Enter Phase II

Setting up schools for the long-term is the focus of Muslim Hand's aid work in Haiti, alongside providing essential food, nutrition and shelter.

MH Emergency Relief Coordinator, Irfan Khan and children from the MH Haiti School.

Bringing schools to Haiti’s dispossessed children with Irfan Khan

It’s so great to see that our schools in the Delmas 18 area are running smoothly with lots of energetic and fulfilled children enjoying their class time together.

We’ve purchased food and non food items for them to use over the next few weeks. Following the success of this school, a new area (Delmas 32) has been identified as an area which would really benefit from having a camp site school also.

The community members of Delmas 32 are really enthusiastic and more than willing to throw themselves into the project so that looks like it’s going to be a very fruitful venture ahead insha’Allah!

There are about 2500 households in Delmas 32 and we hope to set up a school for at least 300 students aged between 6-10 years old. As well as the school, we will also provide a safe play area for the children as well as regular meals.

The teachers have already been selected (based on their qualifications and experience) and there has even been a school committee drawn up with 5 local representatives from the community! The school is due to officially open on 20th February insha’Allah.

Whilst in Delmas 32, I met with a brother from The Muslims of Trinidad and Tobago and they agreed to provide 6 tents for the new school- due to arrive on Friday in Port au Prince. They’ll also be distributing food and nutritional supplies for both of the schools alhamdulillah.

Construction work is being carried out at a steady and healthy pace here, the floor paving is being completed at the school site and it’s great to see such visible progress being made. We hope it will be finished by the weekend insha’Allah.

Firstly, I sent out a request to have the toilet facilities renovated as their current condition was unsanitary and very unpleasant for the children to use. Now that this has been redone the area is clean with cement flooring and sturdy, reliable doors for long-term use.

Teachers also require textbooks to teach from and copies of the syllabus they were teaching from. We asked the teachers to produce a booklist of the recommended materials they teach from and what the children should have.

It was quite shocking to observe that bookstores were actually extremely rare in the capital city. It took our team a very long time to even locate a bookstore which stocked textbooks and the costs of the books were bordering on extortionate.

After seeing how rare and expensive even the most basic textbooks were, it’s not difficult to see why education is considered such a luxury here in Port au Prince.

We received a shipment of food supplies for the children in the schools and 100 food boxes for shelter camps. The food boxes were immediately distributed and still, despite how long ago the earthquake seems to be, were still gratefully received.

For the school, we also received blackboards and classroom desk-integrated chairs. In total, five chalkboards and 50 chairs were received for the 5 classes and 100 expected students scheduled to be running by next week.

Setting up the schools and laying the groundwork

I’ve been here speaking with school committees about setting up temporary places for children to attend. But before we could do that, we had to make sure that the area was actually cleared of all debris from collapsed buildings and houses.

I sat together with the teachers of the schools in Haiti and some of their requests were so sobering.

Rather than worrying about the where they were in their studies or what topic they were going to cover next, all the teachers were concerned about was making sure the children were treated with the utmost care and compassion- they didn’t want the children to be given any excessive school work of penalised for not performing as well as usual.

This was a really heartening and sobering experience, the compassion of the teachers just went to show how much they were aware of what the children of Haiti had gone through.

Onto the logistical side of things, we delivered classroom furniture, chairs and blackboards from the main base at Al Tauhid Mosque to the school site.

With many of the families still needing temporary accommodation, we managed to set up tents in a couple of hours and could just feel the new ripples of excitement going through the community.

One of the local children from the neighbourhood stood back and silently watched as the tents were being put up. He came over slowly and asked me ‘Sir, will this thing fall? Will it fall?’ Such is their fear following their experience.

There are a local group of Trinidad and Tobago Muslims who we have been distributing food to. As a way of thanks, this group very kindly volunteered to construct a roof for the school after visiting the site. With their skills in construction, they will also build benches and seats with the help of local carpenters.

Another charity on the ground, the Turkish IHH are using Muslim Hands efforts as the inspiration to construct a new fully-fledged school in partnership.

They have also offered to open a mobile clinic at our school site, this will mean that we will be able to provide medical services to the people in the community twice a week insha’Allah.

Children flock to their lessons as the first day begins...

As of Monday the 22nd we officially opened a new school. There was a whole new surge of activity and a definite buzz in the air as crowds of children gathered around the tents waiting to start their lessons.

The teachers arranged the children into neat lines and gave out school bags with pencils and notebooks. This truly was an unforgettable moment as the excitement on the children’s faces was beyond words.

The classes began with a wave of energy from our teachers who got the kids on their feet singing and clapping along in no time at all. These precious first moments were captured on short video clips.

We had 65 children attend the first class which was past our expected mark of 50 children and we hope to see this number grow steadily in coming days and weeks insha’Allah.

For the children to eat a wholesome and filling lunch, we arranged for the World Food Program to deliver regular shipments of food to the school. The food packs are solid dried cooked food items containing a blend of vegetables, meat cubes and noodles/pasta with excellent nutritional value.

The school teachers have been exceptional in their perseverance and care for the children. They showed great initiative by setting up tarp tents to accommodate for the larger-than-expected turnout of children.

This will be kept as a very-short term measure as we begin constructing a new permanent wing of the school.

As children sit attentively in classes and eagerly soak up the instruction and fun from their teacher, it is clear to see that all the efforts have already paid off just to see these children finally being able to just let go and be children for the first time in so long.