NPFS Haiti recognizes the importance of providing a good quality education for the children in our care. In Haiti the literacy rate for 10 years and above is only 61%, 35% of the general population has finished primary school and only 21% of the population has finished secondary school*. We stress finishing both primary and secondary school to all of our children and encourage continuing onto a professional school or University. The Ste. Helene School has been run by the Salesian Sisters for almost a decade and we have seen a dramatic increase in the education level, the behavior of the children and higher grades.

In Haiti only 1.1% of the general population makes it to University *. When our children reach this level, we want to do all we can to provide the opportunity for them to study at the college level. The years of service are given by our children each weekend while they study their 7 years of secondary school. If they chose to go to university they are required to give one more year of service and then we help them to go to university. In general we expect that our young adults are able to provide a little bit for themselves as we provide the tuition and books. This year we have the largest number our children studying in professional school or university that we have ever seen.

The University of the State of Haiti is the only free university in the country. This school has 12 colleges but the amount of students they can accept is very limited, therefore we need to pay for our students to go to other schools. We have students attending college in Haiti, but also a few students studying abroad.

We are happy and proud to help more and more young adults from Ste Helene to go to university and achieve their dreams, but due to the cost of living, continuing to support them requires more funds from the orphanage.

This project is only about the annual fees of the university or professional school, but we also provide them: books, notebooks, other school materials, and transport.

*info taken from Haitian Institute of Statistics and Information.

If you want to sponsor (part of) this project, or have any questions about this project, please contact your nearest fundraising office. You can also sponsor this project online, by selecting the items you would like to sponsor, and then click "Sponsor Project".