Mobile Schools in the Earth­quake Zone

An Update from the Aris­tide Foun­da­tion for Democ­racy — April 2, 2010

by Laura Flynn

When the Aris­tide Foun­da­tion for Democ­racy launched our Mobile School project in late Feb­ru­ary we wanted to do two things quickly: sup­port chil­dren liv­ing in refugee camps across Port-au-Prince and offer imme­di­ate employ­ment to young Haitians at a time when the whole econ­omy has col­lapsed.   With gen­er­ous sup­port from the Haiti Emer­gency Relief Fund we were able to get schools up and run­ning very quickly.  Since late Feb­ru­ary we’ve been run­ning Mobile Schools, three hours a day, five days a week, serv­ing 1260 kids in 5 refugee camps in the earth­quake zone.

This project has sur­passed our expec­ta­tions at every level.

First the amaz­ing com­pas­sion, vital­ity and pro­fes­sion­al­ism of the 102 mon­i­tors we called on to staff the project has inspired us.   The mon­i­tors are mostly young peo­ple who were stu­dents at the lan­guage and com­puter school of the Aris­tide Foun­da­tion at the time of the quake.  Many of them have lost their houses and are fac­ing ter­ri­ble dif­fi­cul­ties in their own lives.  The coor­di­na­tor of the mobile schools at the Tarpage encamp­ment in Tabarre, Mir­lande Jan­vier, was buried under the rub­ble with her son for two days after the quake before being res­cued by her neigh­bors.  Nev­er­the­less she’s work­ing full-time run­ning the mobile schools in her com­mu­nity.  All the mon­i­tors and staff come to work every day with incred­i­ble energy and love for the kids they are work­ing with.   In March they got a boost when  Leah James, a social worker from the Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan did a train­ing with them on how to sup­port chil­dren suf­fer­ing from the trauma of the quake.  (See her story on the Huff­in­g­ton Post here. )

Sec­ond the over­whelm­ing response of the fam­i­lies in the camps has hum­bled us.   Par­ents and com­mu­nity mem­bers quickly came together to build the shel­ters in which classes are held.  At each site when we opened there was a mas­sive press of par­ents des­per­ate to get their chil­dren into the schools.  We knew we were offer­ing a very mod­est pro­gram – under canopies in the open air, with­out books or pro­fes­sional teach­ers. The par­ents saw this as some­thing far more pro­found –a chance, a future, some hope for their chil­dren.   Here are a cou­ple of tes­ti­monies from parents:

Esau, 31, Nazon: I thank God every day that my chil­dren can con­tinue their edu­ca­tion here at the school. You spend your whole life work­ing to build a home to make life bet­ter for your chil­dren and then in a moment the cat­a­stro­phe takes all that work away from you. We moved from our house because there were a lot of cracks in the walls. The con­crete split open and was hang­ing from the ceil­ing. It was not safe any­more. First we stayed [in a camp] near the air­port but it was very crowded so a month ago we moved here (to Nazon). When the direc­tor accepted my chil­dren to attend this school I was so very very happy because I want them to con­tinue learn­ing and get­ting an edu­ca­tion. It’s good for them to go to school to have a nor­mal life like chil­dren should have. It helps them be more confident.

Mar­jory 28, Tabarre: At the school my daugh­ter learns to count, to say the alpha­bet and also she learns hygiene. When I come to walk her back after class she sings to me the songs they sing in the school. Her favorite song is “Head, Shoul­ders, Knees and Toes” Now she knows all the parts of her body and the days of the week, and months of the year. She is very clever and is learn­ing every­thing very quickly. The teach­ers at the school are car­ing and love each of the chil­dren.  They know what are the strengths of each child and they try to help each child. Going to school helps chil­dren for­get about the earth­quake for a short time. It’s good that the school is out­side because the chil­dren will not go indoors. When there are after­shocks, the teach­ers calm the children.

We planned to take no more than 800 kids – we ended up with 1260.  We had to draw the line there because we sim­ply don’t have the money to do more, but school coor­di­na­tors in each camp con­tinue to report get­ting pleas from par­ents every­day to take their kids into the schools.

And then of course the kids them­selves are amaz­ing.  They arrived from the first day in clean clothes, every child with shoes on.  How is that pos­si­ble when we know the kind of mis­ery these fam­i­lies are liv­ing in?  Well, Haitians have always sent their chil­dren to school with pride and dig­nity – even an earth­quake, even the mis­ery of the camps, can­not shake that.  Watch­ing the kids sing, dance, play, laugh, smile has been heal­ing for every­one involved–kids, mon­i­tors, coor­di­na­tors, par­ents.  It’s a cliche per­haps to say that chil­dren are resilient, and yet, they are, and they are the future of the nation.

When we opened the schools we thought, we hoped, we prayed that food dis­tri­b­u­tion to fam­i­lies at refugee set­tle­ments would become more depend­able.  This has not hap­pened.  In none of the five camps where we are work­ing is food dis­tri­b­u­tion reg­u­lar or suf­fi­cient to meet the needs of those liv­ing there.   Two of the settlements–at Nazon and at Fontamara–report that the Aris­tide Foun­da­tion was and is the first and only aid agency of any kind to come to where they are.  These two camps are not on main roads (though they are smack in the mid­dle of Port-au-Prince), but even at Car­radeux on the cam­pus of UniFA (the Med­ical school of the Aris­tide Foun­da­tion), at Tapage in Tabarre, and at Build­ing 2004, a stone’s throw from the air­port, there is noth­ing resem­bling reg­u­lar food dis­tri­b­u­tion.  This is the sit­u­a­tion across Haiti.  The aid is sim­ply not get­ting there.  For a clear pic­ture of the fail­ure of the relief effort to meet even the most basic needs of the Hait­ian peo­ple watch this short video put together by the New Media Project  and sign on to this peti­tion being cir­cu­lated by the Insti­tute for Jus­tice and Democ­racy in Haiti call­ing on the major aid agen­cies to do bet­ter with our money in respond­ing to the cri­sis in Haiti — and to include the voices of the Hait­ian peo­ple in recov­ery plans.

The grim real­ity in the refugee camps of Port-au-Prince right now is hunger.  The snack we pro­vide in the mobile schools is for many kids the only meal they get that day.   That is both totally unac­cept­able and the sit­u­a­tion we are forced to con­front.   Nat­u­rally chil­dren line up more than once, or stash away snacks for their par­ents.  And yet, some­how the AFD mon­i­tors and coor­di­na­tors along with the fam­i­lies in the camps have estab­lished enough dis­ci­pline to run this project – includ­ing a daily snack dis­tri­b­u­tion for the chil­dren right in the midst of camps of starv­ing peo­ple.  There have been no major dis­rup­tions –a pro­found mea­sure of how com­mit­ted these com­mu­ni­ties are to mak­ing these schools work for their kids.  The Foun­da­tion is com­mit­ted too — to stay­ing in the camps and work­ing along­side the major­ity of Port-au-Prince’s inhab­i­tants, as we have for the past 14 years.   Need­less to say, we aren’t get­ting help from the major aid orga­ni­za­tions.  Per­haps that will save us.  The mobile school project along with every other project of the Aris­tide Foun­da­tion is Haitian-led and Haitian-staffed.  There is dig­nity in that.  In the end only Haitians can lead the way out of this catastrophe.

Laura Flynn is a mem­ber of the board of the Aris­tide Foun­da­tion for Democracy-US, which sup­ports the work of the Aris­tide Foun­da­tion in Haiti.  AFD-Haiti was founded by Jean-Bertrand Aris­tide in 1996 on the prin­ci­ple that to bring real change, democ­racy must include those at the mar­gins of soci­ety: street chil­dren, mar­ket women, land­less peas­ants, restaveks (chil­dren liv­ing in Hait­ian house­holds as unpaid domes­tic labor­ers), the urban poor. For 14 years the Foun­da­tion has ded­i­cated itself to pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties and open­ing up avenues of demo­c­ra­tic par­tic­i­pa­tion for those who tra­di­tion­ally have had no voice in national affairs and no access to edu­ca­tion.  It seeks to echo and amplify the voices of the Hait­ian peo­ple on a national and inter­na­tional level.

For more on the cur­rent work and his­tory of the Aris­tide Foun­da­tion — and lots of great pho­tos from the mobile schools visit our web­site: http://www.AristideFoundationforDemocracy.org

Online Dona­tions to Sup­port the Mobile Schools and other Earth­quake Relief Efforts of the Aris­tide Foun­da­tion for Democ­racy can be made here:

Or mail checks to: Aris­tide Foun­da­tion, PO Box 490271, Key Bis­cayne, Florida 33149

All dona­tions are tax deductible and will be acknowledged.

If you are inter­ested in estab­lish­ing sis­ter school rela­tion­ships between schools in the US or else­where and the Mobile Schools in Haiti please email us at AristideFoundation@gmail.com.