Despite the continuing crisis in Haiti, people are finding ways to persevere and carry on. At Child Hope that means continuing our orphan prevention and family strengthening work.
Education is a critical component of our orphan prevention strategy, as it has the power to lift generations out of poverty. This school year our Future Hope Manager has been busy supporting students across Haiti. He makes sure the children have all materials they need to succeed in the classroom like books, paper, and pencils. Along with the parents, he meets with the school psychologist when a child is having behavioral issues. Often if a family is struggling, the first sign of a problem is a drop in attendance — the Future Hope Manager checks attendance records and collaborates with our social workers and pastor to holistically support the student and family.
Through the Transition Support Services program, we have been helping other orphanages expand their family-based care services. This spring our social workers hosted their fifth workshop on family-based care and reunification. We had so much interest in the workshop we had to cap attendance at 20! Because of the high demand, we usually only accept one staff member from each organization. Several attendees told us they plan to replicate the workshop for the rest of the staff at their orphanage.
Our social workers have also been providing in-depth training and coaching to a few organizations who are expanding their family-based care programs. This has been especially difficult recently. Organizations are experiencing high turnover as staff members emigrate out of Haiti due to the insecurity. On top of that, most of the meetings are virtual — again due to the crisis — yet with unreliable internet and electricity sometimes those meetings are postponed. It is no small miracle to report that since January, 17 children have been safely reunified with their families!
Now more than ever, families that have been reconciled and reunified are in need of additional support after the reunification. Our staff pastor has been distributing Creole Bibles to members of the Family Hope program. Most of the families are spread out across Port au Prince and the entire country. They attend different churches, so our pastor has been recording that information in the family file. That way when a family needs support, we can make sure their church community is involved!
The sad reality is that many organizations have had to pull out of Haiti due to the insecurity. At Child Hope, we’re not going anywhere. We are committed to serving the children, young adults, and families in our programs. We are incredible proud of the team on the ground who find a way to keep fighting for families amidst such hardship. May God continue to bless and sustain them.