A fundraising event featuring former prime minister Helen Clark will raise money to complete a North Otago-financed health facility in Haiti.
Organised by Hearts and Hands for Haiti, established through Oamaru's Robyn Couper to provide assistance to the people of Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake, the event marks the anticipated completion next year of a training school for physiotherapy technicians in Cap Haitien.
Miss Clark is now administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and has supported Hearts and Hands Haiti (HHH) in many ways.
HHH had supported wonderful work in Haiti since the devastating earthquake, including supporting teams of health professionals providing vital treatment, and in aiding the transfer of their skills to local people, she said.
The physiotherapy school had been a major undertaking, and the support from HHH in New Zealand in terms of funding for the school and providing training had been invaluable, Miss Clark said.
The fundraising event on August 25 starts at 5.30pm, with dinner in the Whitestone Cheese Empire Room at the Oamaru Opera House, with Miss Clark, international guests and HHH teams.
She will speak, followed by an art auction of works by Donna Demente, Burns Pollock and other local established artists.
The Lexus Future Opera Stars concert, presented in association with the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation, after the dinner and auction will be hosted by opera singer Rodney Macann, who is a trustee of the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation.
It will feature 2014 Lexus Song Quest finalists Bianca Andrew and Edward Laurenson and internationally acclaimed accompanist Terence Dennis.
