“Support from people like you provide the monetary and moral support needed for us to carry on the struggle of our vision to foster a learning society where Haïti’s destitute and vulnerable children can blossom into educated, fully functional, self-supporting, and productive members of society.

Most Haïtian children grow up in an environment of poverty, abandonment, neglect and illiteracy which in turn leads to homelessness and crime. They realize that education is likely their bestway out of poverty and know that education is a privilege, and they are proud to wear their school uniforms. You will seldom find a child skipping school in Haïti!

With the cost of public schooling averaging $250 per child each year, education is a luxury many children just cannot afford. Poor families make tremendous sacrifices such as going without food or other necessities, work dusk to dawn in the marketplaces, and live in desperately cramped quarters to pay tuition for a child to attend school. Even with these sacrifices, only 5% of the children who start school will able to finish secondary school due to the inability of their parents to provide for their school supplies and uniforms. A key source of funds is from Haïtians living abroad, who, according to the Inter-American Development Bank, sent back more than $1.6 billion in 2006. These funds have helped a lot of families to purchase supplies such as textbooks and other materials for the school year, it is still not enough.

Rebecca Adams, who manages a worldwide education and health program for USAID was reported to have said: “In Haïti, 50 percent of children and adolescents have never attended or didn’t complete primary school and can’t read, which means there is little chance they can escape the intergenerational cycle of poverty”.