[ti:UN: Violence Is Harming Haiti's Schools]
[al:Education Report]
[ar:VOA]
[dt:2024-08-21]
[by:www.voase.cn]
[00:00.00]Schools in Haiti are operating without enough chairs, blackboards, and even bathrooms.
[00:09.11]Violent criminal groups limit basic government services and deepen poverty while the state education system faces a $23 million deficit.
[00:23.19]Yasmine Sherif is the executive director of the U.N. organization Education Cannot Wait.
[00:31.44]"The country needs help," Sherif said during her three-day visit to the Caribbean country in July.
[00:38.82]Sherif said the organization provided $2.5 million to help nearly 75,000 children in Haiti with money, food and other programs. 
[00:50.77]And she asked the European Union and other countries, including France and the U.S., to help close the educational deficit.
[01:01.06]"My main concern is security," she said, noting the effect that violence has had on education.
[01:08.98]Criminal groups, called gangs, killed or injured more than 2,500 people in the first three months of the year.
[01:18.45]Violence has seriously affected life in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and elsewhere.
[01:24.61]At least 919 schools remain closed in Port-au-Prince and in the central area of Artibonite because of gang violence. 
[01:35.60]The U.N. says that school closures have affected more than 150,000 students.
[01:42.71]"Education is part of the solution," Sherif said.
[01:47.99]"That would end extreme poverty, extreme violence and create political stability and create a reliable workforce."
[01:58.21]Gang violence also has left some 580,000 people homeless across Haiti, with many crowding into temporary shelters or taking over schools, causing them to close.
[02:13.31]Schools that remain open are increasingly forced to take students from others that have closed.
[02:20.90]The Jean Marie Vincent School in central Port-au-Prince, for example, has accepted students from 12 other schools.
[02:29.46]Charles Luckerno is the head of the Vincent School.
[02:34.27]He said, "We're not the only ones" facing such serious problems.
[02:39.71]Luckerno said that when classes end for the day, people left homeless by gang violence enter the school and sleep on its ground.
[02:49.80]Although that creates health problems, Luckerno still lets them stay. 
[02:55.35]He said, "We are human. We cannot throw them out."
[02:59.47]Williamson Bissainthe is a 22-year-old high school student who is preparing to take his final exam to graduate. 
[03:08.83]He described the sad state of some schools.
[03:12.67]"A lot of schools are missing benches or chairs.
[03:16.36]Teachers do not show up on time. 
[03:19.15]The hardest part of this is that there are no bathrooms," he said.
[03:24.09]Bissainthe added, "I hope that the generation that comes after me doesn't have to go through the same suffering."
[03:33.05]Private schools are out of reach for many in Haiti, a country of more than 11 million people. 
[03:39.71]More than 60 percent of the population earns less than $2 a day.
[03:45.56]Among those who have been forced to flee their homes is 20-year-old Megane Dumorcy. 
[03:52.81]She would like to study agriculture, but completing her education has been difficult.
[03:58.34]"The insecurity has had a huge impact on my life," she said, noting that some students have been forced to leave their backpacks behind as they flee gangs. 
[04:11.12]"The state should find a solution for that. We shouldn't be living in a country where our movement is limited."
[04:18.27]She said her school is only half-built and lacks a library, a computer room, a blackboard and chairs.
[04:26.81]She does research on her phone when needed.
[04:30.43]Another blow to Haitian schools came in late 2022.
[04:35.88]That was the time the U.S. started a program permitting Haitians and people from other countries to enter the country on humanitarian grounds.
[04:46.34]"A lot of teachers left," said Frantz Erine, an official at the Jean Marie Vincent School.
[04:53.76]I'm Jill Robbins.