Haïti - Pays en crise

Nouvelles du front

16 August 2004: Visiting a summer camp for war-affected youth

© UNICEF/HQ04-0128/Kamber

A boy comforts his sister at the funeral for their mother, who was shot by an unknown assailant in the days following the take-over of the northern city of Gonaives by rebel soldiers in late February.

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During a historic goodwill football game promoting peace in Haiti, UNICEF will help bring to the world's attention the plight of Haiti's children. On 18 August, the national team of Haiti and defending World Cup champion Brazil will play a friendly match in the capital, Port-au-Prince, to promote peace and encourage armed factions to hand in their guns.

UNICEF's Patrick Slavin is covering the event and reporting on UNICEF-supported programmes for vulnerable Haitian children

PORT AU PRINCE/NEW YORK, 16 August 2004 - "Hey you, hey you." In friendly, broken English, that's what scores of young Haitian children called out to me this morning when I was leaving 'Timoun ke kontan' ('Happy Children'), a UNICEF-supported project for war-affected children.

They were part of a group of hundreds of kids, aged five to 12, wearing bright red 'Timoun ke kontan' t-shirts and boarding buses home after a day playing soccer and going to art classes. They were like ordinary kids all over the northern hemisphere, heading home after a day at summer camp. But these aren't ordinary kids, and this is no ordinary summer camp.

UNICEF has played a key role in opening summer camps in five Haitian cities where violence raged from January through mid-March, when armed gangs and other criminals terrorized many parts of the country. Some 15,000 kids from poor areas are participating in the camps, at no charge to them or their families.

Paulo Sassarao, UNICEF Haiti's Programme Coordinator, said the summer camps project is the first time that UNICEF has taken a lead role in creating summer camps for war-affected youth. UNICEF is the programme's biggest funder, contributing $500,000.

"Play is so important for kids and we want these children to feel like this September will be the beginning of a normal school year," said Sassarao. "Plus we're working to provide all 15,000 of the kids with scholarships for the coming school year."

Part of the camp experience for youngsters is to participate in carefully designed psycho-social programmes.

"Many children witnessed deaths, some kids even saw their parents murdered. And there were many other violations, including rape," said the Coordinator of 'Timoun ke kontan' Jean-Louis Lambeau. "Our psycho-social programs are complex and participatory, and they've been designed by psychologists at the State University of Haiti, with UNICEF's participation."

Mr. Lambeau explained how the programme works: "The four-week camps have four psycho-social components. The first week we stress self-awareness. Then, subsequently, we work on weekly themes about the wellness of others, knowledge of the world, and then, finally, democracy and citizenship. One of the aspects of the art classes is to draw self-portraits, which are analyzed by our child psychologists."

I was struck by how shockingly thin many of the kids were - Haiti is one of the hungriest nations in the world. An estimated 62 per cent of the country's 8 million people are undernourished.

I spoke with Ricarlene Agenor, 11. She told me that yesterday she had eaten two small meat-filled pastries, one when she got to the camp, the other when she left for home. There was no food at her home. So far today, her stomach was empty.

Bobby Duval, who runs the camp I visited today, promised me Ricarlene would eat today. The programme is designed to serve breakfast and lunch to the kids. I've known Bobby for 14 years - he's a former political prisoner and a survivor of 'Baby Doc' Duvalier's prisons. During the school year, he runs a sports club for poor children, most from the capital's poorest and most dangerous slum, Cite Soleil (Sun City).

"Once I heard that 'Timoun ke kontan' would offer psycho-social programmes, I was all for it," Duval said.

Before the Brazil-Haiti match on Wednesday, a youth game will be played between teams from Belair and Cite Soleil, two tough neighbourhoods and home to rival armed gangs. Duval commented: "If Brazil and Haiti can play together, so must our country's children."