Children in Haiti: Information about children living in poverty in Haiti and the sponsorship of children in Haiti, one of the planet's poorest countries.
Haiti is easily the poorest country across the Americas, earning about £1.40
per person per day and occupies about a third of the island of Hispania. The
territory was in open conflict between France and Spain until 1697 when it was
settled that France could own what is now Haiti and they then began to colonise it and
subjected its inhabitants to slavery.
Haiti went on to become the first nation to have a slave rebellion that led
to independence, however one form of foreign dictatorship was followed by many
domestic ones - with thirty two coups spanning its two hundred year history.
Just as political instability took its toll, so did the ravaging of the
island by humans with an estimated 98% of the country's forests being destroyed leading to
the wasting of farmland and increasing desertification. Today under half of the
population of Haiti has access to any form of basic health care and malaria is
rampant.
As in many of the poorest countries
of the world, education remains a real
problem with secondary school attended by just one in five of eligible children.
It is against this backdrop that in the opening days of 2010 a devastating
earthquake hit this poor country killing an estimated quarter of a million
people and left what sub-standard infrastructure there was in tatters.
Emergency aid is slowly getting through, but, as with all major disasters, it
is the long term that needs addressing as well as the immediate crisis. You can
make a difference by helping one of the many charities listed bellow who are
working with children in Haiti.
