Good work continues in Haiti, despite violence

Despite the risk of working in in a country where gangs control or threaten many areas with violence, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC)’s staff and 11 partner organizations continue to serve people in Haiti in their communities.

MCC’s partners are adapting their projects and changing the ways they work. Yet, they are still addressing long-standing needs for water, education, agricultural development, mental health and abuse recovery, job readiness training and more. MCC’s Haitian staff work with them.

Gangs started ruling Haiti even before President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in July 2021. Despite ongoing attempts to establish a functioning government, gangs have continued to fill the leadership vacuum by violently exerting control over territory and the people who live there.

The impact of gangs is felt especially in the capital of Port-au-Prince, though they are present throughout the country, says Rony Janvier, MCC representative in Haiti. MCC’s office is in the capital. “Anytime you go out in Port-au-Prince, it’s a risk,” says Janvier. Even if the road you are taking has no reports of violence or roadblocks, you could be hit by a bullet at any time.

Nevertheless, in Kafou Fèy, one of the vulnerable and violent neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, an MCC partner is making it possible for children to attend school. The partners in this article are not named for their protection.

For many years, MCC’s partner has helped the vulnerable children in Kafou Fèy to attend its private school by providing a low cost or free education. That stopped during the 2023-2024 school year because the school building was overtaken by a gang, causing residents to flee. They became part of the 700,000 people who are displaced  throughout Haiti, predominantly by gang violence, according to the International Organization for Migration.  

This fall the school reopened, and some displaced residents moved back to Kafou Fèy. However, the partner discovered that many parents who used to buy backpacks, uniforms and school supplies for their children could no longer afford them. 
 

“How can you ask this person to send his son to school?” asks Janvier. “Not because he does not have willingness to do it, but the situation makes it so that all that they can try to do is to find something like to eat, not afford education fees and so on.”

The financial struggle for parents is real, according to the World Food Programme, which reported in October that almost half the population “are facing acute food insecurity and struggling to feed themselves.” Job and income loss have affected two thirds of families in Haiti, and prices for food have increased by 22%. 

To make it possible for children to return to school, MCC’s partner adjusted its project, and now provides school supplies to the children whose families can’t afford them. Keeping children in school helps prevent them from joining gangs, says Janvier, who has seen children as young as 10 holding long guns.

“If we can’t continue to support that school, we make the number of children involved in a gang increase,” he says. “If we provide for education support, we can say, ‘OK, we can give these children opportunities. We can make sure that this group of children are less likely to be involved in gangs.’”

In Site Solèy, another neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, a different MCC partner offers economic alternatives to youth who live in poverty. The partner used to work with children, but now they offer job readiness training, volunteer work in technology, training on entrepreneurship and income-generating activities. 

“The main objective of this project is to prevent these youth from getting involved in gangs because gangs are now the option that youth have in terms of making money, to make a living,” Janvier says.
 

To provide these services, partners put their safety at risk every day, which wears on their mental health. In September, MCC offered a two-day mental health training to its partners in Port-au-Prince. 

And in the Central Plateau region, another partner is training more than 100 teachers over three years how to reduce mental health stigma and identify students who need mental health treatment.
 

In Desarmes, a town about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of the capital, gangs prevent farmers from selling their extra crops outside the community, says Janvier. Farmers have less income as a result, but they can at least feed their own families. Decades-long programming there in agricultural development, nutrition, hygiene and environmental protection continues. 

But people in Desarmes and other towns in the rural Artibonite Department live in the shadow of gang violence that threatens to erupt at any time. In early October, 70 people were massacred in the western agricultural hub of Pont-Sondé in retribution for not protecting gang members from police and vigilante groups.

In some areas, displaced people have put an extra burden on the communities that host them. MCC has a partner in southwestern Haiti that has been helping people recover their agricultural production since the August 2021 earthquake. The partner is seeking to expand the project because more people have moved there.
 

Partners are not just asking for funding, he says, but they go above and beyond to help MCC staff visit projects to assess their effectiveness. It’s not safe for MCC staff to drive from Port-au-Prince to the north or south, so they fly when the airport is not under gang control. Partners then use their vehicles, time and human resources to get MCC staff to multiple partners in the areas.

“This is about passion for them. This is because they love what they are doing,” says Janvier. “This is about commitment,” he says, noting one partner who could have moved to the U.S. but has chosen to stay. 

MCC, too, is committed to stay in places like Haiti, even when it’s difficult. “We have been called to serve the most vulnerable people,” says Lizette Miranda, an MCC area director for Central America and Haiti, “and that is why MCC has made that commitment. Our call is to be in those places where it’s the most difficult to be and sometimes it is the more challenging to be.” 

Pray with Lizette Miranda for the people of Haiti. (View transcript)

While MCC’s partners and staff do the “hard work,” Miranda says, she calls on MCC supporters to walk with them. “We want MCC supporters to walk along our side, praying for the team, praying for the country and praying for our partners, praying for and giving toward the work we are doing.”