Full-Time Nurse Coming Soon!!! We have two amazing, dedicated women who oversee the health team, Camilla Daly and Debbie Phillips. With much hard work, dedication, zoom meetings, and collaboration with the administration in Haiti, we are thrilled to announce that a full-time nurse will be starting soon. Haiti Scholars can support 3/4 of the salary for a nurse, while the school will help fund the extra 1/4 that is still needed. It is an example of a true partnership. This nurse position is perfect timing because physicals will begin at the end of the month. The nurse will be our needed messenger to share which children require extra support and care. Please keep this project in your prayers. With the generous outpouring of donations, we will support 487 physicals. We never imagined that we would help support so many needed physicals. We look forward to sharing more about the nurse and physicals soon.

Woo Hoo-Happy Dance!!!

Thank you for voting for Haiti Scholars with Conquest Graphics. We are thrilled to announce that we received a $500 grant, plus 10% off all marketing materials. Getting any donation was a win since we had to get votes in several days before the holidays. Your vote made this happen, thank you

Scholarship Meeting-Our dream to provide a meal a day

This week the scholarship team met on zoom. We had a productive meeting. We learned several of our students enrolled in the tutoring program have missed some days because they have no food to keep them going for the rest of the day. We are working on solving this issue. We know that many students go to school hungry. A dream since the beginning of Haiti Scholars is to provide a meal a day to the students at the school. It has been an extreme obstacle. We continue to look for ways to support such a project and pray to serve children in much-needed nutritional support this upcoming year. What we know is if children are hungry, they cannot learn. After school tutoring program: Monday-Thursday. 1-4

The Gold Medal-A Diploma

By Nicole Waite

President of Haiti Scholars

You might remember from last year this image of Sophia Lodge, a sophomore at Naperville North High School who ran a sports drive for our school, Centre D’Etudes Lumiere. We packed barrels and barrels, stuffed to the brim with sports equipment, water bottles, and gym shoes. Then we had the waiting game for the 17 barrels to arrive safely to the school. Oh yeah, put in the fact that these barrels are in transit when the president of Haiti is assassinated, there is an epidemic of gang violence and kidnappings, inflation is at its highest, a devastating earthquake hits the country, and Covid 19 is rampant (with no vaccinations). So when we recently received pictures of our students playing baseball on a dusty cement playground, one couldn’t help but smile. 

This morning, I listened to stories of Olympians who fight the inordinate challenges to reach their dreams of participating in the greatest games of all time, the Olympics. In my opinion, there is a parallel to these determined Olympians to the children in Haiti who forge ahead enduring a life of poverty, political unrest, and lack the basic needs of medicine, food, and school supplies to succeed in school. 

Haiti Scholars' mission is to provide support and help to students in Mariani, Haiti, in hopes for a better life. We still haven't participated in our Olympics yet, for our oldest students are now in the 10th grade. In Haiti, students graduate high school in the 13th grade. Our dream is that we will have a few Olympians of our own in a few years. They might not be playing on a baseball team or sledding down a mountain, but we have high hopes they will have earned a diploma. Who knows what doors will open when they have won their most crucial game, a high school degree. We can only wait and see. But dreams can become a reality as we repeatedly see with talented Olympians. So in four years, our vision is to see students taking their victory lap of a high school degree. What a day that will be!!! Maybe at that time it will be safe for us to be there to witness them receiving their gold medal, a diploma.

• The enrollment rate for primary school in Haiti is 57%, and fewer than 30% of the students reach 6th grade.

• Secondary schools enroll 20% of eligible-age children.

• Haiti’s literacy rate is 52.9%.

• Haiti ranks 177th out of 186 in the world for national spending on education.

After School Tutoring Program Begins

By Mary Goetz

During a recent monthly zoom meeting with our Haitian partners and our scholarship team, a situation was brought to our attention concerning some of our students. Fifteen of our 48 students are failing and six more are struggling with school work.“If you fail a grade, then you must retake the year. We want to prevent this from happening,” says Pastor Valcourt and Wilna Narcisse.

Because of this discussion, Haiti Scholars will partner with staff at Centre D’Etudes Lumiere to provide an after-school program beginning January, 2022. The Haiti Scholars team here in the U.S. is dedicated to our 48 students who have been provided scholarships to attend the school in Mariani, Haiti. We are thankful for Wilna’s service and dedication to Haiti Scholars. She gives us updated reports on student progress, meets with families, and helps to develop and implement a successful program. The after-school tutoring program will be implemented from 1:00-4:00, Monday through Thursday. 

We at Haiti Scholars, Inc. are dedicated to ensuring success for the scholarship students. These children are from very poor, uneducated families where most parents cannot read or write. The parents cannot afford to pay for education for their children. The children experience daily trauma of poverty and unrest. We want to break the cycle and help these students succeed and graduate from high school, giving them a chance for a better future. We walk beside our Haitian partners who gave the suggestion for the after school program. 

The cost to tutor these 21 students in the after school program is $25 per month per student. Please keep these children in your prayers and if you would like to donate to giving these 21 students the extra tutoring that they need, please visit our website: HaitiScholars.org.

“When things are hard, teachers rise to the occasion. It’s why we answer this call. There will never be a replacement for one human connecting with another, for an adult to stand beside a young person and walk side by side.”

Teacher Sarah Brown Wessling

Just look at the smiles; it melts your heart. At this month's Saturday program, the volunteers, Wilna and Pastor Valcourt, wanted to do something special for the Haiti Scholar-sponsored students and their families. So families and students joined together for food, games, gifts, and celebration. We are very grateful for the dedication of the volunteers that made this party possible. Watch a little video of children singing "Yes, Jesus Loves Me" in Haitian Creole.https://youtu.be/1xQx3Kjcyxs

Wonderful Wilna

An interview with Wilna Narcisse Her role with Haiti Scholars

By Emily Harvey

Wilna with her kindergarten class in 2014

Wilna on her wedding day this year

Wilna Narcisse is the director of the preschool program at Centre D'Etudes Lumiere. She has worked at the school for ten years. As a result, she knows every student and family that is part of the school. This year Haiti Scholars is beyond excited that Wilna will continue her partnership with us to help ensure the scholarship program is successful. Wilna's role is to create reports on each student's progress in school, meet with families, help us develop and maintain a successful program.

During our last month’s zoom meeting we were able to talk to Wilna about her position at the school and working with Haiti Scholars.

What inspires you to work with Haiti Scholars?

You guys – to see that you live very far from Haiti in another country, you don’t even know the kids or their parents, you’re of a different nationality but yet you are so strongly committed to support the kids and help them. That helps me realize how great it would be for me, as a Haitian, to help and support the kids.

What are the main challenges you face?

Sometimes it’s really hard to find the parents - some don’t have a cell phone or cell phone number making it difficult to contact them. Even parents that do have cell phones are still unreachable.

The parents don’t always help me with the kids. I’m doing the majority of the work to keep them in school and managing communications. It’s even more difficult for the little kids, since some parents don’t know how to read and write. So when we have a letter for the kids, the parents have a hard time understanding what is being communicated t th

to them.

What are your hopes for moving forward with Haiti Scholars?

I pray that God can keep providing and giving Haiti Scholars the means to continue supporting the kids.

Your favorite memory related to Haiti Scholars?

During quarantine for COVID-19 when Haiti Scholars sent resources to Pastor Valcourt to make food kits and sanitary kits for the parents of the kids. That touched my heart and I will always remember that.

The kids are a great source of blessings for me. On the day of my wedding, all of the kids came to the marriage ceremony and they all gave me thoughtful gifts.

Favorite bible verse

I love the bible – reading it, learning about it. My favorite verse is from 1 John 3:18, “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.”

Our final thoughts

The Scholarship Team continues to meet on zoom with Wilna every month for updates and discussions. During each meeting, Wilna radiates her love for the children for whom she serves. We are grateful for her work, direction, and passion, and love to strive for the best education possible for our scholarship students. In addition, she is instrumental in implementing the Saturday program. Beginning this October, on a monthly basis, staff will meet with our scholarship students. We are excited to share more shortly about this awesome program. Mesi Anpil, Wilna!

Wilna on zoom, sharing her thoughts about working with children at Centre D'Etudes Lumiere and Haiti Scholars 

This year Haiti Scholars is committed to supporting 43 students. Our goal is to help these students succeed grade school through high school.

We still have students who are not sponsored for the 2020-2021 school year.  If you would be interested in supporting a student, please click the link below.

$35 a month will sponsor a child for primary school for a year.(preschool 1-6th) This will cover school tuition, uniform, deworming program, and school supplies.

$55 a month will sponsor a child for secondary school for a year. (7th-12th). This will cover school tuition, uniform, deworming program, and school supplies.

If you wish to give a monthly donation towards a scholarship, please write it in the comment section when you sign up.

Thank you for giving the gift that will change a life and give hope.

Sponsor a child.

Haiti Scholars Updates: A lot has happened!

Just showing we care.  We wish we could do so much more. A gift of food.

J

Haiti Update about our next trip!

As most of you know our trip to Haiti in February was rescheduled due to political unrest. We are all praying that we will return on June 4th, 2019. We have a fantastic trip planned, our mission and goals are to build relationships by collaborating with teachers, students, staff, and families. We are bringing the first 24 computers to the school, planning staff/teacher collaborative meetings, team teaching, nurse shadowing, sharing a meal with our sponsored students and their families, providing lunch for the students and staff and much more. We can't wait to reconnect with our old friends and make new friends.

Students at Highlands Elementary School Makes a Difference

The student advisory board at Highlands Elementary School organized a school supply drive for the students at Centre D'Etudes Luminere in Mariani, Haiti. They collected an estimated $1000 of school supplies. These students helped us collect and pack up all the supplies. We have 14 suitcases filled to the brim and ready to go to Haiti. We are overwhelmed by the generosity of the families and teachers at Highlands. Thank you, Highlands! You do always choose KIND!

Haiti Scholars donation of food after protests

We wanted to do something from afar that could help our students and families during this challenging period in Haiti. Let me say this first, Praying Pelicans ROCKS!!!! (see below more about Praying Pelicans) They are the reason Haiti Scholars has been able to accomplish so much in such a short time. So when we asked, Caroline Bazin (our team leader), how we could help, she reached out to the local Praying Pelican team in Haiti. The group in Haiti recommended, "If Haiti Scholars could supply the funds then they would buy food and administer it to the community."

We did a happy dance this week when we received some pictures and videos of the families receiving the food. It wasn't much, and we wish we could do so much more, but we wanted to let the community know we are there in support even if we are so far away.

Barrels arrived!!!!

In November we sent three barrels of school supplies. We weren't sure if they would arrive due to the protests and just the fact that we have never done this before. Guess What? They came this week!!! We are doing another happy dance!!!

Thank you Gary Henry for setting up our facebook page.  Check it out!

Please continue to keep the people of Haiti in your prayers and thoughts.  It is a time of uncertainty for this country.  Pray for peace and resolution.  

A little bit about Praying Pelicans

Praying Pelican Missions aims to give your missions group the opportunity to make a long-term, genuine impact on a local community. When your team joins us for your mission trip, your group will work directly alongside local ministries where you can help to meet real needs. 
Prayingpelicanmissions.org

Family and Friends just wanted to let you know that Haiti Scholars mission trip has been postponed due to unrest in the country. I understand why this country is upset and needs change. Please pray for peace and resolution for the people of Haiti. WE WILL RETURN and are currently looking for ways to help from afar.

On a personal note, my heart breaks for my friends who live there. We look forward to when we will soon return. Thank you, team, for your unbendable support and faith in making this mission continue.

Our trip has been postponed due to a "crime and civil unrest.

•  Level 4 Travel Advisory
• 'Do Not Travel To Haiti,' U.S. Tells Citizens, Citing Violent Unrest

More details to follow ...

Haiti Mission Trip