2 May 2010

early morning parents bring their children – immaculately dressed and squeekingly clean, no matter what the environment looks like – to school. White socks!

Last time I wrote about schools I promised to get some better photos, and I had the opportunity to do exactly that when I accompanied a BBC Panorama crew, earlier this week. Panorama is making a documentary about vulnerable children in Haiti, and they were interested in seeing what Save the Children was doing, so I showed them some of our programs, including a school in Carrefour, one of the most notorious slum areas in Port-au-Prince. And I took some pictures myself.

next: the camps

 

the emergency schools we support consist of tents and tarpaulins, providing some shelter for the children. Obviously, with a television crew visiting we make the most of branding opportunities, with all SC staff wearing the red T-shirts and a banner or two attached to tents and trees. That is, if we think we are doing a good job, which is the case here…..

the school

or the tarpaulin

the schools have been given materials, like blackboards, and the children have received a school kit each, containing note books, pens, pencils etc, things to get them started again. After all, they had lost whatever they had in their houses that collapsed.

Perhaps we need to adjust the height of the blackboards for the youngest kids, though!

in the interval the children enjoy a fresco, shaven ice in a plastic cup, with lemonade or syrup to give it some taste

or they play games, like we all did in school

And let nobody say that Haitian children aren’t cute!

reporter Raphael Rowe talking to a group of very young children,

who – unusually – are in fact somewhat intimidated when getting on camera

at the end of the hot day – it is 11.30 am – interest in waning, even a film crew can’t change that.

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2 Responses to the schools (photos)

  1. Thea says:

    What a nice pictures Bruno!
    How clean their clothes are. It's unbelievable in a country like Haiti nowadays.

    The children are really very cute!

    Thea

  2. BRUNO says:

    I thought so, a bit of a teacher would react to this. But you no doubt remember from your own visit, if there is one country that has cute kids, it must be Haiti. What makes interacting with the children doubly interesting and nice is that they have no inhibition, they are curious, not afraid, want to make most of their exchange with the "blanc". No wonder this is such a popular counry to adopt from…

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