Mellier’s parents won’t let anything get in the way of their children’s education
The parents of Léogâne’s Mellier community have a long history of banding together to help one another. In the chaos that enveloped Haiti following the departure of the ruling Duvalier family in 1987, a group of parents in Mellier formed the Association of Parents of Mellier (ASPAM), a PTA-like association to make sure their kids’ schooling continued without interruption. Soon after, they opened a pre-school and an elementary school so their youngest children didn’t have to walk for hours to facilities outside Mellier if they wanted an education.
Léogâne was one of the areas hardest hit by Haiti’s devastating January 12, 2010 earthquake. Officials estimate the tremor destroyed 80 to 90 percent of Léogâne’s buildings. Among the destroyed buildings there were ASPAM’s elementary and pre-schools – along with the homes of most the school’s children.
Even in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, when day-to-day survival was itself in doubt for many, parents began work to get their children back in school. For help, ASPAM turned to CARE, which has supported 78 schools since the earthquake, 20 in Léogâne alone.
“CARE was with us from the start,” says Ginette Louis Jean, director of the ASPAM pre-school. “CARE provided us with school kits for teachers, students and educational materials for the class direction.”
The parents soon re-opened the school in a temporary structure. CARE provided classroom supplies such as benches, blackboards and recreation kits. CARE built latrines, hand wash stations, water purification systems and held regular hygiene promotion sessions. The community pays an attendant to clean the latrines and ensures that the hand wash system is always filled with chlorinated water.
CARE’s work with the school goes beyond standard educational curriculum. A CARE-led program in the school teaches children how to make attractive handbags from discarded items like bottle labels and cigarette packs. The kids earn money selling the items at a local market. Though the program includes boys and girls, it was designed in part to teach income-generating skills to at-risk girls; girls who might otherwise turn to prostitution.
CARE also provided members of the school’s community with psycho-social counselling to help them cope with the intense trauma of the earthquake and its aftermath.
“The psychosocial sessions have helped us realize that we didn’t only need to rebuild our houses, but also our minds,” explains Ginette. After some understandably difficult months, the school’s 250 students, 138 girls and 112 boys, are much happier now, she says.
Despite the extreme challenges created by the earthquake, ASPAM believes it’s a stronger organization now than it was before the earthquake. With 80 percent of its students passing Haiti’s standardized tests, ASPAM acquired land to build a secondary school so its graduates have a place to continue their education as they grow.
“We hope CARE can help us expand the school,” says Lesly Jean-Baptiste, chairman of ASPAM. “But even if it can’t, CARE helped us become much stronger. I’m sure we will find a way.”