Home Roots Foundation

Mission Home Roots Foundation is a grassroots community organization dedicated to improving the educational, economic, social, and civic development of communities we serve in Haiti. Education In Haiti, since over 80% of schools are private and require tuition, uniforms, and supplies, our goal is to remove money as a barrier for our students to receive a quality education. To this end, we currently help to financially support two schools, award scholarships, provide supplies, and help pay teacher salaries. Our goal is to incorporate more technology than exist in the average Haitian classroom. We are working to equip our schools with computer labs to teach basic computer skills. We aim t... read more Mission Home Roots Foundation is a grassroots community organization dedicated to improving the educational, economic, social, and civic development of communities we serve in Haiti. Education In Haiti, since over 80% of schools are private and require tuition, uniforms, and supplies, our goal is to remove money as a barrier for our students to receive a quality education. To this end, we currently help to financially support two schools, award scholarships, provide supplies, and help pay teacher salaries. Our goal is to incorporate more technology than exist in the average Haitian classroom. We are working to equip our schools with computer labs to teach basic computer skills. We aim to teach English in the schools and eventually develop a curriculum to prepare students for the 21st century global community. On Thursdays and Saturdays, we hold the Speak English Together Club (SET-Club), which is an informal school/club that teaches youth English free of charge and educates on Haitian and American culture. Socio-economic We have initiated a women's micro-finance program, the Youth Engagement Civic Education program (YECE), and a school scholarship program. The scholarships alleviate the burden of tuition and the families have more income to spend on food and housing or invest in small business. The micro-finance program, as a pilot program, was officially launched in 2020 after being tested in 2019. Recipients will be screened and selected based on ability to learn, pass history of entrepreneurship, and even recommendations. Those selected will either given money to start a small business or given merchandise to sell. In either case, we are involved to ensure success. Thus, we are partnering with a local Haitian incubator that will offer seminars entrepreneurship general business practices. Importantly, we also provided recipients a small one-time income so they would not spend revenue/profit on living expenses but rather on growing the business---his tends to be a major issue with these types of businesses in Haiti. Currently, there are two partners/recipients that we working with. We prefer to generally keep the numbers low and provide higher amounts of funding to the partners/recipients with good ideas who are well qualified. Recipients can receive about $1000 USD. The Youth Engagement Civic Education program (YECE) was officially launched in 2020 but has been around informally for a few years. This is aimed at youth from traditional households as well as street kids. The street kids we talk to and try to ascertain their situation and help as best as we currently can. This can entail helping them unite with relatives or pairing them with a pertinent social institution. However, the focus up to date has been using certain Saturday sessions of SET-Club meetings to teach civic lessons, culture, art and history. We endeavor to instill in the youth the spirit of civic engagement, volunteerism, and cultural appreciation. In addition to these programs, members of Home Roots Foundation in the town Titanyen are helping to build a community in Haiti through education, housing, advocacy, and fostering civic engagement. Titanyen, is the site where a public memorial exists for the victims of the January 12, 2010 earthquake. This is also the location of the first school we help to establish in Haiti. In December of 2019 into January of 2020 we met with peasant societies in Jean Rabel and Belle Fontaine, where we learned some kids wake up at 3 AM to get to school at 8 AM due to the lack of roads. The conditions in these places are extreme but our presence gave the residents we encountered hope. We are now working with the different peasant associations we met to help them organize and improve their self-advocacy. Future We have started preliminary inquiries into adding a student health program which will check students for vitamin deficiencies, worms and some other know maladies endemic to the country. Since it has been reported that some thirty percent of children are undernourished, we plan to add a school feeding program. We also are working to start a school feeding program which will utilize locally produced products. Starting in 2022, we plan to start a campaign to build a modern school facility focusing on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Meanwhile, we are reaching out to various sectors of Haitian society to help increase opportunity through education by attempting to partner with grassroots local associations, businesses and government institutions.