Time to Celebrate

by Greg Buzek

Time to Celebrate

Let’s celebrate. At the close of summer 2017, the first 100 students started school in Haiti!  (the first phase of classrooms built:  7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th grades).  It’s a celebration that ROI/Lifesong have created SAFE homes (first 3 homes built of the planned 14 homes we hope to have total) for students to be loved, cared for and mentored while going to school…instead of abused, forced to work instead of school, etc.

These first buildings are just the beginning of a long-term construction plan for this community.

 The Need in Haiti is overwhelming: 

• Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere

• 80% of the educational institutions are privately run; fewer than 30% of the children attend high school

• School costs run $600 per year while the average family earns $500 per year

• Often Haitian families feel they are unable to care for their children so they turn to the Restavek System (legalized child slavery) or abandon their children to an orphanage; estimates run as high as 700,000 children enslaved or abandoned

• Illiteracy is above 60%

• Haiti has an unemployment rate in excess of 40%

Our Vision is to: 

• Develop Future Leaders that will Change the Nation

• Grow Loving, Financially Responsible Families

• Provide Transitional Living for our Graduates to Ease Them into Successful Independent Living

• Create Employment Opportunities for our Graduates