(26 Jul 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Port-au-Prince, Haiti – July 25 2024
1. Students in the classroom
2. Student reading book
3. Students in the classroom
4. Various of teacher writing on blackboard
5. Students walking past the sign to welcome the Executive Director of the UNICEF fund ‘Education Cannot Wait’
6. Various of UNICEF Executive Director Yasmine Sherif walking through schoolyard
7. Various of Yasmine Sherif at the school kitchen
8. Women lining up to get food
9. Students lining up to get food
10. Yasmine Sherif inside the classroom
11. Various of Sherif and students applauding
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of the UNICEF fund ‘Education Cannot Wait’:
“I think a big part of the solution would be resolved through that (education). You will end extreme poverty, you will end violence, you will create political stability and a viable work force.”
13. School principal Charles Luckerno teaching class
14. SOUNDBITE (French) Charles Luckerno, school principal:
“It is very difficult because the camp has a huge impact. At night, after closing the school, the courtyard is crowded with people but we allow them to stay. We are human. We cannot throw them out. That also creates very bad hygienic problems."
15. Various of displaced families camping in the school yard
16. Students walking to school
17. SOUNDBITE (Haitian Creole) Megane Dumorcy, student:
“The insecurity has had a huge impact in my life. The state should find a solution for that. We shouldn’t be living in a country where our movement is limited.”
18. Students walking in the schoolyard
19. Exterior school building surrounded by a wall with barbed wire
STORYLINE:
Schools in Haiti’s capital and beyond are crumbling as gang violence deepens poverty and disrupts basic government services as the state education system faces a $23 million deficit.
“The country needs help,” said Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of the UNICEF fund ‘Education Cannot Wait.’
On Friday, she announced a $2.5 million grant that is expected to help nearly 75,000 children via cash transfers, school feeding programs and other initiatives.
Sherif was in Haiti as part of a three-day trip in which she visited schools and met with teachers, principals, state officials and civil society members. She pleaded with the European Union and countries including France and the U.S. to help close the educational deficit as she noted the impact violence has had on education.
Gangs have killed or injured more than 2,500 people in the first three months of the year, with violence disrupting life in the capital and elsewhere.
At least 919 schools remain closed in Port-au-Prince and in the central region of Artibonite because of the ongoing gang violence. The closures have affected more than 150,000 students, according to UNICEF.
Sherif said education would be a "big part" of the solution to Haiti’s instability.
“That would end extreme poverty, extreme violence and create political stability and create a reliable workforce.”
Gang violence also has left some 580,000 people homeless across Haiti, with many crowding into makeshift shelters or taking over schools, causing them to shut down.
Schools that remain operational are increasingly forced to take students from other institutions that have shuttered.
The Jean Marie Vincent School in central Port-au-Prince, has welcomed students from a dozen other schools, and gives lessons in overcrowded classrooms.
The school grounds accommodate hundreds of homeless individuals who share the space.
AP Video by Pierre Luxama
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