By Diana Valcárcel

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/haiti_53025.html

The UNICEF tent school at a set­tle­ment for dis­placed peo­ple in the Car­refour dis­trict, south-west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, opened in Feb­ru­ary. UNICEF is work­ing to get chil­dren back to school as soon as pos­si­ble in order to restore a needed sense of normalcy.

The fol­low­ing field diary was sub­mit­ted by UNICEF Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Spe­cial­ist Diana Val­cár­cel, who is on the ground in Haiti.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, 15 March 2010 – In and around Haiti’s dev­as­tated cap­i­tal city, UNICEF-supported ‘tent schools’ are open­ing for chil­dren affected by the 12 Jan­u­ary earthquake.

I recently vis­ited one of these tem­po­rary schools. It was housed in a for­mer sports cen­tre — now act­ing as a dis­placed per­sons camp – in the Car­refour dis­trict, south-west of Port-au-Prince. The tent school was one of the most cheer­ful places I’ve been since arriv­ing in Haiti.

A long­stand­ing prob­lem
UNICEF’s expe­ri­ence shows that it is nec­es­sary to get chil­dren back to school as soon as pos­si­ble after emer­gen­cies to restore a sense of nor­malcy in their daily lives.

Even before the earth­quake struck on 12 Jan­u­ary, poverty and a lack of infra­struc­ture con­tributed to a low school-enrolment rate across Haiti. The quake only exac­er­bated this long­stand­ing problem.

The Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion esti­mates that 80 per cent of schools west of Port-au-Prince were destroyed or severely dam­aged in the earth­quake, and 35 to 40 per cent were destroyed in the south-east. This means that as many as 5,000 schools were destroyed and up to 2.9 mil­lion chil­dren here are being deprived of the right to education.

In the wake of the earth­quake, a logis­ti­cal ‘Edu­ca­tion Clus­ter’ of orga­ni­za­tions was cre­ated – co-led by UNICEF and Save the Chil­dren – to sup­port the gov­ern­ment in get­ting chil­dren back into schools.

‘Based on hope’
The UNICEF tent school that we vis­ited in Car­refour opened on 22 Feb­ru­ary. It con­sisted of two large tents — one for chil­dren aged 7 to 12, and one for 12– to 17-year-old students.

© UNICEF Haiti/Valcárcel/2010

One Hait­ian stu­dent at the tent school in Car­refour dis­trict remains ban­daged from injuries sus­tained dur­ing the 12 Jan­u­ary earthquake.

Along with chil­dren and ado­les­cents liv­ing in the dis­placed per­sons’ camp, the new school’s doors are also open to chil­dren from the sur­round­ing neigh­bor­hood – some of whom have not been to school before.

Teach­ers from the Hait­ian Red Cross lead the classes. Chan­tal Duphrézin, one of the teach­ers lead­ing the younger age group, men­tioned that new desks and benches – pro­vided by UNICEF — had just arrived.

“Haiti is going to change for bet­ter, we are sure,” said Ms. Duphrézin. “We have to be based on hope. And the change will take place by our efforts…. There will come a day when there will be no rub­ble in the street. That’s what we want. ”

Learn­ing through play
Ms. Duphrézin told us that her team of teach­ers is devel­op­ing a com­bined study plan that mixes fun with tra­di­tional edu­ca­tional meth­ods, so that the stu­dents will learn while they play. This psycho-social tech­nique helps to ease the tran­si­tion back to school for chil­dren fol­low­ing an emergency.

I wit­nessed this tech­nique first­hand in the tent schools, where I saw groups of stu­dents, led by their teach­ers, singing edu­ca­tional songs – and all clearly hav­ing fun while learning.

Later, I approached a girl named Mat­saika, 12, who was paint­ing qui­etly at her desk. Mat­saika now lives in the Car­refour set­tle­ment for the dis­placed. “When I grow up I would like to be a nurse to heal oth­ers,” she told me, adding: “I am very happy at this school.”