Education

By Stephen Thorne, The Canadian Press OTTAWA – Smugglers have been spiriting Haitian quake orphans out of the country to become sex slaves in the Dominican Republic, authorities say. A Mountie just back from Haiti says authorities have uncovered so-called “safe houses,” where predators hide children before whisking them over the border. The perpetrators pose as aid workers or even work for legitimate charities, specifically to gain access to children, RCMP Sgt. Lana Prosper told The Canadian Press. Investigators suspect some of those preying on desperate children in Haiti also peddled child-sex videos found online from Sri Lanka, Thailand and other countries after the 2004 tsunami. It’s just a matter of time before videos of young Haitian quake victims surface, said Prosper, just home from a month in Haiti with a team from the Canadian Police Centre for Missing and […]

By Ansel Herz, IPS May 25, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE, (IPS) – United Nations peacekeeping troops responded to a rock-throwing demonstration by university students Monday evening with a barrage of tear gas and rubber bullets in the area around Haiti’s National Palace, sending masses of displaced Haitians running out of tent camps into the streets, according to witnesses. “That child was gravely injured in the face! It was miserable, they were throwing gas everywhere,” said Junior Joel, a young man hanging with friends at night outside the palace – still partially collapsed from the January earthquake. Three volunteer doctors from the NGO Partners in Health who were working in the emergency room of the General Hospital said they treated at least six individuals with wounds from rubber bullets. “They were bleeding,” Sarah McMillan, a doctor from New Hampshire, told IPS. “There was […]

By Coco McCabe, Huffington Post Chrisner Roche has sent his children to school in Port-au-Prince, far from where he lives, because there are few good schools in Haiti’s rural areas. The plight of Chrisner Roche is a textbook case for all that’s wrong with the educational system in Haiti. As rain pelted the metal roof, Roche lifted specimen jars from a shelf, ticking off their contents and examining the embryos one by one. This was a rabbit, that one a pig. Here was a goat. And here was a whole jar of intestinal parasites, grown long and fat. We were in the common room of the Centre de Salignac, an agricultural research, training, and local development facility high in the hills of Nippes in southern Haiti. A complex of stone-walled buildings, the center works with local farmers to produce high-quality […]

By Jeff Swicord, Voice of America Photo: J. Swicord, VOA, Child in shelter for earthquake survivors in Haiti As Haitians still struggle to survive from the devastating earthquake that struck in January, infant children are among the most vulnerable.  Studies suggest poor nutrition early in life can lead to chronic diseases later.  Malnourished infants are also very susceptible to diarrhea, measles and other diseases that can turn fatal. Twenty-year-old Daniela Luc is a new mother.  She had her first child, a girl, one month ago here in the Daihatsu camp in Port-au-Prince. Daniela’s mother is equally glad to show off her new granddaughter.  Like 30 other mothers who have given birth in the camp since the earthquake, Daniela Luc will have quite a story to tell her daughter when she is older. “I will tell my daughter that she was […]

Voice of America An international development group is working to raise $2 billion in aid to help rebuild and reform Haiti’s education system. The Inter-American Development Bank is leading a proposed five-year effort to train teachers, improve facilities and adopt a national curriculum. More than 4,000 schools were damaged or destroyed during the earthquake in January that killed more than 200,000 people. The IDB says that before the earthquake, only half of Haiti’s children of primary school age were enrolled in classes. Haitian President Rene Preval announced the plan Saturday along with IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno. Some information for this report provided by AP. Click HERE to see the Orignal Article 

By Ruqaya Izzidien, Al Jazeera English Kaleb Juste shares his tent in Parc Sainte Claire with his wife Justelene and three children, Isadoremom, Gregory and Juste Jamaica [Islamic Relief Worldwide/Mohammed Afsar] It has been four months since a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti and as the focus turns from immediate short-term responses, aid organisations must now tackle the longer-term implications of the destruction it caused. Chief amongst their priorities is providing education to the many children whose schools were destroyed and equipping a younger generation of Haitians to handle the challenges facing their country. The earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, left schools in Port-au-Prince, the capital, closed for nearly three months. Every school in the West Province region was damaged, with 80 per cent severely damaged or destroyed. On April 5, the ministry of education officially reopened the […]