6 years ago a violent earthquake shook the ground in Haiti involving 4 million Haitians. Because of this terrible event there have been a lot of casualties, and the number of deaths estimated has been of about 260,000. Since then a lot has been done to improve the life of these people.
ABF has been working every day since 2013 with the local partner Fondation St. Luc to improve the living conditions of the Haitian people and give them the opportunity to write their best story possible. Thanks to the help of many generous donors we will continue to have a positive impact, also in 2016, in the education and health of thousands of Haitian people.
In fact, after having achieved the goal of stabilizing the number of students and the recognition of the school as a landmark of the community, in June 2014 ABF has decided to convert the basic structures of the 3 schools, St Philomène in Kenscoff, St. Augustin in Abricot, Notre Dame du Rosaire in Croix des Bouquets, in appropriate facilities to accommodate students and giving them a national and international standard of education offer. In April 2015 these new premises were inaugurated in the presence of the ABF’s Founder and President.
This year ABF will assure continual access to education to the 1.750 students of the 3 schools and will assure a salary for the teaching staff and will grant all of the children the necessary healthcare treatments. The communities of Kenscoff, Abricots and Croix-des-Bouquet are remotely located and barely function as marginalized shanty towns. Neither basic services nor dependable infrastructure are provided by the Haitian authorities. ABF will contribute also to give some more educational opportunities, and eventual employment in 2 more communities, Dame Marie and Jecmel where the 2 street schools of Manataine Dame Marie and St. Raphael are situated. ABF will work to convert these basic structures in functional and safe buildings able to host 400 students each.
Each child also receives a daily hot meal consisting of rice, beans and vegetables and three times during the school year are distributed 5kg of pasta to each of the children and to their families.
In 2015 in order to make the new structures built, environmentally sustainable, ABF has equipped them with solar panels. The electricity produced will be used to give light to classes, to the spaces for teachers and directors, computer labs and libraries. In addition, to improve the performances of all students and providing light in the houses, 1 solar lamp has been distributed to each family.
Together with the distribution of fertilizer a new training program will be started to improve crop yield and teach the community cultivation techniques together with the ability of cooperation with the objective of future development.
For all school children has also been carried out a screening of the most common disease encountered such as hernia, malaria, skin diseases. Healthcare is given by a staff of 3 nurses and 2 doctors. All children are given anti-parasitic, vitamins and some of them receive also antibiotic treatments.
In 2016, the HIV program in collaboration with Children’s Hospital Saint Damien will increase to 550 the number of children who will undergo a program of prevention in the transmission of AIDS from mother to child.
Over 300,000 direct beneficiaries are those who receive clean water every day with 2 ABF Water trucks in Cité Soleil. ABF in fact guarantees 6 deliveries a day, 6 days a week for a total of 15,000 gallons water a day. This allows improving the sanitary conditions, the reduction and transmission of infectious diseases, and to reduce cases of death from dehydration in infants and in the elderly.
The ongoing construction of a Water Tower in the communities of Croix-des-Bouquets, Kenscoff and Abricot will also serve 10,000 people a day.
This is what we are doing together with our partner Fondation St Luc, our volunteers and the generous help of many friends and donors and with you, today, we can continue to work in empowering Haitian people and communities, thus helping to make this New Year special together with ABF.
