Children comprise nearly 30 percent of the roughly 105,000 people served by PIH/ZL clinics at the four Port-au-Prince settlements for displaced earthquake survivors. These 30,000 young people consist of an especially vulnerable population. As we cared for the medical and psychosocial needs of the residents of these encampments, our partners at the Progress and Development Foundation (PRODEV) began implementing an education program, Kay Timoun, for children displaced by the earthquake. Our collaborated with PRODEV to extend Kay Timoun into two of the settlements where we work—Parc Jean Marie Vincent and Carradeux. PRODEV selected school staff from a pool of well-qualified university students, social workers, and former teachers who were living in the settlements and had been unable to find work because of school closings. PIH/ZL helped secure tents and supplies for the schools.
Students attend sessions in marked tents, and the program engages parents and families in the children’s education and well being. The Kay Timoun curriculum is designed for students ages 6 to 14, and has been specifically adapted to address the disruption to the students’ education and their psychological needs following the earthquake. The curriculum includes a balanced offering of academic subjects. Math, languages, and the humanities comprise 60 percent of the students’ workload; and non-academic group activities, including psychosocial support, sports, and recreation, make up 40 percent of the day’s activities. More than 460 children are currently attending kindergarten and primary school at the two settlements, and another 1,500 have registered with libraries set up by PRODEV.
In partnership with PIH/ZL, PRODEV is currently building an educational center in Les Orangers, a village just north of Port-au-Prince. This facility will include a kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, and a high school to improve educational opportunities and stimulate economic development.
PIH/ZL has also launched educational initiatives benefiting children who fled to the Central Plateau and Artibonite—many with their families, but some without parents or guardians. We have successfully enrolled more than 500 displaced children in ZL-affiliated schools. If a child is in need, we provide school supplies such as uniforms, shoes, and books, whenever possible. And the PIH/ZL psychosocial team has conducted trainings with staff at Haiti’s Ministry of Education to help guide teachers on how to help teachers recognize signs of trauma and to aid suffering children.
PIH/ZL has been working to provide opportunities, in a variety of ways, for medical students unable to continue their studies. (The earthquake destroyed the educational facilities at the country’s only public teaching hospital.) Since the earthquake, two groups of third-year medical students completed rotations at ZL facilities throughout Haiti. Fifteen students worked at our Cange hospital, completing rotations in medicine and short-term research projects on ZL’s maternity services.
One hundred first-year medical residents working at Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital received kits of donated medical books and basic supplies from PIH and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Residents are medical doctors who have received their degrees, but have not completed their required time working under the supervision of more senior physicians. The resident kits—which include basic books, guides, and tools used during rounds—were sent to the medical residents in late June.
