75,000 Haitian Children to get cash from $2.5 Million UN contribution

Garfield Ekon

Staff Writer

The United Nations (UN) is contributing a $2.5 million grant to help nearly 75,000 children via cash transfers, school feeding programs and other initiatives in Haiti, even as it points to a $23 million deficit for education in the troubled nation.

Executive Director of the U.N. Global Fund for Education, Yasmine Sherif who was in the country on a recent three-day trip during which she visited schools and met with teachers, principals, state officials and civil society members, appealed to the European Union, and countries including France and the U.S., to help close the educational deficit as she noted the impact violence has had on education.

At least 919 schools remain closed in Port-au-Prince and in the central region of Artibonite because of the gang violence. The closures have affected more than 150,000 students, according to the U.N.

“Education is part of the solution, that would end extreme poverty, extreme violence and create political stability and create a reliable workforce,” she said. Gang violence also has left some 580,000 people homeless across Haiti, with many crowding into makeshift shelters or taking over schools, causing them to shut down.

Schools that remain operational are increasingly forced to take students from other institutions that have shuttered. The Jean Marie Vincent School in central Port-au-Prince, for example, has accepted students from a dozen other schools.

Another blow to Haitian schools was a program that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden launched in late 2022 that allows Haitians and people from a handful of other countries to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds.

Schools in Haiti’s capital and beyond are crumbling as gang violence deepens poverty and disrupts basic Government services, as the state education system faces severe challenges.

Gangs killed or injured more than 2,500 people in the first three months of the year, with violence disrupting life in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and elsewhere.