Yasmine Sherif, CEO of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), announced the funding on Friday in the capital Port-au-Prince, during a high-level United Nations mission to the Caribbean nation.
The goal is to reach nearly 75,000 children and young people in the hard-hit provinces of Ouest, where the capital is located, and Artibonite.
The Power of Education
Ms. Sherif urged world leaders not to turn their backs on the boys and girls of Haiti.
“With the power of education, we can protect these girls and boys from the grave risks of sexual violence, forced recruitment into armed groups and other human rights abuses,” she said. speak.
“With the power of education, we can lift a nation out of the never-ending cycle of poverty, economic instability and violence.”
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) will provide this funding through a partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme (World food program), along with other local and international partners.
The funding will support back-to-school incentives, school feeding programmes, early childhood education, disability inclusion, mental health and psychosocial support, cash transfers to families in need and other support to ensure children have access to safe learning environments.
Urgent humanitarian needs
Haiti is experiencing unprecedented lawlessness and brutality at the hands of armed group alliances, a situation exacerbated by climate change, cyclones and repeated earthquakes, including a devastating quake in 2021 that killed more than 2,300 people and caused extensive damage.
Nearly half the population, some 5.5 million people, depend on humanitarian aid, while five million face severe hunger. Nearly 580,000 Haitians are displaced, a 60 percent increase since late February.
Armed groups are targeting schools and hospitals, with disturbing reports of brutal forms of sexual violence, including gang rape. They are also accused of forcibly recruiting children, with estimates that 30 to 50 percent of their members may be children.
The education crisis is happening.
Furthermore, estimates show that 1.2 million school-age children are in dire need of quality education.
Schools are being closed or used as evacuation centers across the country. Some 919 schools have closed in the Ouest and Artibonite provinces alone, accounting for 10 percent of the total number of schools in those regions.
“The ongoing education crisis in Haiti is truly on the verge of becoming an educational tragedy,” said Bruno Maes, UNICEF Representative in Haiti.
“Although school enrollment rates were already low before the recent escalation of violence, school closures and mass displacement are depriving thousands of children of the opportunity to learn.”
Expanding global investment
This funding brings ECW’s total funding in Haiti to more than $15.8 million.
Despite the urgent need, ECW said its $30 million request for an education response in Haiti — part of an overall humanitarian plan for the country — is less than 30 percent funded, according to the United Nations humanitarian affairs office. OCHA.
ECW supports quality education for refugee children, internally displaced children and children affected by other crises. The foundation and its partners are calling on world leaders to urgently raise an additional $600 million for its three-year strategic plan.
These new resources will allow the fund to expand its investments in Haiti and other crisis areas, reaching 20 million girls and boys.
