TeacHaiti is an organization empowering Haitian children to emerge from poverty through education. The educational needs in Haiti are truly great indeed. Compared to the average literacy rate among Latin American and Caribbean countries (90%), Haiti’s national rate of 53% represents the severity of the country’s dire need.
While primary education in countries like the U.S. are provided free of charge to all children, families in Haiti must often pay school fees out of their own pocket, which for many families simply can’t be done. As a result, primary school enrollment is a mere 67%, with less than 30% of children who attend school reaching the sixth grade. TeacHaiti’s founder Miquette Denie, was one of these statistics growing up in a poor family.
As a child, she remembers, at the beginning of each month a teacher would call all the students together and read a list of those who must stand up and go home. Their families had not paid tuition for that month because there was no money to be found. When her name was called, her face burned with shame as she began the walk home by herself. Miquette’s story changed because of a very rare opportunity to attend high school in the States that many in Haiti would never dream of. She knew how very fortunate she was and through this the dream of others in Haiti having access to education began. That dream became a reality as Miquette founded TeacHaiti in 2007 and now TeacHaiti educates more than 440 students across Haiti! More than 200 of these students attend their School of Hope in Port-au-Prince, 34 attend their School of Hope in St. Michel and the rest attend partner schools across Haiti.
