Street children not targeted in fight against HIV/AIDS
published: Sunday | July 1, 2007

vladimir restavek digital story
it is about poor kids in haiti that is being abuse

HSKI Family Circle Boys’ Home
A safehouse for Haitian restavek slave children and street kids run by Michael Brewer, the guy that runs a charity called ‘Haitian Street Kids Incorporated‘; giving tortured children the hope of a future.

Nina consortium helps street kids Images

Santo Domingo.- The Nina consortium of five non-governmental organizations says that they have managed to get a total of 327 children and teenagers off the streets and back with their families. The consortium said that a further 1,636 minors who live on the streets have received integrated care, including access to health and education programs. The program is coordinated by Acción Callejera de Santiago, Caminante de Boca Chica, Niños del Camino, Quédate con Nosotros and Yo También. The last three are based in Santo Domingo. Quédate con Nosotros and Yo También are groups run by the Salesians and the Pastoral Juvenil who work with children and teenagers who live on the street. They run an educational process aimed at reuniting the children with their families and getting them back into school and their communities. The consortium is funded by USAID and received technical as well as financial support from Catholic Relief Services (CRS). The NGOs have provided training for 710 families to help strengthen the bonds between the children and their families. They also aim to work more closely with the relevant government institutions.

No night out for street kids Gov’t seeking help of retired cops to keep them off the road

TANEISHA LEWIS, Observer staff reporter Thursday, April 05, 2007

Students from Dor’s Basic School perform a dialect titled ‘Weh mi fadda deh’, during Wednesday’s launch of Child Month, at the Scout Association of Jamaica headquarters in Kingston. Enjoying the presentation are Douglas Orane (left), the patron of Child Month, and Health Minister Horace Dalley. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)

GOVERNMENT, grappling with the growing problem of children roaming the streets, especially at nights, plans to use retired policemen to keep them off and warned parents that they would face prosecution.

"We want retired policemen who have an interest to form a little night squad to get them (children) off the streets," Health Minister Horace Dalley told the Observer after Wednesday’s launch of Child Month at the Scout Association of Jamaica headquarters in Kingston.

The Child Development Agency (CDA), said the minister, would be seeking to find a location to house the children where they would be cared for until their parents are located. "We haven’t really worked out the logistic, but we are going to also find the parents and prosecute the parents," the minister added.

Current figures were not available, but the 2002 National Survey of Street and Working Children estimated the number of affected children as 6,448, with 20 per cent of them being boys. The report was prepared by Ruel Cooke from Worker Management Services Limited for the Ministry of Health.

The survey said the majority of children of the street (those who work and live on the streets) - 58.5 per cent - indicated that they wanted to return home, but less than 40 per cent of them were able, for one reason or other, to do so.
During Wednesday’s launch of Child Month, to be observed in May, Dalley said one of his personal mandates as the minister of health was to ensure that parents who neglect their children are held accountable.

"If it is the last thing I am going to do before I exit the public office, I want to ensure that parents are held accountable when they neglect their children," he said. "I want to rid the streets of children at nights. I don’t expect to see children on the street begging at night," said Dalley, whose ministry is responsible for children services.

He said while there were street children on the road begging money or assisting parents with selling goods to support their family, there should be no reason why a child should be on the streets unaccompanied and left to the perils of the night.
The minister’s announcement was immediately welcomed by Children’s Advocate Mary Clarke.

"I commend the minister for this initiative that he is going to have implemented to get children off the streets at nights," Clarke told the Observer after the launch of Child Month. "Children have no right to be on the street after certain hours.
I commend him for his statement that parents are going to be held accountable. We have to find the parents and we have to hold them accountable. And we have to seek to find out where they need advice education, support service because we are here to help parents but they must be held accountable," said Clarke.

Dear Friends and Supporters of HSKI,

Hi….. Since we haven’t heard from many of you in quite a while, we have made a slide show presentation to show you some of what we are encountering on the streets here in Port au Prince regarding the street kids. Things have gotten better for them but there is a long way to go. Our advocacy efforts have made some good changes and have addressed a lot of critical issues previously ignored and unknown by the public or the international community.  Please take a minute to view the slide show presentation by clicking on the link below.

There are 35 boys in the home now, some of which are going to trade school. The others are hopeful of returning to school in September if funding allows or if sponsors can be obtained for them. At the moment we are in immediate desperate need of donations in any amount to help with the daily needs of the boys and to provide food for them each day.

After you see the slide show, please write to let us know your thoughts and any questions you may have.  We have been able to pay for 7 boys to enter trade school this year starting 7 April.  We were only able to pay the monthly fee for the first two months for each of them, so will now need a sponsor for each of them that is willing to help them with the monthly fee for the remainder of the school, or for however long they are willing to be with the boy. Personal letters from them will be sent to keep you up-to-date on their success.  There are five boys left that are desperately waiting and hoping to obtain a sponsor that can help them enter trade school also.  Most of the schools last from 1 to 2 years, after which the boy will obtain a state license in trade allowing him to be independant and self-supporting.  This is very important for them, especially due to the fact that none of them have family other than us. 

If anyone is willing to help sponsor one or more of the boys, please write me and I will send you a list of names and information about them.  If anyone is interested in helping us with a one-time donation to assist in food and subsistence for the boys at the home, please either click on the link below to make a donation, or write to the address given.  You can also donate through the website at www.HaitianStreetKids.com  Even if you are unable to help with a donation right now or sponsor one of the boys, we would sincerely appreciate it if you could forward this message to as many friends and acquaintances as possible.

Thanks for being there and thank you for caring.

God bless you all for your compassion and concern.

Michael Brewer, RN, Pres/Founder

Haitian Street Kids, Inc.

www.HaitianStreetKids.com   or  www.Restavek.com

WARNING: This slide show contains some photos depicting graphic violence and death.

Toward a better life: At a drop-in center in Cap-Haïtien run by Project Pierre Toussaint, street children play games between breakfast and lunch. melanie stetson freeman – staff A home for street kids in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti

Haiti’s street kids given a lift

How the efforts of a few have changed the lives of many Haitians.

By Melanie Stetson Freeman | Staff photographer

CAP-HAÏTIEN, HAITI - They are derisively called "sangine," which in Creole means "one without soul." Sleeping in alleys and living in the shadows, the street children of Haiti spend their days skipping school, hustling to get enough food to survive, often running afoul of the law, and getting high on paint thinner to try to forget their lot. Their communities and families, if they have them, are too poor to help.

The children are among the most visible signs of Haiti’s poverty, even more apparent than the nation’s 65 percent unemployment rate. Foreigners visiting the nation are often overwhelmed by the sight of them. But not American Douglas Perlitz.

About 10 years ago, Mr. Perlitz visited Cap-Haïtien – Haiti’s second-largest city – where he was soon being followed by "a pile of street kids," he says.

Perlitz, a pastoral minister and volunteer at a nearby hospital, would occasionally come back to town to get to know the kids. Although he didn’t speak the language, Perlitz would play basketball and soccer with them, befriending the friendless. One child, Wilnaud Pierre, only 8 years old, especially touched his heart.

"He was going through the initiation of being a street kid. He was tiny, the littlest one, and the others were mean to him," Perlitz says. "He pulled me aside and said ‘Would you send me to school? I want to learn to read and write.’ For four or five months, he kept at me."

Wilnaud, now about 18 (many street children don’t know their own birth dates), recalls that time. "I asked Douglas because I did not want to stay ignorant … someone who knows nothing," he writes in an e-mail. "School would show me how to live."

Lunch is served: At the drop-in center operated by Project Pierre Toussaint, plates of rice with a vegetable sauce are prepared for the street children. melanie stetson freeman – staff A home for street kids in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti

Perlitz talked to some local priests who offered him space in an old building behind their church to start a school. He told Wilnaud to tell his friends to come on Nov. 3, 1997, and he would teach them. Some 25 to 30 kids, ages 8 to 17, were waiting for him when he arrived.

"I gave them paper and crayons," Perlitz says. "You could hear a pin drop. They drew stuff – trees, boats, houses. Some didn’t even know how to hold crayons. I saw that they had the desire to go to school. They were focused. I knew they could do a lot…. They came regularly, so I got more teachers and started giving them food."

Within a year, the school grew into Project Pierre Toussaint, named after a Haitian slave who cared for the poor in New York City in the early 1800s. Today, the school helps about 120 kids a day at a drop-in center, where they can get three hot meals and schooling.

Children participating in the project aspire to one day enter the Village, a residential program on the outskirts of town with space for 50 kids who have proven themselves responsible and committed to excel. There, children are offered a wide variety of vocational training, including sewing, driving, welding, woodworking, and tailoring.

"This program is evidence of one person making a difference against incredible odds," says Paul Carrier, a chaplain at Fairfield University in Connecticut. Father Carrier encourages Fairfield students – including Perlitz, who first visited Haiti in 1991 – to do community service work in the third world.

Carrier supports Perlitz’s program through visits and constant fundraising. He once brought down 70 pairs of donated shoes – each designated for a specific child.

"I work with a lot of different organizations," says consultant Amber Elizabeth Gray, who has worked in the international human service field for 20 years. "Doug’s program is consistently the program that I can say is honest, true, community-based, meaningful, humanitarian work. It has managed to avoid the usual bureaucratic snares and tangles. The program grows in direct response to the kids."

learning: Jean Louis Pierre, a former Haitian street child, studies at the Village, a residential program for 50 children who have proven themselves responsible and committed to excel. melanie stetson freeman – staff A home for street kids in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti

In addition to helping street children, the project provides jobs for 35 Haitian men and women, who have been taught to be role models, teachers, counselors, cooks, drivers, social workers. They learn to avoid violence when disciplining.

"Everyone in Haiti has witnessed violence on a large scale," says Perlitz. "Those over 25 have woken up four different times to a coup, surrounded by violence. People internalize that, and it becomes an accepted way of life. All the schools here use the whip – not ours."

Some staff members, like Francillien Jean Charles, went through the program themselves. Francillien was one of the boys who came to Perlitz’s original school. Although learning disabled, he got his primary school certificate.

"He is one of our best staff because of his ability to understand the kids and what they’re dealing with," says Perlitz.

"You have to have realistic goals," says Perlitz. "They live in a country with high unemployment. I can’t pretend they’ll all get jobs. We hope the time they spend with us will make them better fathers and neighbors. We hope they become good citizens of Haiti with solid ideas of right and wrong."

Wilnaud can now read and write, and he hopes to become a mechanic.

"I lived on the street," Wilnaud remembers, "like someone who walks but does not know where he is going … [but then] I started to see my life change. After two or three years, people forgot the old me…. I became a new Wilnaud."

• For more info visit:www.haitippt.com

 

Help for Haiti

Knox churches, individuals offer a hand to Haitian communities

By MILLETE BIRHANEMASKEL, birhanemaskelm@knews.com
February 3, 2007

Faith guides them.

That is about as rational an answer as Luke Wilkerson, Jordan Pyda or Marsha Fisher can give as to why they feel called to a place as destitute as Haiti.

There, Wilkerson has found trust among forsaken street kids. Pyda found a 63-year-old Haitian woman who could be his grandmother under different circumstances. Fisher found a school headmaster who is determined to change the world one child at a time.

How else but through divine intervention could the Knoxville residents have been flung to a far land and yet have found a familiar feeling of belonging?

In separate missions, Wilkerson, Pyda and Fisher - and countless others from East Tennessee - have given many in the small Caribbean country a reason to believe again.

But these three say they have received much more.

"You can’t out-give God," Fisher said.

JUMP to Change the World
Did you know that there are over 300,000 child slaves in Haiti? I met one boy who wanted to tell me his story. JUMP (Juveniles Use Media Power) empowers global youth by giving them a voice and the skills to make media that makes a difference. Visit the J.U.M.P. website to find out more about how you can participate: http://www.jumptochangetheworld.org/ and see more JUMP videos on their YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=JUMPtoChangetheWorld