By Morgan Wienberg & Alicia De Jong | Executive Director & Grant Writer
The need for education support has grown significantly this year in the midst of the escalating situation in Haiti. For already vulnerable families, the rising cost of living has made it harder to cover school fees, supplies and other costs. Families who have been displaced from Port-au-Prince because of gang violence are also arriving in the south and trying to rebuild their lives with very little access to basic resources.
This year, LFBS social workers identified school uniforms as an additional barrier for some families. With the rising cost of living and increasing financial pressures on families, some children risked missing school simply because their families could not afford the required uniform. LFBS has responded by expanding education support to include uniforms alongside tuition, backpacks and school books. These items are purchased from local vendors whenever possible, with uniform materials purchased locally and sewn by local seamstresses. This means that supporting a child to go to school also helps create income for people in the community.
Several students previously reunited with their families who LFBS supported to attend and graduate from professional sewing schools are now being hired to sew uniforms for other students! We'd also provided them with their own sewing machines to support them in earning an income. It has been a full circle moment for those students and our team this year as they sewed uniforms for other children currently supported by LFBS! Other youth currently in sewing school will have the opportunity to do the same as they complete their training.
Many of the children we've worked to reunite this year had previously been living on the streets and were later brought into LFBS’s transitional safehouse. After being reunited with their families, they are now going to school for the first time in their own communities!
The children did receive education while they were in the safehouse, but returning to school in their own community is an important part of their social reintegration. While living on the streets, they would see other children wearing school uniforms and going to class while they were sitting on the street. They may not have seen themselves as part of that community or as having the same opportunities as other children their age.
Now, they get to put on a uniform, walk into their local school and sit alongside other students. They are making friends, building connections and beginning to see themselves as members of their communities. Something as simple as going to school can help restore a child’s sense of belonging and pride in who they are and where they come from.
For many years, LFBS has held an annual meeting for children living and working on the streets in the South. The meeting brings children together, helps the team understand their circumstances and creates an opportunity to encourage them to leave the streets and access support. This year, we brought that work to Grand’Anse for the first time.
Following the outreach, LFBS has been working with Haitian Social Services to help 20 children who had been living and working on the streets get into school. Our team and social workers are visiting families, helping address the barriers that have kept these children out of school and supporting them as they begin their education.
This work has also been informed by LFBS’s work through two UNICEF projects, where our team assessed 200 highly vulnerable families, including families who had been displaced. While all of these families received immediate support through the projects, many were identified as needing additional follow-up. For some families, one of the most important needs identified was getting their children into school. These families are now being connected to LFBS’s education program so their children can have the opportunity to return to school and build a different path for their future.
Thank you for helping make this work possible. Your support helps children access the education they need to stay in school, build relationships in their communities and create new opportunities for their futures. For families facing poverty, displacement and other challenges, your partnership can remove barriers that might otherwise keep children out of school.
By Morgan Wienberg & Alicia De Jong | Executive Director & Grant Writer
By Morgan Wienberg | Co-Founder & Executive Director
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