The Partnership of Hope

The Partnership of Hope connects particular individuals or churches in North America or Europe with particular literacy centers or classrooms in Haiti.

The cost of becoming a Partner is $200 per month, or $2,400 per year. With this gift, you will be covering most of the cost of teacher training and salaries, books and supplies for the children or adults as well as management for the center or school for an entire year. The local community provides the locale for the center or school and a volunteer committee of local leaders provides oversight for the center or school.

Serving Children: The majority of students in the schools and child literacy centers either live in domestic servitude, are at risk for being sent into servitude, or have been retrieved by their parents from servitude.

Rarely would the families who exploit the labor of servant children decide to pay to send them to school, even though these families may have the means and may be paying tuition for their own children to attend school. The families can often be persuaded, however, to allow the children time off in the afternoons to come to the classroom, which provides an accelerated education for free.

The centers for children living in servitude offer a four-year program. During their four years in the literacy program, students learn reading, writing, math, Haitian history, French, and health. Students in some of the less-remote centers also have the opportunity to go on to learn a trade, such as carpentry, masonry, or dressmaking.

After completing the four years of the program, many of the students who live in servitude are able to convince the family they serve to enroll them in traditional private schools and pay tuition. Over the course of the four years the families have become more conscious of the value of the child who has been serving them and of their obligations to care and provide for him or her. Most importantly, the centers provide an environment of love and acceptance where children come to recognize their own self-worth and learn that they are loved by God.

A large percentage of students in the rural schools come from families too poor to place them in traditional schools. They are identified by members of the local literacy committee. By providing the poorest children in a community with a basic education, we reduce the risk that they will be sent into servitude.

Serving Adults: The literacy centers for adults offer a two-year program. The average class size is about 24 participants for the first year and 18 for the second. Participants not only learn to read, write, and do basic math, they also learn to look more critically at their circumstances, to question and organize for change.

As a participant in the Partnership of Hope, you will receive a Partnership Portfolio, which includes a brief description of the class you are supporting (either for children or adults, depending on your wishes), the conditions in the surrounding community, and photographs of the class. You will also receive a video that takes you into the heart of Haiti and into the lives of some of children and adults benefiting from the literacy program. In addition, you can expect an annual progress report on the child literacy program following our end-of-the-school-year evaluation in June. You will also receive Beyond Borders’ quarterly newsletter, which frequently contains articles on our education programs.

The thousands of young people and adults who have received a basic education through the Partnership of Hope are given the tools they need to build a better life for themselves and their community. You can give them the power to do this through the partnership of hope.

Still have questions? Contact us by e-mail or call the Beyond Borders office at 610-277-5045.