Head Start for 230 Pre-School Children in Haiti

Pre-school programs for poor children are relatively new in Haiti. The pre-school program of Our Lady of Perpetual Help School  (OLPHS) in Petite-Riviere de l’ Artibonite  started only 6 years  ago with extremely limited financial resources.  Thanks to the generosity of our donors who contributed  $2,000 (30% of total project cost), encouraging progress  in  enhancing the quality of early childhood education was made during  the  school  year 2013-2014, the  first year of the project .  With these contributions, the school was able to purchase pedagogical materials and hire one additional teacher, bringing the student- teacher ratio down from 46 in 2012-2013 to 38 in 2013-2014.

The opportunity to attend kindergarten in 2013-2014 was a particularly powerful and transformative experience for Rose .  At the age of five, she had been given up by her destitute mother to a family in town who treated her as “restavek” or child slave, responsible for a variety of domestic chores and working from sun-up to sun-down. Her situation was so dire that a neighbor who had befriended her brought her to the attention of the Sisters in charge of the orphanage, the same Sisters who are in charge of the school. This is how -- at the age of 8 years old and having never set foot in a school before -- she was enrolled in the kindergarten program where she thrived and was promoted to the first grade.

Today, 9 year old Rose, a former “restavek,” is one of the most motivated and performing first graders at  OLPHS.  She now has a chance to have a different, better and more productive life.We are most grateful to you, our generous donors, and we count on your continued support for implementing the other key elements of the project: additional training and professional development of the teachers, hiring additional teachers to bring down even further the student teacher ratio, and provision of additional instructional materials.