RESTAVEK OR "STAY WITH"

   Disadvantaged children in Haiti face a problem called the Restavek. A restavek can be defined as either the person or the system. Often rural families who cannot care for their children send them to other caretakers in urban areas where education and living conditions are better. The intent is positive. The children are expected to do housework in exchange for receiving care and education. But often these children are subjected to abuse and poor treatment by their "caretakers." As a result, these children do not receive a proper education and suffer physical, mental and emotional abuse.
   Jean Cadet was once a restavek himself and has founded a non-profit organization called the Jean R. Cadet Restavek Organization which brings awareness of this travesty and works to end child slavery in Haiti. The Pan American Development Foundation did a door-to-door poll recently and discovered 225,000 restaveks in Haiti, as well as "11% of households who have restaveks send their own children to work as restaveks for someone else."
   According to CNN. "The United Nations condemns Restavek as a 'modern form of slavery' where children are forced to serve the families they've been sent to by doing domestic work." Restaveks and the Restavek system are the main focus of the Internaional Organization for Migration (IOM) in Haiti. Sadly, restavek is translated as "stay with," which has a sense of irony for these children who may never get out of this system. Some of the children who manage to escape are picked up by authorities and are referred to the Haitian Social Welfare Institute. They are then sent to another care taking facility until their biological families can be reached. When these children are no longer needed, their "caretakers" release them from the household. The children are left to fend for themselves. Girls may be forced into servitude or become prostitutes and the boys often become criminals. IOM seeks to address and help them.
   Most of the restaveks are taken from their homes because the parents are told, "You have too many children. Let us take them and you will get money to start a small business. You 'll be able to visit the United States.." Since these parents live in impoverished conditions, they give their children away to what they believe is a better future.
   Haitian Homes for Haitian Children works to keep families intact and prevent child abandonment. Their goal is to see a day when the abuse of the restavek system ends and child slavery in all forms seeks to exist.

              By Alex Le

HAITIAN WOMEN

Having worked in Haiti for over 15 years with both medical clinics as a pharmacist and now with families and education, nothing has impressed me more than the strength of the Haitian women. The heavy loads they carry without complaint never cease to amaze me. A very large number of Haitian homes are headed by single women, sometimes with many children who may be fathered by one itinerant man or several different men. Because there is such a high rate of unemployment, it is very likely that the woman is the major wage earner, selling items in the market.

Haitian women are proud and carry themselves with their heads high, as well they should. They raise their children to be respectful and polite. I often watched mothers with sick children all wait quietly for hours to see a medical practitioner. In one clinic a woman sat a long time with a sick child to see one of our nurse practitioners. We discovered eventually that she was in labor the whole time. When asked if she was going to the hospital from there, she answered that she was going home where her husband would deliver the baby.

My favorite family in Haiti is headed by a wonderful woman of 5 sons and a daughter. She and her mother raised them alone in a small 2 room house where she provided for them by selling in the market. All of the older boys have college educations and one is studying out of the country for his doctorate. Truly, this woman is my role model.

 

Madame Paraison and her Mother

A WEEK IN JEREMIE CREATING A COMPUTER LAB/LIBRARY

These are some of the "Timoun Mamba" as the children looking in the windows of the library called them. That is the name that some of the children of the school call the children in our program. It means "Peanut Butter Kids."  They are so named because our children receive a vitamin-protein supplement each school day that is peanut butter based.

You are looking at the brightest spot in the entire school. It is the only room with walls painted in a color other than white or gray. It is the only room with maps on the walls, a solar system hanging from the ceiling, and sports posters encouraging the children to do their best.

Before last week, the library books were unused and covered with dust. The old computers were from the 90's and the children had to sit on the floor to use them and read books.  The update was done due to funding from grants and generous sponsors of our program.

                 A BIG THANK-YOU GOES TO ALL OF YOU WHO HELPED!

Ready For School!

 

Ready For School!

 

 

Haitian Homes for Haitian Children has 11 children ready for the first day of school (October 3rd). Our Haitian staff has worked many hours to make sure that these children have their uniforms tailor-made to fit each child. The children's school tuition and fees for the entire year of 2012-2013 have been paid by our generous supporters. Each child has pencils and paper and their own book bag. Because classrooms are open and contain nothing but benches, tables and a blackboard, the children must carry all of their supplies with them every day. The older children even carry heavy dictionaries with them.

 

The only thing missing will be the faces of the 5 children that we have not yet found funding for. But we have not given up yet! Some of you may have a friend, a group you belong to, or a church you go to, who have an extra $2 a day to allow a child in Haiti to go to school and remain with their own family rather than be sent to an orphanage. Just share what we are doing and give them the opportunity to be part of one of these children's lives.

 

God Bless You,

 

Jane





 

MOVING BEYOND THE MISSION....
In setting up the local leadership of HH4HC, I decided to try a concept not frequently used in Haiti - the TEAM style of leadership. I knew that I would be taking a risk by trying to do this, but I had found it so useful in every area of church leadership I had worked in that I really wanted to try it. Luckily, one of our three employees, Travis, is an American missionary who has lived in Haiti for 2 years. Our two other employees are Haitian. The three of them have worked together now for about 6 weeks, visiting families, enrolling children in schools, and getting the finances straight. This is part of the email that I received from Travis after the employees Team meeting this week: Today's meeting could only be described in one word, "GREAT!"  We had a very good conversation about working as a team and the best ways to get some things to the finish line in the next few weeks. We had the meeting at Wilbins' house and after the meeting we all stuck around and talked about life for about 2 hours. It was a great time for me to get to know the people I am working with on a personal level. Travis went on to talk about how the salaries that they are being paid go to help no only the employees, but their extended families and even their communities. So our mission to help children and their immediate families extends beyond our intentions and helps a community. Jane

The Children of Jeremie     -      I left Jeremie in July, having chosen 8 children for our program for the sponsors that we already have found. Those 8 children will stay with their own families, go to school this year, and receive healthcare. Since I left, those children have already been enrolled in school and fitted for their uniforms. They will begin school in October.

 

The 8 children pictured are the unsponsored children that qualify for our program if we can find funding for them. They live in very poor families with parents who have little or no work. I am afraid that without your help these children may not be living with their own parents much longer.  Too often loving parents turn their children over to orphanages simply because they are unable to afford to educate them.  Any amount that you send us can be combined with what others send to help sponsor a child. Or you can sponsor a child yourself for just $2 per day. We welcome your gifts of any amount by Paypal or check.             Jane

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Blancs"

“Oh Americans-they would be almost perfect people except for one thing: if only they would listen!” – John Dorlus

Six weeks ago I was waiting for my airplane to arrive at the gate and be loaded for yet another trip to Haiti – and I didn’t have my book open so I took a good look around me. There were more white American faces than black Haitian faces headed to Port-au-Prince, not an unusual thing. But because my book was not open, I began to think about it. I realized that I, like most of the other blancs (white people), had their agenda well in hand. I had mine in triplicate and had gone over it with the President of my Board of Directors already. And I began to wonder…..I, who had made well over 30 trips to Haiti in the past 17 years, what do the Haitians really think of all of us blancs and our American agendas and ideas about what is best for the Haitians. It became very obvious to me that I needed to spend less time talking on this trip and more time listening. And so this trip became a different sort of trip for me – rather a journey instead of just a trip. I think it became one of the most amazing trips yet.

The program that Haitian Homes for Haitian Orphans had conceived and was ready to birth needed the input from those the program would touch, the Haitians themselves. So I spent several hours just listening for most of a week. I listened to long-term missionaries, Haitian clergy, those who oversaw Haitian orphanages, Haitian educators, and most importantly – a daughter of Haiti who had lived through the orphanage system. Needless to say, there were some flaws in our well-meant, American conceived program.

The term “orphan” in Haiti means any child that is not living with his or her birth parents. A parent that is no longer able to provide economically for a child may turn the child over to a relative, friend, orphanage, or even abandon the child. About 40-50% of the children in orphanages have living parents, most of whom have given them up for economic reasons. Often a child finishes elementary school and then the parent chooses to focus attention on younger siblings. That child is no longer able to attend school or may not even have food or a bed in the home. That child has no future.

Combining the ideas of the Haitians that I talked with and the wonderfully open attitudes of our Board of Directors, we reworked our program into a new and effective way to be pro-active and keep Haitian families together. We will work within the communities with schools and churches to identify families and children who are reaching crisis mode. That is the point at which we will step in. With our sponsors’ gifts we will give families a stipend that covers the basic living expenses for the child the sponsor is covering, and we will pay the school related expenses for the child. The family has been kept intact. A child has been saved from a life of poverty and meaninglessness. Haiti has gained a citizen with critical thinking skills who will be a valuable part of the country’s success.

Several years ago when I was still doing medical clinics, working as a pharmacist in Haiti, I encountered an 11 year old boy whose story still haunts me. We were riding in a truck across the town and a boy was running behind the truck the entire distance. When we finally stopped, he was so winded from running and crying that he could not talk for several minutes. Then his story poured out. Eric’s parents had both died and he was left in the care of an older sister. She could not care for him and she beat him regularly trying to get him to go away. He tried to find someone to take him in, but no one wanted him. The person who ran the clinics also had an orphanage and he begged her to let him live at the orphanage. I was immediately filled with hope for him. But he could not go to the orphanage. It held many younger children, impressionable and sheltered. At 11 years old, Eric had already lived in the streets and seen all of life, sexually and otherwise. He could not go to the orphanage because the other children could not be exposed to him. That was a point of reality for me. For a few years I helped pay a Haitian man whom I trusted to pay for him to go to school and he did learn enough English so that he is now able to get some work as an interpreter now that he is 18 years old. Once in a while I still see him….on the streets. Haitian Homes for Haitian Orphans exists for the Erics in Haiti. Jane