AndroAyiti

During the difficult times, Haiti has been facing recently, I thought it would be better if I wrote something more positive.

Today’s article is about a group of young Haitians who started a project called “CLUB ECHO DES ENFANTS”, in 2009, precisely May 29th. They are located in an old garbage sorting center, situated in Carrefour-Feuilles, Port-Au-Prince. 

The idea is from a young man whose name is Ackimberly Barthelemy, an educator aware of the situation of children at school, not being able to afford extracurricular activities and this situation keeping them from developing certain skills.

The project is all about teaching them different kind of Arts and Crafts like bracelets, necklaces, sandals, additionally theatre and dance. 

Teaching them courses like English, French, basic computer knowledge and etiquette classes.

They always have a “day of recess” every February and a Christmas party at end year, where they exchange gifts. 

Since schools can′t finance the materials and provide the time to perform the handmade works.

Mr. Barthelemy created this with nine other volunteers to help the kids, protect them from violence, in hopes of helping them in becoming respectful, responsible young adults in the community.

The children are invited to come to their first class with their parent's permission, they are registered for free. The organization receives kids from 4 to 17 years old. They monitor around 110 kids. 

I’ve had the opportunity to speak to one of the volunteers and he says:

“The children are very excited about the activities, some of them come before the time, they are very eager to learn.”

Opening hours are every Friday from 3 PM to 5:30 PM.

Every craft the kids do is kept by the staff, so they can organize cultural activities in their honour.

“We are planning to help the children with school supplies, every year they have to start with school; it’s a long-term project because we are looking for partners, so we can help more.”

They don’t have help from any other organizations yet, they are open to any kind of support.

“We don’t have assistance, so we collect from our staff to buy materials.” 

This is a very beautiful initiative and I don’t understand how they are not getting more help from the government. It should be THEIR job to provide similar opportunities to our kids.

They finance all kinds of Bulls*** but they cant finance necessities like this one. 

In Danemark, the government established a law where for 25 HOURS every week children from a certain age and background are taken away from their parents (whether they want it or not). During this time, they are given basic education, etiquette classes and so on.

This was the method they decided was better in order to give those kids a fair chance to grow up as honest citizens, regardless if they are from the “ghetto”.

Education is such an important tool in society, the Haitian government should care about the population that doesn't have access to one. Don’t they know that if half of the population was educated, ALL OF THEM wouldn't act like the “savages” the media, rich people and others are trying so hard to portray them to be?

But I guess this is a conversation for another day.

If you wish to help you can get in touch with AndroAyiti by the following ways:

Facebook page: Clubecodesenfants 

Instagram: @clubechodesenfants

E-mail: androayiti@gmail.com

Or their main platforms Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube: @androayiti

I thank you all for reading this article, I thank AndroAyiti for agreeing to do this article and sharing all these pictures to be featured in the post.

Here is the creole version on this post, enjoy.

This was “AndroAyiti”, written by Tiff.