Free, Educate, and Empower Girls in Haiti

Thank You for Your Generous Support

Thank you for your generous support for Beyond Borders’ Free, Educate, & Empower Girls in Haiti project on GlobalGiving. We are grateful for your gift!

Your gift is supporting work with communities to end child slavery, which disproportionately traps girls; improve girls' access to educational opportunities and make schools safer; expand efforts proven to prevent violence against girls and women, and; mobilize everyone to balance power between women, men, and girls and boys.

Your support is making a real difference in the lives of girls like Stephanie and her friend Claire, who are members of one of 16 girls' clubs launched by Beyond Borders.

Girls' clubs provide safe, girl-only spaces where girls like Stephanie and Claire can gather to build self-confidence, develop friendships, and receive mentorship. "Before I joined the girls' club, I didn't know that girls and boys had the same rights and that girls can do anything that boys can," Stephanie said.

Girls' clubs are just one part of the work that your support is making possible. Here’s a complete look at the work to free, educate, and empower girls in Haiti that you’ve helped make possible with your generous support from January through March of 2018:

End Child Slavery, Which Disproportionately Traps Girls

With your support, this quarter, Beyond Borders continued our work with 16 communities to end child slavery and advance the rights of children. Achievements include:

1. Held Open Space gatherings with 560 residents (407 women) across six communities to engage participants in conversation around the theme, “What are participants in Beyond Borders’ Child Rights Training doing in our community to combat the practice of child slavery (restavèk, in Haitian Creole) and other violence against children?”

Participants agreed to the following collective actions to contribute to the reduction of violence against children and children being sent into restavèk:

• They agreed to organize into neighborhood associations;
• They agreed to create economic cooperatives like Village Savings and Loan Associations and Mutual Solidarity groups to help struggling families keep their children at home;
• They will hold campaigns to raise awareness about child rights;
• They will hold training workshops for children and youth on how to protect themselves from violence and how to avoid pregnancy before they’re ready.

2. Held a four-day training workshop with 51 Child Protection Brigade members (19 women), using an adapted curriculum developed by ECPAT - End Child Prostitution and Trafficking, a global network of civil society organizations that works to end the sexual exploitation of children.

The workshop increased participants knowledge and awareness of sexual exploitation and abuse of children, including child sex trafficking and child pornography.

3. Integrated 80 new members into Beyond Borders’ network of Adult Survivors of Child Slavery and held meetings with 97 adult survivors (74 women) across five communities, to advance the survivors’ network.

4. Held trainings for 18 Child Protection Brigade members on advocacy techniques and facilitated 26 meetings with 234 members (78 women) of 13 Child Protection Brigades, discussing a number of issues including:

• Writing and establishing principles and rules of engagement for regional groups of Child Protection Brigades, to streamline coordination of structures working to protect children;
• How to combine resources to develop economic activities to help the very poorest families in a community keep their children;
• Best practices in protecting children who are victims of violence in their communities.

5. Held a training for 55 Child Protection Brigade members on Haiti’s anti-trafficking law.

6. Held a workshop with 13 local elected officials (two women) from four communal sections to continue building relationships with local government toward increased collaboration and coordination of child protection services on the island.

Improve Girls' Access to Educational Opportunities and Make Schools Safer

Your gift is supporting the implementation of Beyond Borders’ Power to Girls, a step-by-step guide to preventing violence against girls. Power to Girls is changing power imbalances between girls and boys in schools through a school-wide process that includes personnel training, establishment of school codes of conduct and referral systems, activities outside of class time for students and personnel, and a related secondary school curriculum that integrates with classroom objectives.

1. Select and train girls’ group mentors and establish girls' groups. Sixteen girls' group mentors were contracted, received a 6-day training workshop, and were accompanied as they recruited participants and launched activities with 16 girls' groups. The Population Council's Girl Roster Tool® was adapted to determine categories of girls to recruit for the groups. Clubs are meeting actively, using Power to Girls materials, and are ready for Phase 2. Mentors participate in monthly meetings to share experiences and learn new content. Staff members support the mentors by making regular visits to group activities to support their facilitation of the groups. A consultant is supporting mentors further in keeping girls' group content interesting and in actively soliciting feedback on direction of the groups and Power to Girls from the girls themselves.

2. Select and prepare schools. The team selected three secondary schools that met the criteria outlined in Power to Girls and demonstrated active interest in participation in the methodology. The selection process included site visits and meetings with leadership and all staff. In addition, all school personnel of the schools that participated in three days of training have selected focal points, or in-school activists for change. Focal points have begun to create a school referral system and to draft codes of conduct that prohibit sexual exploitation of students, to be signed by all school personnel during a second set of trainings.

3. A school director gave this testimony about how Power to Girls has changed how he understands and acts on questions of violence and discrimination against girls: “When violence is a problem at school, I didn’t used to do anything about it. There was a student who became pregnant by another student. He claimed that the pregnancy was the girl’s fault – not his, and he didn’t do anything to accompany the girl. Now, since receiving our first Power to Girls training, I’ve come to see violence against women and girls in a new light. I feel now that this problem concerns me, and I have a duty to do something about it. I’ve come to understand women and men have the same power, and that power should be balanced. I’ve given myself the mission to practice in my free time and use the Power to Girls materials with the classes. I’m committed to work to prevent violence against girls and against women in my school, and in all other spaces.”

Expand Efforts Proven to Prevent Violence Against Girls and Women, and; Mobilize Everyone to Balance Power Between Women, Men, and Girls and Boys

Your gift is also supporting Beyond Borders’ work to expand the movement to prevent violence against women and girls and balance power between women and men in seven new partner communities on La Gonâve Island.

The overarching goals are for Haitian women and girls to have their rights respected, to live without violence, and to access balanced power with men and boys. To realize these goals, our objectives are to:

• Reduce social acceptance of gender inequality, intimate partner violence (IPV), and sexual abuse of women and girls;
• Decrease experiences and perpetration of IPV and sexual abuse of women and girls;
• Increase girls’ sense of safety and freedom to make decisions; and,
• Decrease HIV/SRH (sexual and reproductive health) risk behaviors.

To achieve these objectives, we are following the four phases of SASA!, the three-year community-based methodology that Beyond Borders employs to prevent violence and balance power between women and men. The phases are:

(S)tart: Participants begin thinking about violence against women and girls and HIV as interconnected issues, and foster power within to address them;
(A)wareness: Raise awareness about community acceptance of men's use of power over women;
(S)upport: Support activists directly involved in these interconnected issues by joining the movement; and
(A)ction: Take action. Use power to prevent VAW and HIV.

Thanks to your support, achievements for this quarter include:

1. Held three monthly workshops with 66 Community Activists.

2. Held three day-long workshops to build the capacity of 323 community leaders (200 women) to use SASA!.

3. Held a three-day workshop with 66 church leaders to build their capacity with SASA!.

4. Held two radio soap opera listening & discussion groups with residents in Chen Kontan and Gransous.

5. Held training for 25 journalists (10 women) on how to apply SASA! concepts in reporting themes related to violence against women and girls.

6. Provided a three-day workshop to 70 church leaders, health workers, and community leaders on the Support Phase of SASA!.

7. Provided a three-day workshop to 44 community leaders (22 women) – teachers, merchants, students, and farmers – on the Support Phase of SASA!.

8. Provided a three-day workshop to 225 community leaders – church leaders, teachers, Vodou leaders, farmers, merchants, tradespeople, local elected officials, and members of community based organizations – on the Start Phase of SASA!.

9. Provided a three-day workshop to 95 Community Activists on the Start Phase of SASA!.

Thank You Again

Thank you again for your generosity, your care, your concern, and your commitment to freeing, educating, and empowering girls in Haiti. We are deeply grateful for your support. If you have any questions about what you read in this report, please feel free to call us anytime at (202) 686-2088.

Links:

• Download the Power to Girls curriculum in Haitian Creole here.
• Watch the Girl Power Haiti webinar online, anytime.
• Watch a video about our new Girls' Clubs. (Password: girlpower)