Children in the Streets of Haiti

By Blanchard, 14 September 1996

I've only been a subscriber for a short time but have not seen any dialogue about the many street children of Port-au-Prince. The following was written by a 16 year old boy from Lafanmi Selavi. He wrote it in english, a language he barely speaks, with the help of three dictionaries, english, french and kreyol, because he couldn't imagine me finding someone to translate it in San Francisco. He hopes to be a journalist.

There are a lots of children in Haiti who are living in the street. There are maybe one thousand sometimes that introduce the big problem about the children Haitian. They are living any way they find but the government Haitian don't ever say anything about that big problem. It's been a long time since there are many children living on the street of Haiti. They started to discover that about year 1986. Many times they see the life is difficult for them. I have a dream about how to take off the children on the street. They are children like all children who are living in the world too, they think like everyone, they would like to be a person in their life. They need people who can help them. They have their place in the society. Who has got a future for those children? Children today will be old tomorrow, let's examine that problem. The problem of children living in the street isn't only to Haiti, that's the way it is, this problem introduced throughout the world. There are many organizations who are working throughout the world about the children.