Orphans and Vulnerable Children

Every child deserves a safe childhood. And yet, orphans and vulnerable children in Lahoye—an impoverished, rural community near Haiti’s border—are more likely than any group to suffer from HIV, malnutrition, abuse, and exploitation. As part of an integrated approach to child health and welfare, in 2008 Project Medishare initiated the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Program in Lahoye.

Currently, Project Medishare's OVC program provides children ages 4 - 18 with educational assistance, free health services, spiritual guidance and psychosocial support. We work directly with caregivers to enroll each child in school and provide tuition and school materials to ensure every child can succeed. Children and their caregivers also have free access to health screenings, vaccinations, and consultations at our fixed clinical facility in Lahoye as well as our mobile clinics.

4N2A6283.jpg
IMG_9400.jpg
4N2A6276.jpg
IMG_9528.jpg
IMG_9397.jpg
IMG_9479.jpg
4N2A6354.jpg
IMG_9404.jpg

Children meet for monthly small group activities including arts and crafts, music and dance, theatre, and sports. These sessions also provide an opportunity to deliver psychological and emotional support to children on an individual basis. Program staff offers each child and their caregivers additional ongoing personal assistance through regular home and school visits.

Members of the OVC program are offered spiritual guidance by the local priest, who spends time with families teaching about faith and organizing group prayer and scripture study.

Parents of children in the program express their gratitude for all the services that Project Medishare is able to provide their families. Without this life-changing program, these children would be more likely to succumb to the perils of life in rural Haiti.

Meet the Students

  • Mitha, 18

    “Any day I wake up and get to go to school is a good day.” Everyday, Mitha makes the one hour trek to school from her house, where she lives with her grandmother and one of her four siblings. Sadly, her mother was born mute and her father has never been in her life. Her grandmother has been her primary caretaker for the majority of her life. She loves school and her favorite subject is science, with high hopes of studying medicine one day. “If I have the ability to practice medicine, I want to help my community.”

  • Yonadivenson, 18

    Yonadivenson will be the first high school graduate in his family. “Every single one of my siblings tried to finish school, but there was never enough money.” Thanks to our Orphans and Vulnerable Children Program, Yonadivenson was able to live a different experience. His mother, a single mom of ten, sells food on the street to get by. Without a proper education, his siblings have found it difficult to find jobs that pay anything other than small wages. Their lives, like many other families in Lahoye, have been far from easy.

  • Gedeline, 13

    She and her three brothers live with their mother and father, who both work long hours as farmers. “They leave at 6am and don’t return home until 10pm.” Despite putting in long hours at work, the couple was having difficulty finding the resources to pay for Gedeline’s school fees. We were able to enroll Gedeline in our OVC Program, which now covers her school fees. Gedeline says this is a huge stress relief on her family