Child Sponsor Haiti

Haiti, with its population of 11.4 million (2020), is the poorest country in the western world following decades of conflict, political instability and 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. Haiti is in 170th place out of 189 countries and territories in 2019 when ranked in terms of life expectancy, literacy, access to knowledge and the living standards of a country with a life expectancy of 64 years (2019). Access to electricity is around 72% in urban areas but drops to just 15% (where approximately 53% of the population reside growing sugar cane, cassava, mangoes/guavas, plantains, bananas, yams, avocados, maize, rice, vegetables). Only 24% of Haiti's population has access to a toilet and the majority of the country's population does not have access to potable water leading to sickness and death. In fact, 80% of all diseases in Haiti are waterborne in a country where, in 2019, the child mortality rate (under fives) was 62.8 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Many will recall the devastating earthquate of 2010 that killed 200,000 people causing $7.8 – $8.5 billion worth of damage in a country where 24.7% live in extreme poverty (less than $1.25 per day) and 59% live on less than $2 a day. Seven years after the catastrophe In 2017, the United Nations reported that 2.5 million Haitians were still in need of humanitarian aid with its Humanitarian Coordinator stating "There are still about 55,000 people in camps and makeshift camps. Many are still living in unsanitary conditions due to displacement caused by the earthquake. We have a very long way to go." Doubtlessly this was, in part at least, due to the fact that pledges of $1.7b only realised $600 in aid. 11% of the entire population of the capital Port au Prince were killed in the tragedy and one and a half million were displaced. Half of all Haiti schools were destroyed in the earthquake along with all of the country's three universities. Although that event was now over a decade ago, even before it occured, thousands of Haitian children were orphaned or abandoned by their parents with an estimated 440,000 children growing up without parental care. With 200,000 dead from the earthquake that number rose exponentially and many of those infants are still only teenagers or young adults today.

This in a country where hundreds of thousands of children already worked in conditions similar to slavery with many engaged as domestics for wealthier families where they are frequently abused even having to sleep outdoors using cardboard for bedding. Other chidlren populate the roads selling wares, shining shoes or worse in a country where the literacy rate is about 61% (64.3% for males and 57.3% for females), significantly below the 90% average rate for Latin American and Caribbean countries. This is probably because around 375,000 children between the ages of 6 and 11 (one-third of this group) are not in school and few children ever complete their seconday education. Child sponsor programs in Haiti are as basic as simply trying to rebuild lives, providing shelter, food, substitute parental care, access to medical care and, where possible, supporting young people in attending school. You can help when you sponsor a child in Haiti.

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