Schools Not Slavery for Rural Haitian Children

How We are Preparing for the Coronavirus

Before I share with you the latest update on the work that you are making possible through your generous support, I want to share with you a message from our Executive Director David Diggs about the actions that we are taking now to help people in Haiti prepare for COVID-19 (coronavirus).

While we are unaware of any confirmed cases in Haiti at this point, we have little confidence that anyone with symptoms would be able to find a place in Haiti where they could be tested. 

That is why we are acting now to reduce the risk of transmission among our staff and the populations we serve.

As you know, much of our work happens in gatherings of grassroots leaders, parents, teachers, local elected officials, and people from all walks of life.

They come together to share, to learn, and to leverage their collective power to ensure that their communities are free of child slavery and violence against women, that every child goes to a good school, and that dignified work feeds the souls and bodies of each and every one of their neighbors.

Doing this in the age of the coronavirus will be challenging, to be sure. 

We are committed to working with communities to implement measures designed to prevent the spread of the virus just as we did during the deadly cholera outbreak that began in October 2010.

As we did then, we will promote safe handwashing and other preventative practices at all of our trainings, offices, and gatherings of any kind.

We’ve installed handwashing stations at each of these locations, and we are requiring all visitors to our offices and participants at our meetings and trainings to wash their hands according to the guidelines issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

We are also copying and distributing widely a Creole-language poster with instructions on preventing the spread of coronavirus developed by Haiti’s Ministry of Health.

Additionally we are supplying hand sanitizer to all of our offices and to our staff members to carry with them in the field, and we’ve begun using bleach to wipe down frequently touched surfaces like door handles and chairs.

We have also suspended all donor delegations and international travel to Haiti through April.

Given the rapid pace at which the coronavirus is spreading globally, we will be constantly re-evaluating these measures to determine their effectiveness, and we are prepared to follow any orders issued by the Ministry of Health -- including the cancellation of trainings and meetings as warranted.

While COVID-19 can infect anyone regardless of their wealth, race, or national origin, people in Haiti face extra risks. Widespread hunger leaves the poorest more vulnerable to infection, and health systems -- where they do exist -- are already stretched extremely thin. In much of rural Haiti there is essentially no health system at all. 

What Haiti is rich in is solidarity among neighbors who often make stunningly generous sacrifices for one another. As the world begins practicing and encouraging social distancing to slow the spread of this virus, we would all do well to draw courage from our neighbors in Haiti who have learned through many hardships the supreme value of solidarity.

David Diggs, Co-Founder and Director

Your Generosity is Building the Movement to End Child Slavery

Thank you again for your generous support for Beyond Borders’ Schools Not Slavery Project on GlobalGiving. We are grateful for your generosity and your solidarity!

You are making so many good things possible for vulnerable children in Haiti. With your support, our team carried out activities that included:

• The creation and strengthening of Child Protection Brigades,
• Follow-up with law enforcement and judicial authorities around specific cases of children living in slavery (restavèk),
• The planning and execution of Zero Restavèk Campaigns designed to build public support for an end to the practice of child slavery community wide,
• Targeted children’s rights training with community groups; and,
• The creation and strengthening of branches of the Adult Survivor Network.

You are Supporting the Development of a Protocol for the Prevention of Child Human Trafficking on Lagonav

Your generosity is also supporting work with the Mayor of the commune of Ansagale, on Lagonav Island, to develop a protocol aimed at preventing trafficking of children. During a two-day workshop, the Mayor, his cabinet, and elected officials from five municipal districts along with the Beyond Borders team worked together on the protocol, which includes

• Rules and procedures related to the moment a child is leaving her/his family,
• The transportation of a child; and,
• Cases in which a family receives a child into their home.

The locally elected officials have the responsibility to organize and facilitate community discussions on the draft protocol in their respective communities in order to make changes where necessary.

At the end of the process, the Mayor will issue a municipality decree in June 2020 on the occasion of the World Day Against Child Labor.

You are Supporting Capacity Development Work with the Adult Survivor Network

A key component of the Adult Survivor Network strategy is to continue to support the capacity development of each branch – individually and collectively. Your generous support makes this work possible.

Thanks to your support, the Beyond Borders team adapted an organizational maturity assessment tool and conducted an initial diagnostic of six branches of the survivor networks.

The tool assesses the following dimension of an organization: strategic leadership, organizational structure, human resources, relationship with other organizations, program and services management, and organizational process.

The results of the assessment were quite low, with overall scores ranging from 21 out of 120 to 57 out of 120. A structure is considered well-established when it is in the range 81-120. As a result of this assessment, plans are being made to invest in the capacity of each branch.

Despite the low assessment numbers, we found it extremely encouraging to learn how the Adult Survivor Network Coordination and eight urban branches organized and coordinated to commemorate the National Day to End the Practice of Restavèk on November 17th without any significant support from Beyond Borders’ staff.

A press conference was organized (and well-attended by local media) and all eight branches conducted a series of activities in their respective communities, ranging from conference-debates to door-to-door conversations. This clearly demonstrates the motivation and leadership within the network’s Coordination body and the individual branches.

Your generous support also made the following trainings possible:

• One hundred ninety-four members of Child Protection Brigades and Survivor Network Branches (90 women, 104 men) participate in 14 exchange meeting in 14 communities on Lagonav,
• Twenty adult survivors of restavèk, from six network branches in Port-au-Prince trained in a community organizing methodology; and, 
• Ninety-nine adult survivors of restavèk in three communities on Lagonav participated in the final step to create new Network Branches.

You are Building the Movement to Guarantee Universal Access to Quality Education

Thanks to you and your generosity, Beyond Borders continues to work with and support local government representatives of the Ministry of Education to develop and roll out a new strategy to build and strengthen the movement to ensure access to quality primary education to all children living on Lagonav Island.

We also continue working in partnership with the Matènwa Community Learning Center (MCLC) to support work with 23 schools (18 new this year) to strengthen the quality of education through native language instruction, a participatory approach to classroom instruction, nonviolent classroom management, the use of parental engagement strategies, and education rooted in rural life including teaching through school gardens and crop management.

The Engagement with Local Authorities that Your Support Makes Possible

Because of your generous support, initial meetings were organized in all six municipal districts to hold Open Space Dialogue sessions with school teachers, school directors and communities to discuss issues and challenges affecting access to quality education for all children on Lagonav.

Together participants identified the problems, analyzed the causes and explored possible solutions. Follow up meetings with each school in each district and specific outreach to government-appointed school inspectors are part of the plans moving forward.

Beyond Borders is very encouraged by the engagement and political will of many of the authorities and communities as they begin looking at systematic ways to address identified problems and possible solutions. 

This Year’s Teacher-Training Program is Fully Underway - Thanks to You

At the 18 new schools and five ongoing schools participating in the teacher training program, this year’s training is fully underway. Here’s a look at some of the types of training that your support is making possible at these 23 schools for teachers and parents:

• A one-day trainings was held with all schools on mastering different learning styles within child development phases and monitoring skills to determine proficiency and growth,
• Seven Open Space Dialogue sessions were held in six rural communities,
• Fifty-seven teachers (16 women, 41 men) from a selection of the 18 new schools were introduced to the teacher training approach during a five-day introductory workshop on the program,
• Monthly training with teachers and staff from 23 schools is being held with an average attendance of 51,
• Thirty-seven pedagogical technical visits carried out by MCLC facilitators,
• Twenty-three schools received an initial distribution of didactic materials, including the Mother Tongue teacher manuals and books -- Mother Tongue books are written by students themselves in Haitian Creole, 
• Thirty-three technical visits on school gardening were conducted.

Thank You Again

Thank you again for your generosity, your care, and your concern for children in Haiti. I wish I could tell you what will happen when COVID-19 reaches Haiti. While we continue to closely follow the guidance of public health professionals, no one knows for sure.

Whatever the impact, the only certainty is, it will be even greater for those living on the margins: Haiti’s enslaved children, women and girls caught in domestic violence, families mired in the most extreme poverty.

As Haiti braces for the full impact of the coronavirus, the people we work with today need us to continue to accompany them, to empower them, to stand alongside them -- to keep the faith with them.

Your generous support for Schools Not Slavery is the very best way that you can continue to be there for them -- to keep the faith with them.

If you have any questions about what you read in this report, please don’t hesitate to call or email me at (305) 450-2561 or b.stevens@beyondborders.net.

With deep gratitude,

Brian Stevens, Donor Engagement Director

Links:

• Follow our blog for the latest on our work in Haiti.
• See what were sharing from Haiti on Instagram.
• We've earned a Gold-level Seal of Transparency on GuideStar.

Thank you for your generous support for Beyond Borders’ Schools Not Slavery initiative. We are grateful!

No child should ever be enslaved. Every child has the right to grow-up at home with their family, in a community that is committed to educating and protecting them. Every family has the right to earn a dignified living, so they can provide for themselves. No woman or girl should ever face violence, discrimination, or inequality.

Your belief in these fundamental rights and your generous gift to defend these rights is building a Haitian-led movement of women and men, teachers and parents, local elected officials and grassroots activists, and people from all walks of life who are committed to guaranteeing these rights.

Thank you for your generosity, your care, your concern, and your commitment to this human rights movement.

Jenny is Growing Up Free, Safe, and Enrolled in a Good School - Thanks to You

Jenny, 7, is a third-grader at Mondèzolivye School on Lagonav Island.

“I love mathematics,” Jenny told us. “After I finish school I would like to become an engineer!”

Your generous support for the Schools Not Slavery initiative means that more children like Jenny are growing up free and safe, at home with their families, and enrolled in a good local school.

Engaging Local Elected Officials in the Movement for Human Rights

Your generous support is making it possible to expand our movement building for human rights work to include engaging with local elected officials.

Sustainability is at the heart of the move to engage local elected officials. We seek to foster greater engagement from local elected leaders to leverage their democratically-elected authority to listen to their population, establish and strengthen relevant, local structures and practices that are sustainable and rooted in Haitian law, and that do not depend upon outside organizations to continue.

To do this, we’re undertaking the following specific initiatives:

• Engaging Local Mayors to Determine Local Needs, Assets, and Priorities – Beyond Borders has set in motion a strategy with Mayors and CASECs (district-level authorities) to assess their own communities’ needs and assets through social mapping and other tools. Initial meetings were held between authorities, Beyond Borders (BB) and our new partner, Rasin Devlopman (RD) to: discuss joint mission, vision, and ways of working; the priorities of local authorities, relationships between local authorities and external actors; uncovering realities in the municipalities; and defining next steps and establishing a calendar. So far, four out of six communal sections are ready to move forward with recruiting volunteers to be trained by BB/RD on a social mapping methodology and application.  Local authorities from these communal sections have committed to securing the necessary financial and in-kind resources needed to support these activities. Authorities from the two additional communal sections are very interested but uncertain how they will secure the necessary financial resources to proceed but are committed to continue trying.
• Development of Training and Implementation Guide – Beyond Borders staff is in the process of finalizing the social mapping training modules and implementation guide to be used to train teams of volunteers assembled by local authorities from communities within their communal sections. Trainings will be organized over the course of four days with each group of volunteers from each communal section.
• Prioritizing Child Rights Dialogue Groups – Beyond Borders staff met with authorities (CASECs) from all communal sections in the commune of Ansagalè (Lagonav Island) to discuss child protection priorities and initiatives for the commune.  All six CASECs are onboard for developing a protocol for the prevention of child human trafficking as well as a plan to roll out a new strategy for Child Rights Dialogue groups led by BB-trained volunteers recruited by local authorities.   

The Human Rights Movement-Building Work That You Make Possible

Ending Child Slavery - Activities include the creation and strengthening of Child Protection Brigades, follow-up with law enforcement and judicial authorities around specific cases of child slavery (restavèk), planning Zero Restavèk Campaigns, targeted child rights training, creation and strengthening of branches of the Adult Survivor Network and advocacy.

Additionally, your generosity has made these accomplishments possible:

• Nine children freed and reunited with their families and/or placed in Welcoming Families (foster families)
• 24 Child Rights dialogue groups with 250 people launched in partner communities
• New chapter of the Network of Adult Survivors of Child Slavery inaugurated on Lagonav
• 49 Child Protection Brigades received support visits
• Charges filed in three cases of perpetrators of restavèk with the State Prosecutor’s Office

Your generosity also makes it possible to build the Network of Adult Survivors of Child Slavery, giving those who’ve lived through child slavery the opportunity to become leaders in the fight against it.

An Adult Survivor of Child Slavery Shares Personal Testimony

Vano, 32, is a member of the survivors network in Port-au-Prince.

“This is not a small battle we are fighting – it is a very big one. There are some communities where we meet with families and parents who are thinking about and wanting to send their children to go live with other people but they have no idea the misery and suffering that their children might face. Sometimes when we are trying to bring a child home to their parents, the parents will ask what kind of support can we give them because they just don’t have the means to support them.  They do not comprehend the total depravity of slavery that their child is living in.

In the network that I am a member of, we meet together and talk about what we suffered, the situations we are encountering today, and what we are going to do about it now.  We do not want any other child to suffer the experiences that we suffered.” (Vano’s photo courtesy of Nadia Todres)

Guaranteeing Quality Primary Education - Beyond Borders and our primary education partner on Lagonav Island, the Matènwa Community Learning Center (MCLC), began working with local government representatives from the Ministry of Education to develop and roll out a new strategy to build and strengthen the movement to ensure access to quality primary education to all children living on Lagonav.

Included in this vision is the development of a Communal Education Platform (CEP) that will integrate all schools that have participated in MCLC training in the commune of Ansagalè along with others. The CEP, comprised of representation of all education stakeholders, will allow for school directors to interface with local Ministry of Education staff and local authorities to advocate for improved resources and influence education planning for their communities. 

Likewise, it will enable local authorities and Ministry staff to develop a joint education strategy for the island and play a greater leadership role in ensuring all children in their communities are able to attend quality schools.

Preventing Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) - Seven communities on Lagonav continue to work through SASA!* community mobilization programming to prevent VAWG. Nan Kafe and Matènwa continued to work through the Action Phase, the last phase of SASA! with an evaluation completed this quarter. The Rethinking Power team is supporting the Lagonav team in diving deeper into the data and determining an action plan moving forward. Masikren, Fonnèg, Chenkontan, Gransous and Bouziyèt are moving into the Action Phase.

In the Southeast, Beyond Borders’ Rethinking Power team continues to roll out SASA! and Power to Girls in eight communities in the area of Lavale. The program is in its final year of this three-year cycle and are working toward completing it by the end of this fiscal year.

Additionally, your generosity has made these accomplishments possible:

• 14 Girls’ Clubs played in the soccer championship with 97 girls participating
• 33 people from six organizations trained in SASA! Start Phase & Power to Girls Phase 1
• 50 local activists & local authorities dialogue about ways to foster trust between community members & authorities with a role to play in protecting women & girls
• Three-day interactive training with staff and Program Specialist on Action Phase and Phase 4 of SASA! and Power to Girls
• 15 Church Pastors and their wives trained on balancing power between women and men in their congregations 
• 50 journalists explored the imbalance of power in society and are now equipped to take this into consideration in their reporting

*Created by our friends at Raising Voices and adapted for Haiti by Beyond Borders, SASA! (Start, Awareness, Support, Action) is a ground-breaking, internationally-recognized model of community-mobilization to stop violence against women and the spread of HIV.

Empowering Families to Escape Extreme Poverty - Your generosity allows us to continue to implement the Family Graduation Program in three communities on Lagonav. The current cohort is now scheduled to graduate in September 2020. Through weekly home visits, case workers monitor, in real-time, participants’ progress against program indicators.

All of the 110 participating families have received at least one of two productive assets offered as part of the program. Twenty-four weeks of cash stipends have been distributed and Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) were created following training with program participants and community residents.  Twenty trained volunteers created four Village Committees across intervention communities comprised of 131 volunteer members (112 women), including community leaders, rural police officers, teachers, religious leaders, and volunteer Child Protection Brigade members.

Additionally, your generosity has made these accomplishments possible:

• 69 participants received two productive assets each 
• 220 goats, 18 pigs, 45 donkeys, and start-up funds for six small businesses distributed
• 103 families trained on animal husbandry
• 100 people trained on how to start a Village Savings & Loans Association (VSLA) 
• 3 VSLAs created 
• 40 families received materials to rebuild/repair their houses

Thank You Again!

We are deeply grateful for your kind, thoughtful, and generous support for the Schools Not Slavery initiative. You are building a Haitian-led human rights movement through your support and solidarity. If you have any questions about what you read here, please contact Brian Stevens, Beyond Borders’ Donor Engagement Director, at (305) 450-2561 or b.stevens@beyondborders.net. 

Links:

• Check out our fall newsletter for the latest from Haiti.
• [VIDEO]: Diana escaped slavery thanks to supporters like you.
• We are committed to financial transparency. Review our 990s.

More Girls and Boys are Free, Safe, and Heading Back to School Thanks to Your Generous, Kind, and Thoughtful Support.

Thanks to you, in 16 rural communities on Lagonav Island, young children are sharpening their pencils, cracking open fresh new notebooks, and heading back to school. That’s because your generous support for Schools Not Slavery is ensuring that every child in each of these 16 communities is enrolled in a quality school and no child is sent away to the city, where they risk becoming enslaved.

You made the first day of school on Lagonav Island a joyful and fulfilling day for girls and boys at 23 schools -- many of whom are brand new to Beyond Borders’ Schools Not Slavery Network. That’s because 20 schools graduated this past academic year from the Schools Not Slavery teacher training program -- also because of your support.

Now, we’ve added these new schools and expanded the reach of our work to protect and educate every child -- an accomplishment made possible by your support.

I’m lucky because I have the chance to visit Lagonav and talk to teachers and students and see inside the kind of classroom that your support for Schools Not Slavery makes possible.

I get to see students devouring their Creole-language textbooks and classroom walls decorated with their work. And thanks to the training that your partnership supports, their teachers are committed to nonviolent classroom management and encouraging the unique creativity and curiosity of each student.

Outside the classroom, your partnership trains the local Child Protection Brigade and the local chapter of the Adult Survivors of Child Slavery Network to protect these same girls and boys from slavery and abuse.

And in addition to making sure every girl and boy is free and in school in these 16 communities, your generosity continues to support work to lift the very poorest families out of extreme poverty and to organize women and men to prevent violence against women and girls.

Thank you again for all that you are doing to promote liberty, dignity, education, and hope in Haiti.

Building the Movement to End Child Slavery

Here’s the work that your generosity is making possible in support of the movement to end child slavery: 

• Trained 1,934 child rights activists (1,266 women) using a nine-session grassroots, community mobilization methodology
• Trained 216 Child Protection Brigade members (73 women) to facilitate Open Space to mobilize their communities
• Used Open Space to facilitate town hall meetings with 1,169 residents (771 women) across 14 communities
• Supported 16 communities to hold awareness-raising activities with 1,754 residents to mobilize the movement to end child slavery and commemorate World Day Against Child Labor
• Delivered training to 28 Child Protection Brigade members and six volunteer Adult Survivor of Child Slavery organizers on how to provide psychosocial support to children experiencing trauma as a result of slavery or abuse
• Supported 62 child protection cells in 14 communities to roll out use of the Performance Assessment Tool to self-monitor their work and evaluate their effectiveness as local change agents for the advancement of child rights
• Supported Child Protection Brigades as they intervened to protect three children in crisis (one girl)
• Supported Child Protection Brigades to identify and recognize 34 residents (20 women) who practiced stepping up to protect children
• Held an Open Space meeting with 82 members of the Adult Survivors of Child Slavery Network (63 women) from Nan Kafe, Fonnèg and Chen Kontan groups
• Organized a workshop on child rights with 11 local government representatives (11 women)
• Organized a two-day training to build the advocacy skills of 28 Child Protection Brigade members (13 women)

Building the Movement to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls

Here’s the work that your generosity is making possible in support of the movement to prevent violence against women and girls: 

• Community mobilization for the prevention of violence against women and girls in seven Lagonav communities, with two in the Action Phase and five in the Support Phase of SASA!*.
• Convened 417 SASA! network members and Community Activists at bi-monthly network meetings for exchange, continue skills building, and planning
• Held monthly meetings with 91 Community Activists to reinforce community activism skills and encourage volunteerism for the achievement of SASA! community mobilization activities
• Shared preliminary results of Awareness Phase rapid assessment with 72 SASA! network members
• Conducted Support Phase training with 43 SASA! network members in Fonnèg

* Created by our friends at Raising Voices and adapted for Haiti by Beyond Borders, SASA! (Start, Awareness, Support, Action) is a ground-breaking, internationally-recognized model of community-mobilization to stop violence against women and the spread of HIV. Engaging all actors in the community — women, men, cultural and religious leaders, local officials, police, health-care providers — SASA! fosters critical reflection on gender and power and instigates local-level activism.

Building the Movement to Guarantee a Quality Primary Education for Every Child

Here’s the work that your generosity is making possible in support of the movement to guarantee a quality primary education for every girl and boy: 

• Conducted monthly observation and coaching visits with 25 schools to support application of nonviolent, participatory teaching methods and classroom management techniques, and school gardening skills learned at workshops
• Disbursed monthly subsidies to 25 schools to increase fiscal stability and facilitate educators’ salary payments, to ensure participation in training and attendance at work/school
• Supported two hub schools to establish regional model schools to promote nonviolent, participatory education
• Continued accelerated education classes for nine students (six girls); seven students demonstrated readiness to advance to the seventh grade
• Supported five schools to conduct advocacy activities to promote the importance of Haitian Creole as language of instruction; 535 community residents participated
• Held a one-day workshop with 45 teachers (14 women) on how to prepare student assessments

Building the Movement to Lift Families Out of Extreme Poverty

Your gift supports a variety of economic initiatives designed to empower the 110 families in Beyond Borders Family Sponsorship Program to lift themselves out of extreme poverty AND ensure that they can provide for themselves long after the 18-month sponsorship ends. Here’s the work that your generosity is making possible in support of the movement to empower the very poorest families to lift themselves out of extreme poverty:

• Held program launch ceremonies in three Cohort 3 communities, convening 156 participants and family members (112 girls and women)
• Held three days of refresher training with 110 program participants, covering the following themes: the importance of goat farming; how raising pigs can contribute to families’ economic development; how owning a donkey can be useful to a family; and, the importance of small business management
• Procured, gave deworming treatment, and distributed 80 goats; livestock distribution continues
• Conducted weekly home visits with participants to track and encourage progress against socio-economic outcome indicators, coaching participants and discussing productive asset growth and management; backyard vegetable gardens; and, plans and goals for future
• Distributed 11 of 24 weekly cash subsidies of 350 HTG to remove immediate pressure from participants so that they can focus on growing new skills and building their livelihoods
• Conducted training on Village Savings and Loans (VSLA) with 100 Family Graduation Program participants, distributed materials, and facilitated the creation of three VSLAs with 140 members
• Facilitated a nomination and selection process to identify candidates to serve as volunteers members of Community Development Committees (formerly known as Village Committees); Community Development Committees serve as local solidarity support mechanisms for Family Graduation Program participants during and after their participation in the program; the hope is that they will also play a role in leading initiatives for local economic development
• Delivered training to 20 Community Development Committee members (five women) to orient them to their function and build knowledge of the program; these themes were covered: Objectives of the Family Graduation Program, Definition of Community Development Committees, Village Committees’ importance and the roles and responsibilities of its members, How to organize committee meetings and record minutes, Simulation of a Committee meeting
• Facilitated creation of four Community Development Committees comprised of 131 members (112 women) that include community leaders, school teachers, rural police officers, Child Protection Brigade members, and religious leaders
• Improved the food security of 29 families by providing training and materials to cultivate backyard vegetable gardens, rainwater harvesting systems were installed for the same 29 families to increase access to water for irrigation of home gardens and household use 

Thank You Again!

We are deeply grateful for your kind, thoughtful, and generous support for the Schools Not Slavery initiative. You are changing the trajectory of life for vulnerable children and families in 16 rural Lagonav Island communities through your support and solidarity. If you have any questions about what you read here, please contact Brian Stevens, Beyond Borders’ Donor Engagement Director, (305) 450-2561, b.stevens@beyondborders.net.

Links:

• Follow us on Instagram!
• Read our 4-Star Charity Navigator review.
• See videos about our work in Haiti on our YouTube page.

Thank you for your generous gift to the Schools Not Slavery initiative. We are grateful!

Your generous, kind, and thoughtful support is helping to build 16 Model Communities in rural Haiti, in which grassroots leaders are building social movements to ensure that:

• every child goes to a good, safe school, with well-trained teachers who encourage creativity, curiosity, and leadership;

• every adult is trained in and committed to protecting every child from slavery and abuse;

• every family can provide for themselves and live in economic security and stability; and,

• every woman and girl lives free from violence and exploitation, in a community that balances power between women and men.

Your support for these social movements in Model Communities on Lagonav Island is making a real difference in the lives of girls like 12-year-old Gardie*. She and her four sisters are in school thanks to your care and concern. “I love school because it taught me how to read and write,” Gardie said. “My favorite subjects are French and Creole.”

Children who don’t get the chance to go to school, either because their parents can’t afford tuition, books, and uniforms, or because the nearest school is too far away, are at far greater risk of being sent away to live with others and becoming trapped in slavery.

Your support for Schools Not Slavery is changing this for Gardie and so many more boys and girls like her, protecting her from slavery, ensuring she can go to a good school, helping her family develop the means to earn a living, and organizing her community to balance power between women and men.

Thank you again for all that you are making possible for vulnerable children like Gardie and their families.

* We've changed her name to protect her privacy.

Building the Movement to End Child Slavery

Your gift to the Schools Not Slavery initiative supports innovative work to challenge social norms and transform prevailing attitudes and behaviors that endanger children. Through extensive training programs, engaged dialogue, and community organizing, hundreds of adults in 16 communities on Lagonav Island are mobilized to become Child Rights Activists who build neighborhood Child Protection Brigades that raise awareness and advocate for the rights of children, intervene to protect children being enslaved and abused, and link children and families to child protection services.

Your generosity is also supporting the expansion of a nationwide network of more than 900 Adult Survivors of Child Slavery, who gather in their communities for peer support, healing and solidarity and to use their voices to advocate for change. These survivors also work to raise awareness among neighbors about the rights of children and intervene to protect children, specifically those being held in child domestic servitude and those in need of protection and family reunification services.

In the first three months of 2019, 26 children were freed, reunited with their families, and enrolled in school, thanks to your generous support and the courage and determination of the Child Protection Brigades and the Adult Survivors of Child Slavery Network.

Building the Movement to Guarantee Universal Access to Quality Primary Education

Walk in to any of the 25 schools in our Schools Not Slavery network on Lagonav Island and you'll see how your gift is supporting the expansion of a nonviolent, native language, participatory approach to classroom management designed to encourage creativity, curiosity, and leadership among students.

In the school year that just ended, more than 3,000 students on Lagonav Island were taught by teachers using this methodology -- a methodology proven to deliver student reading scores that are nearly three times higher than the national average in Haiti.

Thanks to your generous support, Minose and Edzer are two of more than 100 teachers being trained in this approach to classroom management. 

"I always thought that hitting was the only way to control your classroom, even though I was afraid to do it" said Minose, a second-grade teacher. "When I was a student, the teachers hit us, and I was afraid of certain teachers," she said. "But I've come to understand that there's no place for violence in the classroom, thanks to this training."

Edzer, also a second-grade teacher, said that the nonviolent approach to classroom management that he's using has changed the way his students feel about school. "Students aren't afraid to come to school anymore. They like to come to school. They share their thoughts and their dreams now," he said. "In this way, we're forming good citizens for our country's future."

Building the Movement to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls

There's some wonderful news to share: beginning July 1, 2019, Beyond Borders will join with seven other organizations in Haiti to launch the Haitian Coalition for the Prevention of Violence Against Women and Girls.

Thanks to your support for the development of our grassroots, community-based approach to preventing gender-based violence, Beyond Borders and seven other organizations successfully secured a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the NoVo Foundation for this new coalition. The goal is to scale up the work to change social norms around violence against women and girls (VAWG) while also strengthening the capacity of coalition-member organizations to be change-makers in their communities.

The coalition-member organizations will receive funding to implement two groundbreaking efforts to prevent VAWG that your generous support has made possible:

• SASA!, the three-year community-based initiative to prevent VAWG developed by Raising Voices in Uganda and adapted for Haiti by Beyond Borders; and,
• Power To Girls, the school and community-based toolkit created by Beyond Borders to end VAWG in schools and empower girls to help lead the process of balancing power between women and men and girls and boys.

Your generous support makes these kinds of innovative initiatives possible, and further expands the movement to prevent VAWG across Haiti. Thank you!

Building the Movement for Sustainable Livelihoods

Your gift supports a variety of economic initiatives designed to empower the 110 families in Beyond Borders Family Sponsorship Program to lift themselves out of extreme poverty AND ensure that they can provide for themselves long after the 18-month sponsorship ends.

Families work with their life coach to identify and track specific, achievable economic goals like starting a small business, creating their own savings account, and investing in a community-based savings and loan.

Community S&L groups promote solidarity among neighbors and provide each family with a greater measure of economic security, serving as a resource in an emergency or helping families to increase their purchasing power to grow their new businesses.

The economic success and independence that families achieve is a huge boost to their self-confidence -- confidence that will sustain them when they face future challenges and uncertainties.

Through your support, you are giving families a path to a brighter economic future, filled with dignity, hope, and opportunity. Thank you again for your generosity, your care, and your concern.

Thank You Again!

Because of your generosity and solidarity, Beyond Borders sees in these 16 Model Communities, the seed for a new world, a world where people overcome great challenges by learning to question, dream and act together. A world where women and men find more power by balancing power equally. A world where families and communities thrive on foundations of trust and mutual respect. A world where diversity is seen as a sign of strength. A world where all children grow up surrounded by people who love, nurture, and educate them. A world where we all find deeper meaning and shared liberation. Thank you for bringing this world closer to becoming a reality in Haiti.

If you have any questions about what you read here, please contact Brian Stevens, Beyond Borders’ Donor Engagement Director, at (305) 450-2561 or b.stevens@beyondborders.net.

Links:

• Read about our commitment to accountability and transparency.
• Follow us on Facebook for the latest news from Haiti.
• Watch our newest video on Power to Girls in School!

Thank You for Providing Essential Support to Free & Protect Children from Slavery, Guarantee Quality Primary Education, Prevent Violence Against Women & Girls, and Lift Families Out of Poverty

In 16 rural communities on the island of Lagonav, your generous support is advancing the rights of children, by changing social norms about the treatment of children, organizing Child Protection Brigades, and mobilizing communities as part of the movement to end child slavery.

Your support is also advancing the movement to guarantee participatory, nonviolent quality primary education for every girl and boy at 25 schools in all 16 communities.

And in seven Lagonav Island communities, your gift is supporting efforts to build the movement to prevent violence against women and girls and achieve gender equality, making it possible to train and mobilize dozens of volunteer activists in each of these communities.

You are also helping to make it possible to launch the third cohort of our family sponsorship program, in which we are working with 110 ultra-poor families to equip them with the skills they need to earn a dignified living, improve their food security, living conditions, and the welfare of their children.

Together, these initiatives are building slavery-free, violence-free communities for vulnerable children and families. Thank you for making this possible through your generous support!

Family Sponsorship Program: “Life started to take a different path.”

Beth* -- a 15-year-old who lives with her mother, father, and two siblings on Lagonav Island -- is living a new life, thanks to support from people like you who made it possible for Beth’s family to be part of the family sponsorship program.

The family sponsorship program prioritizes the most vulnerable families, those living on the margins, in extreme poverty, forced to beg from others to survive, and isolated from their own community.

“We did not live very well before,” Beth said. “Then my mom started the [family sponsorship] program and we started to see some big changes . . . Life started to take a different path.”

With your support, families in the family sponsorship program like Beth’s select two different assets they can use to generate income, usually livestock like goats, chickens, and pigs, or the goods to start a small business.

Weekly coaching visits train families like Beth’s in how to manage their new assets, and establish a savings account. Families also receive help making basic home repairs, getting access to healthcare so they can stay healthy and keep working, materials to purify their drinking water, and a latrine to better ensure their long-term health.

Families in the program are also required to raise all of their children at home and send all of their children to school.

“They told [my mom] not to send her children away to live with other people . . . don’t let your children miss days at school and to let us go to school each day,” Beth said. “Because my mom always sends me to school, I think this will make things better and life will be different.”

Your generous support for the Schools Not Slavery project on GlobalGiving makes these kinds of transformations possible for Beth and other vulnerable girls and boys, and for vulnerable families like hers too. Thank you!

* We’ve changed her name to protect her privacy.

Ending Child Slavery: Nine Communities Working to Achieve Slavery-Free Status

Your generosity is also supporting work to build the movement to end child slavery. Seven of the 16 communities where the Schools Not Slavery initiative is at work have already achieved slavery-free status. This is in large part thanks to the partnerships formed between schools that are in Beyond Borders’ Schools Not Slavery Network, local Child Rights Activists trained by Beyond Borders and the community Child Protection Brigades that these trained activists organize and launch with support from Beyond Borders. The remaining nine communities are on track to join this group of slavery-free communities, thanks in large part to the partnerships formed by school leadership and teaching staff, grassroots Child Rights Activists -- and your generous commitment to supporting this work. Thank you!

Ensuring Quality Primary Education: Training Teachers in Nonviolent, Native Language Classroom Management

This academic year, thanks to your support, two educators from all 25 schools in Beyond Borders’ Schools Not Slavery network have so far taken part in three day-long trainings at the Matènwa Community Learning Center, our primary education partner on Lagonav Island. Using a train-the-trainer approach, these educators have then taken what they’ve learned and shared it with their fellow teachers. In addition to these off-site trainings, teacher-trainers from Matènwa conduct technical support visits to schools to observe how teachers are implementing what they’ve learned in their classrooms. The trainings and technical support visits are designed to strengthen the capacity of teachers to teach using an approach that encourages student curiosity, creativity, and leadership so that students are prepared to become the next generation of leaders in their communities.

Preventing Violence Against Women & Girls: Training Grassroots Community Leaders in the Latest Tools

Thanks to the support of people like you, members of our team on Lagonav Island just took part in a three-day training from April 2-5, 2019 on how to implement Phase 1 of the Power to Girls methodology to organize communities and schools to prevent violence against women and girls (VAWG) and balance power between women and men and girls and boys. In the training, participants took part in an in-depth, critical review of the content in Power to Girls, which includes how to present Power to Girls to different groups in the community, how to understand and create action plans around key activities in Phase 1, and what results to expect (i.e. - change in knowledge and attitudes) and how to understand and act on those results to further build the movement to prevent VAWG. Power to Girls is making schools and communities safer for girls like Julesa*, a 9-year-old who is enrolled in a school using the methodology. You can read what it’s meant to Julesa and her fellow students here: https://beyondborders.net/julesa-has-learned-an-empowering-lesson/

* We’ve changed her name to protect her privacy.

Thank You Again for Your Generosity!

Your generous support makes this work to build slavery-free, violence-free communities and lift families out of extreme poverty possible. Thank you for your generosity, your care, and your concern. If you have any questions about what you read here, please contact Brian Stevens, Beyond Borders’ Donor Engagement Director, at (305) 450-2561 or b.stevens@beyondborders.net.

Links:

• Read our full organizational profile on GuideStar.
• Follow us on Twitter for the latest on our work in Haiti.
• See how Power to Girls is transforming schools like Julesa's.