As many of you know, Morgan Wienberg and our Little Footprints team in Haiti are featured in the recently released documentary Not About Me. As part of the film’s social justice initiative, Morgan and filmmaker Kelly Milner have launched a parliamentary petition calling on the Government of Canada to issue a federal travel advisory against orphanage volunteering and tourism.

“Child protection and family preservation are at the heart of our work in Haiti – and we do it with the generous support of our donors,” Morgan Wienberg, Director of Little Footprints Big Steps Haiti Operations. “Now we are asking our supporters to help us hold our government accountable to protecting children’s rights around the world.”

The United Nations International Resolution on the Rights of the Child officially recognizes that orphanages violate human rights and that volunteering and visiting them fuels a global orphanage industry that puts children at risk of exploitation, trafficking and abuse.

“Canada has a responsibility to protect the rights of children worldwide,” says Yukon Liberal MP Brendan Hanley, who is supporting the initiative. “This travel advisory is a small but important step we can take.” Watch the statement about the petition in the House of Commons.

“We are passionate about working with Morgan to help raise awareness on these important issues,” says Not About Me director Kelly Milner. “Our goal is to promote informed generosity that is safe and sustainable for vulnerable children and their families.”

HOW TO SIGN THE PETITION

The petition is published on the Parliament of Canada's website and is open for signature and will close tomorrow, April 21st. We still need signatures! Take action by signing today. Any Canadian citizen, regardless of age, can sign."

WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY

Not About Me is now available to rent on Vimeo.

Recent Activities

Houses for Earthquake Victims

Last quarter, the LFBS team completed construction of nine homes for victims of the August 14th earthquake. The LFBS team worked long hours for 6 days a week and completed nine homes in less than two months

These homes were generously donated by our partner, Digicel Foundation. Digicel Foundation purchased the homes from Maxima, a company in Port-au-Prince, and paid to ship the homes from Port-au-Prince to the South. LFBS has supported families with Maxima houses in the past following Hurricane Matthew in 2016; these homes have since withstood hurricanes and the most recent earthquake. With support from our incredible network of donors and our partner Child Hope International, LFBS paid local workers to construct the homes and purchased cement and other supplies to complete foundations for each home.

Before the earthquake in August, LFBS identified a number of families who needed housing support due to inadequate living conditions. When the earthquake struck, these families became even more vulnerable. Many individuals were traumatized post-earthquake, especially after seeing cement structures fall in and kill neighbors and family members, and the tin roofs on Maxima houses granted families peace of mind as aftershocks continued to rock southern Haiti through January 2022.

One vulnerable family was identified by the LFBS team during outreach efforts in Camp Perrin, a town 45 minutes north of Les Cayes, during the aftermath of the earthquake. The family’s cement home had fallen in, killing relatives underneath. With nowhere else to go and little access to machinery to move the debris, the family camped out on top of the rubble for weeks. LFBS staff were deeply troubled by the family’s situation and worked tirelessly to construct a Maxima home on the family’s land nearby so that they could move to a safe location and begin to process their trauma.

We are excited to announce that Digicel Foundation has committed to donating 11 more homes, totaling 20 safe homes for earthquake victims. This would not be possible without our incredible LFBS team in Haiti, our generous donors, and our amazing partners. Thank you!

Fruit Tree Distribution

In January, the Trees that Feed Foundation donated a couple hundred fruit tree seedlings to LFBS. LFBS hired an agronomy student that we support to take care of the seedlings. Once they were ready, the LFBS team distributed and helped plant the trees to families across southern Haiti. As they grow, the fruit from these trees will help families with food security. Many thanks to the Trees that Feed Foundation for their generous donation!

Staff Professional Development

Over the past few months, LFBS staff have participated in a number of training sessions to learn about best practices in community development and child protection. First, staff took part in a training from partner organization LETS. The LETS Training Program provided reproductive, sexual, and basic health and wellbeing training to LFBS Staff members in order to reinforce and empower youth during family visits to make more informed choices about their health. The training provides participants with a bracelet that they can use to track their menstrual cycles and prevent unplanned pregnancies from occurring. We intend to have the LETS Training Program offered to youth LFBS works with as well, and since our team has already received the training they will be able to reinforce its messaging in their interactions with those youth and their families.

As we come to the middle of November, we are starting to transition away from emergency aid and beginning to focus on long-term recovery efforts. Our staff have been focusing on completing and analyzing evaluations of beneficiaries' needs following the earthquake. Our recovery efforts encompass rebuilding, business reinforcement, and mental health support, with a prioritization on housing. Please check out our holiday gifts and housing campaign for more information about families who need homes.

LFBS staff members also engaged in a week-long training session provided by Save the Children about case management. The team learned about documentation tools to use while working with clients. Many different child protection agencies attended the training and the LFBS participants were able to network and collaborate with other child protection actors from all over Southern Haiti. The staff who attended this training plan to recreate it for the entire LFBS team.

In March, as a member of the Groupe du Travail Pour la Protection de l’Enfance dans le Sud (GTPE-Sud) or the “Working Group for Child Protection in the South”, the LFBS team worked to provide community education sessions in Camp Perrin. The sessions covered topics such as family separation prevention, violence prevention, and children’s rights. The team worked to map out services in the area to ensure community members are aware of the resources available to them. GTPE is a regional child protection network coordinated by Haitian Social Services, or IBESR. Working together with Haitian authorities is critical in ensuring that we are learning from and supporting their initiatives - not unintentionally undermining them! Participation in GTPE is a great example of how LFBS strives to stand together with local authorities and other child protection actors in a collective effort for change. As the Haitian proverb states, “men anpil fe chay la pa lou” or “many hands make the load lighter”!