Fet Timoun - Children's Fun Day

On a recent Sunday afternoon, St. Boniface coordinated a public health fun day for children in Fond des Blancs. The day, sponsored by COSEDERF, the local children's rights group, followed a week of health promotion sponsored by Unicef and the Haitian Ministry of Health. Basic messages regarding sanitation and nutrition were given followed by each child receiving vitamin A supplementation. Over 100 children attended and participated in fun events such as sack races, tug-of-war, and singing and dancing contests.

How to Buy a Child in 10 Hours - Child Slavery in Haiti

Last night on ABC's Nightline, a story on child slavery in Haiti was aired. There's a great written article here with a link to the video.

The episode is no exageration. Fond des Blancs has not been untouched by this practice. The local citizen's organization, COSEDERF, has been working on this issue for some time. MSNBC did a series of articles and videos in August last year. The journalists visited Fond des Blancs and contacted COSEDERF. An excerpt from this article is below:

Rural poverty

It takes a bumpy four hours in a 4x4 to make the 60-mile trek from Port-au-Prince to the rural village of Fond des Blancs, where electricity and running water are scarce. The center of activity — a foreign foundation-funded hospital, a church and an outdoor meeting hall — sit in the middle of the valley.

Over the treeless mountains to the south lies the Caribbean Sea. Single-room, thatched-roof huts dot the landscape, many housing families with 10 children or more.Fond des Blancs has little communication with Port-au-Prince and the capital's political system has nearly no influence on the area. Lack of police has made it a favorite destination for Colombian planes to drop drugs for local Haitian runners to send onto the United States.

While some families farm or make charcoal, most have no regular means of support. In the most depressed areas, fortunate children are those that are fed once a day. Children in places like these, activists say, are most at risk of winding up in the restavek system.

A group of Fond des Blancs residents formed the Committee to Promote the Rights of Children of Fond des Blancs (COSEDERF) last year in an effort to keep children in the community. The committee circulated a petition which asks Haitian leaders to "fulfill Haiti's obligations to provide free and compulsory education," believing fewer parents would send their children away if they had access to schooling.

"More than 50 percent of the children in Fond des Blancs don't have the chance to go to school," said Briel Leveille, a community leader and member of COSEDERF. "It is said that education is the foundation of development. It is through education that Haitians will one day come out of this misery."

It is believed that access to education is one of the best ways to keep families together, as it is the inability to send their children to school that often prompts parents to send their children away. St. Boniface Haiti Foundation works with the community on several education projects,and needs continued support in their efforts.