UN: Violence Is Harming Haiti’s Schools

01Schools in Haiti are operating without enough chairs, blackboards, and even bathrooms.

02Violent criminal groups limit basic government services and deepen poverty, while the state education system faces a $23 million deficit.

03Yasmin Sharif is the executive director of the UN organization Education Cannot Wait.

04The country needs help, Sharif said during her three-day visit to the Caribbean country in July.

05Sharif said the organization provided $2.5 million to help nearly 75,000 children in Haiti with money, food, and other programs.

06And she asked the European Union and other countries, including France and the U.S., to help close the educational deficit.

07My main concern is security, she said, noting the effect that violence has had on education.

08Criminal groups, called gangs, killed or injured more than 2,500 people in the first three months of the year.

09Violence has seriously affected life in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and elsewhere.

10At least 919 schools remain closed in Port-au-Prince and in the central area of Artibonite because of gang violence.

11The UN says that school closures have affected more than 150,000 students.

12Education is part of the solution, Sharif said.

13That would end extreme poverty, extreme violence, and create political stability, and create a reliable workforce.

14Gang violence also has left some 580,000 people homeless across Haiti, with many crowding into temporary shelters or taking over schools, causing them to close.

15Schools that remain open are increasingly forced to take students from others that have closed.

16The Jean-Marie Vincent School, in central Port-au-Prince, for example, has accepted students from 12 other schools.

17Charles Lucerno is the head of the Vincent School.

18He said, We're not the only ones facing such serious problems.

19Lucerno said that when classes end for the day, people left homeless by gang violence enter the school and sleep on its ground.

20Although that creates health problems, Lucerno still lets them stay.

21He said, We are human.

22We cannot throw them out.

23Williamson-Bissant is a 22-year-old high school student who is preparing to take his final exam to graduate.

24He described the sad state of some schools.

25A lot of schools are missing benches or chairs.

26Teachers do not show up on time.

27The hardest part of this is that there are no bathrooms, he said.

28Bissant added, I hope that the generation that comes after me doesn't have to go through the same suffering.

29Private schools are out of reach for Midi and Haiti, a country of more than 11 million people.

30More than 60% of the population earns less than $2 a day.

31Among those who have been forced to flee their homes is 20-year-old Megan Dumorsi.

32She would like to study agriculture, but completing her education has been difficult.

33The insecurity has had a huge impact on my life, she said, noting that some students have been forced to leave their backpacks behind as they flee gangs.

34The state should find a solution for that.

35We shouldn't be living in a country where our movement is limited.

36She said her school is only half built and lacks a library, a computer room, a blackboard, and chairs.

37She does research on her phone when needed.

38Another blow to Haitian schools came in late 2022.

39That was the time the U.S.

40started a program permitting Haitians and people from other countries to enter the country on humanitarian grounds.

41A lot of teachers left, said Franz Irin, an official at the John Marie Vincent School.

42I'm Jill Robbins.