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).
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!
