Relief for the Spirit
AFD Lay Mental Health Workers lead a workshop at a camp in Tabarre
Aristide Foundation Lay Mental Health Workers Lead Workshops in the Camps
Four months after January 12 the experience of that day — the terror and the losses — remain vivid and present in the minds of all Haitians who survived the quake. Nearly everyone has some degree of post-traumatic stress with hyper-vigilance, startle responses, sleep difficulties, intrusive memories, fear, anxiety, grief, and anger widespread. Even before the quake Haiti’s mental health structure was nearly non-existent. Right now for the majority of the population of Port-au-Prince, who are now living in tents in refugee settlements, mental health care is both inaccessible and foreign to their experience.
Beginning in late April the AFD in cooperation with a group of social workers and doctoral students from the University of Michigan began working together to to create a Haitian-model for lay mental health workers to reach people in the camps. Ten extraordinary young Haitian college students spent a week receiving training from Leah James, a social worker and doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan, and Dr. Todd Favorite and Dr. Mike
Messina, psychologists at the PTSD clinic at the Ann Arbor VA. (Read Leah’s Huffington Post Article Describing the evolution of this project here).
A Day Away from the Mud and Heat
On Saturday April 24 thousands of children from the AFD Mobile School gathered for a cultural celebration at the Aristide Foundation. Since late February the AFD has been operating open-air classrooms serving 1260 children who lost their homes in the January 12, 2010 earthquake. The schools are in refugee camps at Fontamara, Nazon, Tarpage, Carredeux, and Building 2004.
For two weeks leading up to the event teachers and kids in the Mobile Schools prepared presentations on the theme “Life with Love.” On the afternoon of the 24th buses from the Foundation brought the children, their families, and friends to the AFD for the event — over 2000 people in all.
Marie Stuart Roche, the director of the Mobile School project welcomed all the kids to the Foundation — which she reminded them is their home.
Toussaint Hilaire, the Director of the AFD welcomed the children and their families on behalf of former President Aristide and his wife. He reaffirmed to them the Foundation’s commitment to work with them for a better life –a better life meaning: school, food, healthcare, hospitals and parks for them to play in.
Zamor, the coordinator of the schools at 
Nazon then took over as MC and introduced the kids, who put on a spectacular show. The kids from the schools at Nazon danced and sang, the schools from Fontamara put together a threatrical piece about what they lived through at the moment of the earthquake. The kids from the camps near Building 2004 danced and read poetry. The schools at Carradeux and Tarpage performed music and danced.
All the children who attended received new t-shirts, part of a large gift of new clothing from American Apparel. The AFD is distributing these clothes to the kids in the Mobile Schools and to others living in refugee camps around Port-au- Prince. We want to thank American Apparel for the generous donation. There are a lot of used clothes coming into Haiti as donations right now, and while people are in great need of all kinds of assistance, it is especially nice to be able to give the kids new clothes — made in the US, and sweatshop-free to boot.
After the event, everyone present, teachers, kids and their families shared a meal together. It was chance for everyone to be out of the mud and heat that is a daily part of their lives and to celebrate what the teachers and kids in the Mobile Schools have accomplished together over the past two months, under these extraordinary circumstances.
More Mobile School Photos
These photos are from the AFD Mobile School at Carradeux, (near the dormitories of the Medical School of UniFA). Over 1000 families have taken refuge there. The Aristide Foundation is currently working with other aid agencies to try to create more durable temporary housing for the people at Carradeux. The mobile schools, which opened in late February, serve 500 children at this refugee site alone. Here are some pictures of arts and crafts activities the kids have been doing the past couple of weeks.
Mobile Schools in the Earthquake Zone
We launched our Mobile School project in late February to do two things: support children living in refugee camps across Port-au-Prince and to offer immediate employment to young Haitians to work with kids at a time when the whole economy has collapsed. With the generous support from the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund we were able to get schools up and running very quickly. Since late February we’ve been running Mobile Schools, three hours a day, five days a week, serving 1260 kids in 5 refugee camps in the earthquake zone.
This project has surpassed our expectations at every level.
Mobile School Project Opens
A group of AFD Monitors opens a Mobile School site at Building 2004
On Monday Feb. 22, the Aristide Foundation for Democracy inaugurated its first mobile school in front of Building 2004 (near the Parc Jean-Marie Vincent refugee settlement). Mobile School openings at three other locations followed in quick succession this week. Community support for this project has been overwhelmingly positive, with over 1,500 children now enrolled in the program.
Open-air classrooms are now up and running three hours a day, five days a week at four locations: Building 2004/Parc Jean-Marie Vincent – 600 children enrolled, Carradeux (the encampment near the student dormitories of the Medical School of the AFD) – 550 children enrolled, Fontamara 27 (in the southern part of Port-au-Prince) – 150 children enrolled, and Nazon – 350 children enrolled.
Classes are led by high school and college grads (monitors) recruited and trained by the AFD to lead the kids in activities—singing, dancing, artwork, discussions, sports—and to share a snack each day. We hope to add some very basic reading and writing once we have enough school supplies.
AFD Monitors Prepare the Mobil School Project
In addition to reaching out to children in the camps this project offers employment to 102 young Haitians—supporting their families in turn—at a time when the whole economy has collapsed.
AFD-Haiti Director Toussaint Hilaire lead a Mobile School Training Session
A volunteer psychologist and AFD staff led trainings to prepare the monitors. We are now recruiting and training more monitors to meet the needs at these four sites. Ongoing discussion and training for all the monitors on how to support children suffering from PTSD and from the loss of loved ones in the quake is planned for the coming weeks.
To prepare for the mobile schools AFD staff worked with community members in these four refugee encampments to construct shelters to house the classes.
A huge Thank You to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund for making this project possible!
