Schools Not Slavery for Rural Haitian Children

Students are Back in the Classroom and Protected from COVID -- Thanks to You

I am so grateful for your generous gift to the Schools Not Slavery initiative. Thanks to you, students at 18 schools on Lagonav Island are back in their classrooms, wearing masks and practicing social distancing and good hygiene. 

And -- also thanks to you -- their teachers resumed their training in nonviolent, native language, participatory classroom management techniques too. It's an approach that is transforming education at these schools, encouraging creativity, curiosity, critical thinking and leadership in girls and boys.

A Teacher Shares How The Training You Support Made Him a Better Educator

One of the best ways to communicate the kind of impact that you are making in the lives of students and their teachers is for you to hear directly from those who benefit from your generosity.

Leonald, a third grade teacher on Lagonav Island, shares how the teacher training that you are making possible is changing how he and his fellow teachers manage their classrooms.

“The work [you] did to develop me as a teacher is extraordinary. I have so many more techniques to use when I’m working with the children. I feel like I don’t have to struggle as hard with my students. Through our school's participation in the teacher training program, I found that my students both learned better and more quickly. I didn't have any students who struggled to read.”

Your Generosity Supports an Approach to Classroom Management that Encourages Creativity, Curiosity, and Democracy

Traditional schools in Haiti perpetuate an authoritarian model of leadership. Curiosity is discouraged, and students are forced to memorize long passages in French, a language that almost no one in the community, including teachers, can actually speak.

Visit Leonald's school -- or any of the schools in Beyond Borders' Schools Not Slavery Network -- and you’ll immediately see the difference that your generosity is making.

Vibrant, active students are interacting and becoming literate in their native language first, with French and English introduced as second languages. Questioning and curiosity are encouraged, democratic decision-making is promoted, and what students learn in the classroom and in a school garden is put to immediate use for the benefit of the community.

Thanks to supporters like you, since 2014, teachers at more than 50 schools on Lagonav Island have been trained in this kind of innovative approach to quality education.

You Make it Possible to Expand the Movement to Guarantee Universal Quality Education

Your generosity is also making it possible to advance another of Beyond Borders’ educational priorities for this fiscal year -- to continue working with local representatives of the Ministry of Education and local educators to develop a new strategy to build and strengthen the movement to ensure access to quality primary education for all children on Lagonav.

One of the ways we’ve committed to this is by adding a new staff member -- thanks to your support -- who will focus on this movement-building effort. Amos, a resident of Lagonav with a double degree from the Haitian State University in Philosophy and Psychology, and other notable educational certificates, is joining Beyond Borders as our Education Officer.

For eight years Amos served as the Pedagogical Director at a local school on Lagonav and as a volunteer philosophy teacher at a public high school there too. Additionally, Amos spent five years with a non-profit working on education on Lagonav. Amos began working with the Beyond Borders team in mid-October.

The focus of this role will be to drive education network-building on Lagonav Island; coordinate advocacy efforts across Communal Sections; represent Beyond Borders at national and regional education advocacy platforms; and, link emerging Lagonav-based networks with national advocacy efforts.

Welcome Amos, and thanks again to you and all of our supporters who made it possible to expand this education work and create the post of Education Officer!

Building the Movement to End Child Slavery Continues -- Thanks to You

With new COVID protocols in place to protect community members and the Beyond Borders’ team, the work to build the movement to end child slavery continues -- thanks to your generous support.

On Lagonav Island, the team continues the social mapping process with communities, helping grassroots and local elected leaders to determine their strengths and weaknesses, and their community-wide priorities, including identifying families most at-risk of sending a child away.

Work with newly created and existing Child Protection Brigades in communities continues, as does work with law enforcement and judicial authorities around specific cases of child slavery (restavèk).

The anti-child slavery Zero Restavèk Campaign continues too, as do targeted children’s rights trainings conducted by partners with local authorities. The team is continuing to collaborate with government authorities and with branches of the Adult Survivor Network as they multiple throughout the country. Work with the Abolish the Restavèk System (Aba Sistèm Restavèk) Network also continues.

Your Generosity Makes New Partnerships & Networking with Key Policy Makers and Allies Possible

Beyond Borders is a formal member of the Working Group on Human Trafficking, and now has direct access to the President of the National Committee Against Human Trafficking. 

Coordination and planning with Committee and Working Group members has advanced (especially with the Lumos Foundation) specifically around direct intervention in cases of child abuse and slavery (restavèk). Both the National Committee and Lumos have pledge to support Beyond Borders’ Child Liberation Initiative -- launched in 2019 with support from people like you.

Beyond Borders will coordinate interventions in communities to identify and document cases requiring intervention, coordinating with the Haitian National Police. Lumos runs a transitional shelter for children and has agreed to receive children who are victims of abuse and/or restavèk while the search for their parents and/or placement in a temporary Welcoming Family (similar to a foster family in the U.S.) can be arranged.

Intervening in and Seeking Prosecution of Cases of Abuse/Restavèk with Your Support

Liberating children from child slavery through direct intervention, and holding those accountable for exploitation and abuse continues to be a priority for the Beyond Borders’ team in Port-au-Prince, in collaboration with the Survivor of Restavèk Network (SRN) and thanks to your generous support.

Earlier in 2020, 160 children potentially living in abusive and/or exploitative situations were identified in eight Port-au-Prince neighborhoods. Since July 1, the Beyond Borders team, working with the SRN has been documenting the cases in order to identify priority cases for intervention. To date, 121 of the 160 cases are in different stages of documentation.

After a long and complicated process, formal complaints have finally been filed in the courts in the cases of two young girls who had been living in situations of restavèk. This was made possible through the partnership Beyond Borders established with the International Office of Lawyers (BAI) in Haiti -- and thanks to your support too.

New Child Rights Education Dialogue Groups Launched -- Thanks to You

Haiti Partners -- a longtime Beyond Borders partners -- launched six community dialogue groups using the Education is a Conversation (ESK) Child Rights methodology that supporters like you made possible. Fifty-seven people in three new communities are participating in these groups with six facilitators that have been trained in ESK facilitation.

Your Generosity is Strengthening the Adult Survivor Network

At the beginning of September, 40 representatives of the eight Port-au-Prince Survivor of Restavèk Network (SRN) branches held a General Assembly meeting (applying Covid-19 protocols) to adopt the statutes of their network; assess the work of the former leadership team; and, elect new leaders. Nine members (including five women) were elected for a two-year term.

SRNs continue to gain visibility and validation in the communities in which they operate, thanks to your generous support. The presence, mobilization, awareness-raising and interventions of SRN members, is changing social norms, knowledge, beliefs and practices around violence against children and the practice of restavèk in communities.

How Adult Survivor Networks Help Community Members Protect Abused and Enslaved Children

An example of this is another instance in which community members in one neighborhood noticed a young girl with several open sores and marks on her body when she was in the market. They began talking with her and determined that something was going on at home.

The community members took a video of the girl, identified where she was living, and went to share the information with one of the SRN members (who they knew was someone they could turn to in their neighborhood when they suspected a child was being abused).

The SRN set into motion the process to follow up -- sharing the information with Beyond Borders (who in turn informed the National Committee), and connected with the Child Protection Brigade of the Haitian National Police, which Beyond Borders has established a working relationship for such cases.

Thank You Again

I am grateful for all the good work that you are making possible through your support for the Schools Not Slavery initiative. Thank you again for your extraordinary generosity and solidarity. All of us at Beyond Borders continue to send our best wishes for the health and well-being of you and your loved ones during these uncertain times. If you have any questions about what you read in this report, please call or write me anytime at (305) 450-2561 or b.stevens@beyondborders.net.

Links:

• [VIDEO]: Meet Members of the Child Liberation Initiative
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