainable model for the future,” said Prof. Wampler in a recent email. “This is a sad opportunity to try to help in a new way.”
"Jan wants to provide the underserved with the level of quality that only the rich can usually afford," said Lahens. "It touches my heart."
"The poor have only one house," said Wampler. "They should have the best architecture, not makeshift architecture."
"Lahens, 56, a former MIT research fellow and mother of an alumna, has a six-year history of partnering with professors and students at the institute for the betterment of her homeland. Past projects include purifying water, building a school, aiding fishing villages, and providing computer training. The scope of this project, though, would seem quixotic without Wampler's record of accomplishment: homes in earthquake-ravaged Turkey; schools in China and Sierra Leone; an orphanage in Ecuador; and community centers in Mexico and Thailand." Boston Globe
