Haiti: Lunch for Learning

A school was founded in 2007 with 50 children by a group of Haitian community leaders whose intent was to target the poorest kids of Mirebalais and it’s vicinity to provide them with an education and one nutritious meal per day to help improve health and ensure school attendance.
There are now 150 students attending the school. Grades 1—5 are taught and the students range in age from 6 – 16 years. For children who have never been to school, this is a wonderful opportunity, but they all have to begin in grade one…for example, this year there is a 13 year old in grade one!
The daily feeding program provides a healthy meal, which for most is their main -and sometimes only- source of nutrition. It consists of rice and beans with some chicken or goat meat.
We know that providing a midday meal helps keep the children in school and at the same time, it helps the remaining members of the family since there is now one less mouth to feed. Without the meal program, many children would be required to work and the chance for an education would be much less likely. Many of these kids have been or are at risk of becoming restaveks (slave children).
Just 63 cents a day for each student is all it takes = less than $100 feeds the school! This is just one school in Haiti – the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Its located in a city about an hour from the country’s capital, Port au Prince, and it serves some of the area’s poorest children. Out of the 150 students, only 10 have parents who are employed and in most of those families, it is only the father who is employed; 14 of the children live with only 1 parent and 7 children are complete orphans. The average family size is 5, but some families have up to 13 children.
Unlike some of our other projects this year, this one has no matching grant and the feeding program costs a few cents more per child than some of the larger projects involved, but these children are equally deserving of our help. What a great opportunity and such a satisfying thing to know that you and I can be part of changing lives: both in regards to their health with a nutritious meal and how that meal opens the way for their education . What hope we can provide for the future of these people!
Partnering with Hungry For Life International

Download a this project in PDF
Lunch for Learning Project Page