IBBY Appeal for Haiti

Since 2007 an active IBBY section in Haiti (Ayibby) under the leadership of Jocelyne Trouillot has been operating amongst the schools and centres for children in the Port au Prince and Montrouis area. The section is based at the Universite Caraibe in Port au Prince at the University press offices.  Jocelyne Trouillot-Lévy is the Rectrice of the University and one of the most prominent authors for children in Haiti.  She writes under the pen-name of Joslin Twouyo and has published books in French and Creole.  Jocelyne and Professor Nadine Gaspard are our main contacts, although the section has among its members many people active in children's literature, such as authors, translators, illustrators, teachers, as well as other organizations.  Before establishing the IBBY Section this group had been active for many years under the name Li pou plezi (read for pleasure), and have campaigned for books in Creole raising the general awareness of children's literature in Haiti.  They worked with the support of the Ministry of Education and other partners in education.

With support from the IBBY-Yamada Fund a successful project called the Joyful Caravan of Books took books to children in areas that had no real access to books and where books in their home language was severely limited.  Volunteers were trained in storytelling and creating reading materials based on local customs and traditions.  The project reached hundreds of children in four different geographic areas, children who would never otherwise have had the chance to read for pleasure as their only books were school text books. 

A year later four devastating storms hit the coastal areas of western Haiti.

IBBY Haiti/Ayibby immediately planned another much larger project to provide bibliotherapy for the children who had been traumatized by the effects of the hurricanes – losing their families, their homes.  Many children were also in need following the collapse of their school when fellow students were killed and many injured.  The power of storytelling is great: "Literature helps us re-write our own stories.  Escaping into literature, in another person’s story is an exercise for our imagination, feelings and language.  Reading stories restores us by providing a necessary relief from the struggle of moment-by-moment ad hoc reacting.  The story we read is a relief from chaos." [Carmen Diana Dearden, Read to Live, Copenhagen IBBY conference 2008] 

With support from the IBBY Children in Crisis Fund, IBBY Haiti trained aide-counsellors, selected the best books available, translated and printed many into Haitian Creole, and worked in several schools in the worst-affected areas of Gonaives and Cabaret. 

A year later a devastating earthquake shook and destroyed the lives of thousands.

IBBY international immediately launched an appeal to collect funds for Haiti. The appeal for funds has done well and approximately donations worth CHF 41,000 have been given.  To date IBBY has sent USD 30,000 to IBBY Haiti/Ayibby in three batches.

After many worrying days our friend and colleague Jocelyne made contact and assured that she was well and would start a new project as soon as she could locate and get her team back together.

Jocelyne and her colleagues identified the camps in which they could work and started working in some of the smaller ones.  They made an inventory of the books that survived in the schools from the previous programme.  Although many of the schools where they worked earlier had collapsed – the head of one of the most supportive school sadly died during the earthquake.  At least 75% of the schools in Port au Prince were destroyed!

IBBY has been able to help with the reading and bibliotherapy programme by sending funds for the re-printing of the books, as well as for the training and support of the staff.  Jocelyne and her colleagues have also been receiving local donations and from overseas Haitians.  Publishers attending the Bologna Children's Book Fair in March this year donated children's books in French and these have been slowly making their way to where they can be used.

Luckily one of the printing presses that had not been damaged has been able to re-print some of the books needed for the bibliotherapy sessions.  In order to have some appropriate books, they quickly re-printed some of the books they had found useful during the earlier project: Bèlanblan ak Bèlanjòn, the story of the friendship of two butterflies who helped each other during sickness and hospitalization.  They had  some beautiful results when working with Gougou pè chyen (Gougou is afraid of dogs).  Jocelyne told us that it was remarkable how the children moved from Gougou’s fear to talking about their own fear of the earthquake and the many aftershocks.  Ti Pouch deals with a child in a wheelchair who insisted he could be the goalie for his team at school.  It was obvious that the children need to be prepared to accept more handicaps.  A new story Goudougoudou, dealing directly with the earthquake was printed recently and used with children in camps and schools.  Goudougoudou relates the adventures of two children who lost their mother on January 12 and eventually find their way to their grandmother in the countryside.  The book is dedicated to the daughter and son of Magalie and Florence, two Ayibby members who perished on that day. 

The team went into the camps to provide through bibliotherapy some relief for the children.  At the beginning, they had seven aide-counsellors who were joined by seven others in March after receiving a two-week training in bibliotherapy.  Unfortunately, more than 50 children and youngsters often went to the sessions, with only two aide-counsellors at each session.  Other problems included late delivery of books, because of the still difficult logistic situation, but they made sure that the children got them even after the sessions were finished.  Many of the books were kept at the camps by the camp supervisors but not all camps could offer an adequate place in which to keep books.

Each aide-counsellor kept an observation and evaluation notebook in which they recorded the happenings of the sessions.  Every few weeks the project director Nadine Gaspard, with the help of some active members, organizes an evaluation session to discuss progress and any difficulties.

During the first two months, the team mainly worked with the reprinted books and copies, but soon they were able to place an order for the purchase of new titles.  A good number of books were delivered in April and the remaining are due to be delivered upon payment.  The section is also looking for shelving to keep the books out of the mud; at present they are kept in boxes.  The hurricane season is approaching, but so far they have been lucky with just heavy rain!

IBBY Haiti/Ayibby will coordinate some work with UNICEF, CODE and the Brazilian Cultural Centre in Haiti.

Jocelyne wrote that it was really fortunate that IBBY Haiti/Ayibby had acquired previous experience with bibliotherapy following the storms the year before – they were ready to help immediately when the need was the greatest.  In most cases, they were also able to distribute a snack to the children: mainly provided by Food for the Poor.

The administration of the project was also very efficiently done.  At a time of an incredible chaos, they were able to gather the team together, select the camps, identify the groups of children, make the necessary contacts with other NGOs and other organizations working in Port au Prince.  It was even more remarkable when one thinks that at the beginning of the project they had to start at zero: most of the institutions that Ayibby worked with and their own members had lost everything.

They are now looking forward to the last segment of the project in which they will work in other regions, such as Ganthier and Leogane – the epicentre of the earthquake – as well as with the orphanages. 

June 2010