Your July Activity Update
A Message from Morgan
A message from our Executive Director and Cofounder, Morgan Wienberg
Currently, you may be seeing a lot in the news about Haiti. Yes, Haitians are enduring more than anyone should have to and life is very challenging for the communities we work with at this time.
Yet that is not the whole story.
In Haiti, children and families continue to learn, to grow, and to dream. They continue to move forward despite hurricane warnings, extreme inflation, political instability and insecurity. In Southern Haiti, children continue to attend school. Parents continue to strive to provide for their families and their children’s futures every day.
While many families in and around Port au Prince have been displaced due to violence, there are families, communities, organizations and authorities coming together to help care for and reintegrate those families in a safer environment. There are positive initiatives still happening in Haiti every day.
We are proud and grateful that the LFBS team is able to continue working to protect, empower and inspire children and families in Haiti. We’re excited to share with you the incredible initiatives our team has been working on in recent months. Thank you for joining us in standing alongside Haitian communities throughout it all!
With gratitude,
Morgan
LFBS Recent Impact and Activities
As of June 2024, LFBS is actively working with 236 children (104 girls and 132 boys) across all of our programs and projects.
Family Tracing, Mediation & Reunification
Children attending LFBS’ Annual Street Child Meeting.
In May, LFBS had our Annual Street Child Meeting. Every year, on or around Haiti's National Day of the Child the LFBS team mobilizes all of the street children in Les Cayes and other parts of southern Haiti, to this meeting that is specifically for them. The objective is to inspire and motivate the street children to choose to leave the streets and return home, and either go to school or learn a vocational skill. In addition to this, in collaboration with Haitian social services, the event serves as a means to document all of these children, so that there is a record of how many street children there are (to prevent trafficking) and identify if any of them need urgent medical or psychological care. We have psychologists present at the event, along with different child protection actors, to speak about topics like children's rights and child protection, specifically as they relate to the street children who are attending. We also always have former street children attend the event, who have been previously successfully reunited with their families and who are getting an education and have successfully reintegrated into their communities, and these children speak to the current street children to hopefully inspire them to make the same choice to go home. Seeing these former street children speak to and inspire other children always leaves us incredibly proud, and often has our staff in tears! It is so beneficial for the current street children to see other children who were formerly in the same situation as them, and see how their lives have changed for the better. At the end of the event, any street child who wants to make the choice to leave the streets is immediately followed up with by the LFBS team.
This year, we decided to have our Annual Street Child meeting on the day before Haitian Flag Day, and include Haitian Flag Day celebrations into the event, which incorporates an aspect of pride and celebration of Haiti and Haitian culture. In the context of some of the challenging circumstances that exist in Haiti, the LFBS team felt it was important to remind the children of their powerful history and reinforce pride in their country, and remind them that they can be a contribution to their country and its future. This understanding is especially important when it comes to street children, because many of these children are vulnerable to being recruited into gangs, and by inspiring them to return home and make different choices for themselves, they can see linkages between how an investment in their future is also an investment in the future of their country.
Another aspect of the event that we did differently this year was to teach the kids a skill during the event. The LFBS Social Worker Intern taught all of the children how to make bracelets, which is a tangible skill that they can use to create and sell items that will help them generate an income. The bracelets that the children made at the event were in the colours of the Haitian flag, as part of the day’s celebratory aspect.
The completed Haitian flag bracelets!
Amidst the ongoing crisis in Haiti, we are seeing an increase in the number of children on the streets. This year there were over 30 street children that attended the event, which is two times the number of children that were present last year. In addition to their being more street children, the kids were younger than in previous years. Most reported that the reason that they left home to go to the streets was because of hunger, and that there was not enough food at home. This shows just how important it is to empower families with resources and support so that they can stay together, and care for their children, particularly in the crisis context that Haiti is experiencing.
Advocacy & Awareness Raising
LFBS’ Executive Director, Morgan Wienberg, at the Haiti Family Care Network’s second annual Better Together conference.
In June, LFBS participated in and helped facilitate the Haiti Family Care Network's second annual Better Together Haiti Conference. LFBS is one of 5 founding organizations that came together to form the Haiti Family Care Network, a network that strives to provide resources, information and guidance to organizations working in Haiti, in any domain, to support children to grow up in their families.
LFBS is part of the leadership council of the Haiti Family Care Network, and our Executive Director was featured as a speaker at the conference. It was incredible to see so many diverse organizations and individuals involved in Haiti come together specifically to learn and share about best practices for supporting children within families and communities. What sets the conference apart is that it features many Haitian speakers, whether they be experts in child protection, former representatives from social services or Haitian social workers, so that voices being heard are highlighting Haitian perspectives and realities.
Our hope is that the content, resources and connections made at this conference will help create positive impact beyond the event itself. The Haiti Family Care Network, the Better Together Conference, and the increasing number of organizations doing or interested in family based care all demonstrate significant progress! More and more people are learning of the importance of supporting children to grow up in families (instead of institutions like orphanages) - and are seeking to learn how to do so effectively! This is incredibly exciting to witness. Over the past decade we've been able to see and participate in this movement first hand. Social change takes time, but it is possible and it is happening despite many challenges.
Community Reinforcement
Meetings with the parents of children in LFBS’ programs.
Also during the month of June, the LFBS team planned a series of meetings with all of the parents of the children in LFBS’ programs. In each community that LFBS works in, parents were mobilized and engaged to learn about the intent and conditions of LFBS' work, making sure that parents have a good understanding that LFBS' support is not meant to replace parents' responsibility, but rather is meant to reinforce and empower them, and ultimately create conditions where they are self sufficient and do not require assistance.
The LFBS country team has found that these meetings are extremely important and make a big difference in family's perception of LFBS' support, because at the end of the day the families themselves are the ones who are responsible for taking the support being provided and turning it into a tangible difference in their lives.
These meetings also provide a space for the LFBS team to sit down, answer questions, have an exchange, and have open communication with the families we support. It ensures that families are on the same page when it comes to understanding the objectives of our support to them, so that LFBS and the families are all working toward the same goals, which is empowering those families to become self-sufficient.
Members of the LFBS team conducting a community meeting.
Income Generation Opportunities
Thanks to the generous funding of the Whitby Rotary Club, we entered 10 families into our Business Start-Up programming in June. 3 of those families have already completed their initial training and are ready to receive the funds to start testing their small business idea.
Our business start-up programming addresses family separation through supporting parents in the creation of income generating opportunities in their communities. Program participants are equipped with a small amount of start-up capital and the materials for the small business of their choosing, trained in financial literacy and business management, and set up with peer networks to foster peer support and learning. Participants then have the opportunity to test their small business over the program cycle, and make necessary adjustments with the support and feedback of LFBS’ Activités Génératrices de Revenu (AGR) Agent and their peer networks. LFBS continuously follows up with program participants to ensure that activities are proving to be successful and that the income generated is helping contribute toward providing for the needs of children.
In the past, families receiving business start-up support have become more food secure within six months of receiving support, and become better able to cover their children’s needs. By empowering parents to have the economic means to care for their children, this support ensures the long-term success of family reunification and helps prevent neglect as well as family separation.
Successful families have inspired others in their community to increase family revenues and better care for their children, starting a ripple effect in community and economic development.
Impact Story: Lovelie & Widelene
Recently, LFBS was referred the case of a young girl, Lovelie*, who had run away from an orphanage after experiencing sexual abuse. LFBS was able to locate two members of her family, a sister and a cousin. Lovelie’s sister lives in a very rural area where there is no access to education, so it was determined that Lovelie would benefit more from living with her cousin, Widelene*. Widelene is a loving guardian and eager to care for Lovelie, but the family is poor and experiences issues with access to nutrition, which has affected Lovelie’s health. LFBS is currently providing emergency care (nutrition, heath, and hygiene supplies), however there is a great need to reduce this family’s dependency on aid.
The LFBS team met with Widelene, and assessed that she had great initiative and capacity to succeed in running her own business. Widelene is now one of the 10 participants in the business start-up program, and is so excited to be benefiting from this income generating opportunity.
*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of our beneficiaries.
LFBS currently has over 40 other families, just like Lovelie & Widelene, on our waiting list for Business Start-Up programming. To support LFBS’ programming, please donate here.
Events
You’re invited…
We are excited to share that LFBS will once again receive the proceeds from the 2nd annual Golf for Freedom event, thanks to the generosity of our supporters Pauline and Eric Rodriguez, Guido Di Franco, and Stallone Media.
Location: Richmond Hill Golf Course, Toronto, Ontario.
Date: Thursday, October 3, 2024.
To register, sponsor, or find out more please click here.
Thank you!
Thank you for being a part of our incredible community of supporters and donors. Because of you, we are making real, impactful, and lasting changes in the lives of children, families, and communities. You are a partner in this work and we couldn’t do it without you. Thank you for your interest, support, and caring, and for being a catalyst for change.
Thank you for your shared commitment to our mission to protect vulnerable children in Haiti by reuniting families and empowering them with resources and opportunities to build a self-sufficient future.