Your September Activity Update
LFBS and Les Paradis Haitien at a beautiful lookout on the route between Les Cayes and Jeremie in the Grand’Anse region
Updates from Morgan
During Morgan’s time in Haiti this year, she was overwhelmed not only by our team's dedication and passion, but also by the deep respect and eager collaboration of so many partners, leaders and community members in the multiple regions in which LFBS intervenes. This respect and trust has been built over time, and is proof not only of our impact but of long-lasting relationships. All of this has been possible thanks to YOU - our incredible supporters who have stood by LFBS through thick and thin. The needs in Haiti are very high at this time, and we are incredibly grateful that LFBS is able to continue responding!
Morgan will be hosting an online question & answer session to connect with any of you who would like to hear more about the current situation in Haiti and all of the initiatives the LFBS team has been accomplishing! Stay tuned for another email confirming the date and time for this online event. In the meantime, we'd like to share some updates and photos offering just a snapshot of all that our dynamic team has been working on!
LFBS Recent Impact and Activities
Family tracing, mediation, and reunification
Annual Street Child Meeting
In June, we also hosted our Annual Street Child Meeting in the south of Haiti in partnership with Haitian Social Services (IBESR) and other child protection partners.
Morgan with a former street child who is now reunited with his mother after spending some time in our safe house.
For this initiative, LFBS’ team mobilized all of the street children in the south for the meeting. During the meeting, we conducted psychosocial activities with the children and spoke with them to motivate them to leave the streets and return to their families. Our staff followed up with the children that wanted to reunite with their families. We also used this opportunity to document all of the children with IBESR.
Our staff observed that many children ended up on the streets because their parents could not afford food, schooling, or to care for them at home.
We also observed a couple of concerning trends. Compared to previous years, the street children at our meeting were much younger. Moreover, for the first time in many years, we had one girl participate in our Annual Street Child Meeting. These changes in our participant demographic speaks to the urgent need for investment in and reinforcement of families.
Street Child Meeting in the Grand Anse region (Jérémie)
First LFBS Street Child Meeting in the Grand ‘Anse region organized in collaboration with IBESR and the Grand’Anse Regional Working Group for Child Protection
A new major development for LFBS is the expansion of our street children initiatives. Our years of experience of family reunification in the south have allowed us to start spreading our initiatives in other departments of the country.
In July, for the first time, LFBS organized a meeting with street children in Jérémie, in the Grand’Anse region. This initiative was made possible in partnership with IBESR and the Grand’Anse Regional Working Group for Child Protection.
The Grand’Anse region is relatively more vast than the south department of Haiti that LFBS is based in. As a result, there are less partners in the Grand’Anse region to support child protection initiatives. There are over 40 street children in the Grand’Anse region to our knowledge who returned to the countryside after gang involvement in Port-au-Prince. Nearly all of them participated in our meeting and we learned that their families are extremely vulnerable.
LFBS’ team has followed up with the children alongside IBESR following the meeting to begin family tracing for them and start the process of family reunification.
As we set this initiative into motion in a less familiar region, we are conducting our operations using an intentional approach of learning from the children. Listening to each child’s story not only centers our conversations around the child but it is also a necessary process to understand their unique contexts and determine the best path of action for them.
Community Reinforcement
National Day of the Child
Community Training on the National Day of the Child
LFBS Staff at Community Training
On June 10th, Haiti celebrated the National Day of the Child; a day dedicated to children and to honor their place in the world.
As always, leading up to this special occasion, LFBS participated in community trainings as part of the Regional Working Group on Child Protection (GTPE). Social services from the south department coordinated these training sessions to inform communities about children’s rights. Our team visited schools, orphanages, and communities to speak with children, students, caretaker staff, and with community leaders.
Haiti’s National Day of the Child brings us the opportunity to recognize children’s entitlements to their childhood, protection and simply to experience unrestrained joy. During these few weeks, we were able to show children that they matter and that they are not invisible. The celebrations on June 10th instill within all of us a renewed sense of hope, reminding us of the growing positive changes happening for children in Haiti, and of the promising futures they hold.
Annual Gelee Music Festival
Taken in Coteau, a city on the South Coast, during a nature outing with the children our care.
Haiti holds the Gelee music festival every year in August at the beautiful Gelee beach, in which children can also partake in the lively festivities. Each year, the Regional Working Group for Child Protection creates a protection committee to be present during the festival, as a patrol to observe and respond to child protection threats. This can include anything from children who are lost, involved with substances, abused or other forms of crime.
This year, LFBS was a part of the protection patrol and collaborated with other child protection actors to conduct preventative trainings for the communities in the areas where the festival would be taking place. These training sessions were organized with the primary aim of informing what is appropriate and inappropriate for children and how to react and report if they witness cases of children being abused or exploited.
Emergency Response Activities - The Importance of Partnership and Collaboration
In late August, together with Haitian Social Services (IBESR), LFBS was able to respond to an emergency situation of an infant who urgently needed baby formula. We want to share this case as a testament to the exponential impact that is produced from inter-organizational collaboration.
IBESR had reached out to us about this infant and their mother who have been living in a shelter hosted by a local organization. This organization had been helping the mother, who was a survivor of sexual assault, but they lacked sufficient budget funding to provide the child with milk. LFBS was able to respond and provide formula for this infant whilst they continue living at that safe location because of our close partnership with IBESR.
Both our organization and IBESR may not have responded this efficiently without our existing relationship. To create tangible, meaningful impact, collaboration with other organizations under the coordination of IBESR is essential. Local social services can ensure that different organizations complement each other based on the different areas that we support, preventing duplicated support while strengthening our collective impact. Another key element is collaborating with local organizations that possess knowledge and the skills to apply a more sustainable approach and to meet the needs of the people we work with. It is only through partnership and communication that NGOs can deliver positive, widespread, and long-term change.
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.