Schools Not Slavery for Rural Haitian Children

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.

462 Children Freed, 40,000 Abolitionists Trained, Thanks to You

Thanks to the generosity of supporters like you, since 2010 more than 40,000 Child Rights Activists – modern-day abolitionists – have been trained and mobilized in more than 100 rural communities and urban neighborhoods to build the movement to end child slavery in Haiti. In that time, these abolitionists have accompanied 462 children to escape slavery, return to their families, and enroll in school. Thank you!

Seven New Communities Achieve Slavery-Free Status in 2018

Your support also made it possible for seven new communities on Lagonav Island to achieve the status of ‘Zero Restavèk’ (Zero Child Slavery) communities in 2018, in which no child is enslaved or sent away from home, and every child is enrolled in a high-quality school.

Loudia is Free, Safe, and Enrolled in a Good School

Nine-year-old Loudia lives in Chenkontan, one of the seven new slavery-free communities. Thanks to you, Loudia is free, safe, and enrolled in Mount of Olives School, one of 25 schools in Beyond Borders’ Schools Not Slavery Network. Your gift supports innovative initiatives in all 25 of these schools, including nonviolent, native language, participatory classroom management training for teachers and training for teachers, students, and their parents in how to plant and maintain robust school gardens.

Loudia, who is in the fourth grade at Mount of Olives, told us her favorite subject is math and that she dreams of becoming a nurse one day.

Isn’t this what we want for every child, the opportunity to grow-up free, safe, and enrolled in a good school where they can realize their dreams? Your generosity is making dreams like this possible for boys and girls like Loudia. Thank you again!

Adult Survivor Network Grows to More Than 900 Members

Donors like you are also making it possible to expand the network of adult survivors of child slavery in Haiti. Survivors support one another, raise awareness among neighbors about the dangers of the restavèk (child slavery) practice, and intervene to help children access protection and family reunification services.

With your support, survivors are stepping up to bring their important voices and experiences to the movement to end child slavery. Villien and Jessica are two of more than 900 adult survivors from three regions who are organizing at the local, regional, and national levels.

Villien said: “As survivors, it’s our duty to protect children from slavery. This is our message: don’t mistreat any child living with you. Send every child living with you to school. Care for every child living with you as if they were your own children.”

And Jessica told us: “I’ve taken part in advocacy and child rights training. We’ve identified a number of children in our community who were enslaved, and we’ve accompanied them so that they could be free and return to their families.”

Community-Based Movement-Building to End Child Slavery Expands

Your gift supports the expansion of community-based movement-building efforts to end child slavery across Haiti, including training and mobilizing new adult and youth abolitionists in urban neighborhoods and rural communities to end the enslavement of children as household servants, a practice that affects one in eight Haitian children.

For these children, going to school is a dream unfulfilled. Schools are far away or cost too much. Extreme poverty and hunger leads many parents to conclude they have no choice but to send their children away to live with another family, with the hope that this family will care for and enroll their children in school. Instead, children are abused and forced to work endlessly.

Abolitionists trained by Beyond Borders with your support both free children already enslaved and prevent thousands more from becoming enslaved by educating adults about child rights through door-to-door visits and by organizing large, public assemblies designed to reach the general population.

Your gift is also supporting the development of municipal advocacy units, made up of abolitionists trained by Beyond Borders and members of other organizations that support the movement to end child slavery.

Keeping Kids Safe by Lifting Families Out of Poverty

Your generosity also supports Beyond Borders’ Family Sponsorship Program, which empowers families to rise from poverty to independence with dignity. In Haiti, 24% of the population lives in abject poverty, earning less than US$1.23 per day. More than 6 million (59%) live below the national poverty line, earning less than US$2.41 per day. In rural villages, conditions are exacerbated by poor infrastructure and distance from services such as health care and education.

Empowering families to escape extreme poverty greatly impacts children, who are at great risk of being sent away to live with other families by impoverished parents who can’t provide for them or send them to school.

During the 18-month Family Sponsorship Program, families receive cash subsidies for the first six months, weekly coaching visits throughout, and two productive assets (farm animals, or the goods to start a small store) that they can use to generate new, sustainable income. Intensive training teaches participants how to manage their new assets, start saving, and generate increasing levels of family income and security.

Families graduate from the program once they are able to provide for themselves, and keep all their children at home and enrolled in school. In 2018, 229 families graduated from the program.

With support from people like you, we’ll begin work with a new cohort of 110 families in January 2019. You can learn more about the program on our website: http://beyondborders.net/become-a-family-sponsor/

The Goal: Every Child Grows Up at Home, Free, Safe, and in School

With your support, communities are building the movement to end child slavery, increasing their capacity to resist slavery and achieve the goal of ensuring that every child grows up at home, free, safe, and in school, surrounded by a loving family and community. Your support makes you part of this abolitionist movement too!

Thank You Again!

Thank you again for your generous support. We are deeply grateful for all that you are making possible for vulnerable families and children in rural Haiti If you have any questions about what you read in this report, please feel free to contact Beyond Borders’ Donor Engagement Director Brian Stevens at (305) 450-2561 or b.stevens@beyondborders.net.

Links:

• See how our Family Sponsorship Program changes lives.
• Check out our 3-minute Schools Not Slavery video.
• [Google Map] See the schools in our Schools Not Slavery network.