Haiti: What we’ve achieved since the beginning of this year

By Elena Paleo, Haiti Senior Portfolio Advisor

Haiti is the poorest country in Latin America - some of the conditions are comparable to some of the poorest in Africa. In general, people in Australia might not be able to picture what poverty looks like over there.

As the Portfolio Advisor in Australia for Haiti, I wanted to tell you more about how your contribution as a sponsor is helping improve some of the conditions through the sponsorship program.

There are three World Vision sponsorship projects on the island of La Gonave in Haiti, where you sponsor a child; Grand Lagon, PACODES and Port de Bonheur. Sponsorship funds in 2015 are reaching 9,495 children through education activities to improve the overall quality of education.

I want to tell you more about what the projects have achieved in the last six months.

Teacher training in Port de Bonheur – improving education quality for 1200 children

The Port de Bonheur project has worked with the school district authorities to develop a training plan for teachers to improve their lessons planning and quality of teaching. In this project, 40 teachers from various areas participated in the training course. A teacher in a school in Haiti can have over 30 students, that’s reaching around 1200 children.

The project staff have also trained 30 kindergarten teachers to reinforce their knowledge and ability to improve the learning of pre-school children in order to increase their opportunities to successfully complete primary school in the years ahead.

On top of training teachers, the project has provided resources and materials to 39 schools reaching more than 1500 kids (sponsored and non-sponsored children – because World Vision want to give all children an equal opportunity). These updated resources and books will help children improve their performance in school.

 

 

Improved school conditions in Grand Lagon

The Grand Lagon project focused on improving child learning conditions by providing school furniture to five schools, which were in poor condition. Training was also provided to 29 kindergarten school teachers.

During the last six months, 225 adolescents have learnt about child rights – this means that children become more aware of some of the rights they should be enjoying, such as education and the right to play, as well as the right to be cared for and protected.

Why Youth Clubs are important in our projects

Youth clubs are an effective way for the projects to engage with youth – if you don’t make it interesting they won’t show up. So by creating these clubs, the project has been able to reach 500 youth in the last 6 months through recreational and educational activities to engage them in important issues of their concern such as child protection and child rights.

In the PACODES project, eight schools were provided with school materials and furniture and 24 teachers were trained to improve the quality of education.

800 children attending World Vision Children’s clubs

In a similar way to the youth clubs in the Grand Lagon project, the PACODES project has been able to reach 800 children through children’s clubs to engage them in educational and recreational activities, and at the same time, raising their awareness on child rights.

For me, it’s really encouraging to see such a high participation of youth where we can engage them in activities that build their awareness of their rights and provide them with a greater opportunity to become advocates for children and youth in these communities.

We’re looking forward to seeing how the teacher training and new resources have impacted the children’s performance in these schools in the next year. It has only been possible because of supporters like you, thanks for your support.