Harvard Club of Western Pennsylvania

This Lunch Lecture will feature two speakers who have spent significant time in the last year in Haiti. They will share their experiences and insights into the continuing recovery of Haiti from the devastating earthquake in 2010.

About the Speakers:

Dr. Kristen Mertz, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health since 2006, spent 2012-2013 working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) in Haiti. Dr. Mertz will speak about selected health issues that have arisen since the earthquake.

Ian Rosenberger, CEO of Thread LLC, visited Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake. Overwhelmed by poverty during his visit to the island, he created both Thread and Team Tassy.  A non-profit,  Team Tassy "prepares the poor for jobs" and Thread, a for-profit social enterprise, "prepares jobs for the poor". The organizations have created over 1500 income-generating opportunities in Haiti and collected and processed over 60 million plastic bottles.  Collectively, they believe that this type of private/NGO collaboration holds the keys to ending poverty globally.

Ian Rosenberger will speak about Thread, his company that takes trash from the poorest neighborhoods in Haiti and converts it to fabric, which they then sell to apparel companies interested in becoming more socially and environmentally responsible.