The Book Bank now has more than 800 school books. With that many books, they obviously need to be cataloged carefully. One of our strengths is that we also catalog the child recipient’s name, grade and the date the child received it. Principals, teachers, parents, guardians, and recipients are all involved in the protection of the school books.
This cataloging also enables us to keep track of how many books we manage, how many students we serve and how many children leave school for whatever reason. We are also able to negotiate better prices and monitor the safe-keeping performance of the children. The only thing we ask of the students, their guardians, teachers etc. is to maintain the school books in good condition so they last 3 school years.
Due to the commonality of our objectives and mission, we distribute our books at AEMSA, a community-based school serving the restavek
A.E.M.S.A.
association des anciennes eleves de l’ecole mere sainte alvire
78, rue pierre pinchinat Saint-Marc HaitiThe mission of AEMSA is to provide education to restavek and poor kids regardless of their ability to pay tuition. The community has provided land, labor, construction materials to build the school. The community provides operating cost and teacher salaries. We have provided the school books.
Over the last two years, we have received numerous compliments, strong support, monetary and in-kind donations, and guidance. The most important endorsement came from sister Mary, who has been with the church for 60 years and in Haiti 18 years. Her dedication to charity and compassion is a remarkable life lesson. Her donation has blessed our mission with a foresighted guiding beam of light for the future. THANK YOU sister Mary.
The school year started October 5th, 2011, 2 months later the 8th grade did not have school books. Often it is difficult to understand how an entire class can operate without text books. The will power to learn and attend school regardless of the lack of books, supplies, and technology it is truly remarkable. We purchased school books for the entire class with the exception of chemistry which we could not find.
We went to visit the book bank recipients at their homes to follow up on their school books needs. At times we home delivered school books for the purpose of assessing their financial conditions.While industrialized countries take for granted having school books, in Haiti is a major expense especially after 6th grade. 99% of the kids we visited have limited access to electricity and water. Income is very low and school books are a luxury item.
Thank you, Dirk, for joining us in Haiti, your fundraising, your help and your support was extremely important for the success of this mission, I am grateful for your trust and courage to come and experience first hand what we do and how we do it. THANK YOU
Strong relationships based on clear understandings of what the realistic expectations are, long term plans made of solid steps with only one objective: facilitate education against extreme poverty.
In November 2011, during the retrieval of the school books from the 2010 distribution, we shared recent statistics about the population by age, by income, and by education. Most of the teens disagreed. In their opinion, the majority of Haitians attend university and has much higher income. None of them ever used the internet.