At the end of this summer’s closing activities, we distributed supplies to as many of the children as we could at one of the local schools. Unfortunately, we were only able to distribute to 120 children among the 438 who took part in this event. Due to a lack of financial resources and funds, more than 500 children were unable to go back to school with the appropriate books, pens, paper etc. on Oct 1st. In this photo, volunteers of REPADS/CPSDA distribute to as many children as we can but it gives you an idea of the joy and happiness experienced by those we could help. Please take a look at the happiness and satisfaction of all the children.

To close out the summer vacation with the children in the designated areas in most need of intervention and support by REPADS/CPSDA, we organized some activities with them. We were also fortunate to have the time to complete a training session with our lawyer and volunteer Mona Jean who is the Coordinator for our Children’s Rights and Protection program. It was an opportunity for REPADS/CPSDA to teach and remind the children of their basic rights to live decently in our Haitian society and to understand that they are be protected by local and national authorities. They were happy to know that the authorities have the responsibility to protect them. Furthermore, there were some other events with which the children participated in like games, a singing contest, music, arts and crafts etc. More than 300 children participated in this successful activity.

Leissa, who is only 9 years old, is the youngest volunteer of REPADS/CPSDA. She helped with almost everything from participating in the training to helping to serve food to the children. She is a happy and devoted girl who’s always eager to contribute her time to bringing help and support to children in need wherever REPADS/CPSDA is intervening. Take a look at her great spirit of service and that beautiful smile, her serious commitment and her sense of humanitarian devotion is outstanding and appreciated. She will be talking about and sharing her incredible and exciting experience this past week with many of the kids at school when she returns next week on October 1st, she told us she will be inviting them to come out and volunteer the next time REPADS/CPSDA is having an event.

 

 

Please take time to look at these two lovely orphaned girls who are in need of clothes, supplies and shoes to go back to school in October. Like many of the hundreds of children in our community, they count on your generosity and your love so that they can return to school with all they need to participate in class, do their homework and feel and look the same as all the other children who have parents to provide these basic necessities. Please help REPADS/CPSDA in sending them to school by assisting us with paying their school fees, purchasing school supplies and feeding them through the after school program. Please remember that: Generosity Equals Prosperity...

In the photograph to your right, a group of participants from the Livelihood Program (50 Breeders from Leogane) are enjoying a complimentary lunch served to them by our devoted REPADS staff following the end of a training session.

Volunteers and REPADS staff, wearing our organizations T-shirts, helped in the logistics of the important training session help for the breeders from Leogane. with willingness and determination from all our volunteers, staff and visitors, we hope to maintain our commitment to work as closely as we can with as many vulnerable people possible, who are willing to learn new techniques for breeding and farming so that they can help themselves improve their living conditions.  

On Wednesday September 11th, 2013, REPADS/CPSDA was able to organize a training session for 50 goats breeders at Leogane. This training session was aimed at following a participatory approach and provided tools and techniques to improve goat breeding in Haiti. Owning your own livestock and breeding goats, cows, chickens and ducks is much like a bank account for North Americans. Haitians invest in their own futures and increase their incomes by breeding these animals not only to provide food for their families (eggs, milk and meat) but also so that they can sell them at a future date to purchase the many other items needed to raise their families such as clothing, furniture, beds, toiletries, school supplies, tuition and uniforms for their children to attend school. At present REPADS/CPSDA is working with several breeder associations to access education and information which will help many individual families (currently over 300) to raise, feed and protect their livestock, thereby providing a real future with fewer hardships and uncertainty.