HAITI / EDUCATION

UNICEF is working to get children back into the classroom in Port-au-Prince. For schools that were destroyed, there is school in a box, which includes a stand alone emergency school tent and school supplies. UNICEF

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:04:00
• Production Date: 16 February 2010
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND - UNICEF
• Subject Topical: EDUCATION; HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
• Geographic Subject: HAITI
• MAMS Id: U100216d

Description

STORY: HAITI / EDUCATION
TRT: 2.53
SOURCE: UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / CREOLE

DATELINE: 12 FEBRUARY 2010, MOUNT JACQUOT, PORT-AU-PRINCE AND MIREBALAIS, HAITI

Shotlist

1. Zoom out, boys walking up hill
2. Med shot, boys walking past
3. Pan right, rubble
4. Close up, hat in rubble
5. Pan right, destroyed school
6. Pan right, rubble to paper
7. Close up, coat of arms
8. Wide shot, govt building
9. Pan right, emptying destroyed building
10. Pan right, road to UNESCO sign
11. Close up, minister talking
12. Pan left, minister talking to UNICEF staff
13. SOUNDBITE (French) Joel Jean-Pierre, Minister of education, Haiti:
“We are talking about 5,000 schools which represent almost 90 percent of the scholar installations in the West district and approximately 37 to 40 percent of the total scholar infrastructure in Haiti. This represents huge damages for the Haitian education system and 50 percent of the scholar population affected.”
14. Wide shot, boys singing to teacher
15. Tilt down, boys faces to hands
16. Close up, girls singing
17. Pan left, class
18. Pan right, clapping hands to teacher
19. Pan right, warehouses to tent
20. Wide shot, working on tent
21. Wide shot, lifting tent
22. Close up, working on tent
23. Wide shot, erected tent
24. Wide shot, forklift loading truck
25. Zoom out, Mount Jacquot
26. Wide shot, waving down helicopter
27. Wide shot, helicopter
28. Med shot, teacher ringing bell
29. Close up, bell
30. Pan left, boys arriving at school
31. SOUNDBITE (French) Paul Manclair, School Director:
“Education is so important for the development of our country, therefore the development of a country has to come from education, it’s the foundation and the reconstruction of Haiti has to come first and foremost through education. A population that is educated will easily progress.”
32. Wide shot, walking to class
33. Tilt up, kids enter class
34. Wide shot, teacher handing out boards
35. Med shot, teacher handing out books
36. Med shot, kids getting books
37. Wide shot, kids with crayons
38. Pan right, class to board
39. Close up, date on board
40. SOUNDBITE (English) Andrea Berther, Education Specialist, UNICEF:
“We need to have a space where we can guard the children and give them some sense of normality. A lot of these children have been traumatized and also their parents, their teachers, the whole community. This is healing also. It gives them a space to come together and to express themselves and feel protected and also giving them the opportunity to come back and learn and not lose their school year that has started.”
41. Pan right, class to teacher
42. Close up, writing on board
43. Tilt up, little girl to book
44. SOUNDBITE (Creole) Oednie Kevin, 10 years old:
“I’m happy to be back at school so now I don’t have to stay at home, I can get an education and become someone”
45. Close up, woman mourning
46. Med shot, woman mourning
47. Wide shot, birds flying
48. Wide shot, lifting flag
49. Close up, flag

Storyline

Two boys walk across and over steep hillsides, it’s the first time in a month they’ve made this trek, it’s the first time in a month they’ve been able to go to school.

Their school in Mount Jacquot was, like thousands of others, destroyed in the magnitude 7 earthquake that struck Haiti exactly a month ago. Government buildings too, were destroyed, including the ministry of education, and in the fight to survive, education was all but forgotten. Despite this, Haiti’s Minister of Education, based now in UNESCO’s Port au Prince office, has been hard at work to get Haitian children back to school in whatever way he can.

SOUNDBITE (French) Joel Jean-Pierre, Minister of education, Haiti:
“Globally we are talking about 5000 schools which represent almost 90 percent of the scholar installations in the West district and approximately 37 to 40 percent of the total scholar infrastructure in Haiti. This represents huge damages for the Haitian education system and 50 percent of the scholar population affected.”

Working in partnership with UNICEF, schools in unaffected areas have reopened, while Schools in a box, which include a stand alone emergency school tent and school supplies, have arrived at UNICEF’s storage facility to cater to affected areas.

After an intensive training session with volunteer Haitian boy scouts on erecting the tents, the distribution begins. But the Mount Jacquot school, which is run by missionaries and caters to hundreds of children in the surrounding communities, is a special case.

Almost inaccessible by road, a helicopter carries the equipment to a mountaintop-landing site and from there it is carried to the site, several kilometres away. A day later and exactly a month after the quake, hundreds of Haitian children here return to school.

SOUNDBITE (French) Paul Manclair, School Director:
“Education is so important for the development of our country, therefore the development of a country has to come from education, it’s the foundation and the reconstruction of Haiti has to come first and foremost through education. A population that is educated will easily progress.”

The distribution of books, chalkboards, pencils and crayons mean that within minutes classes are in progress and have picked up where they left off one month ago. Besides the obvious benefits of getting an education, the return to school is also a return to normality for these children, all of whom have suffered through the horror of the quake. Many have lost their family, friend and home, all had lost their school.

SOUNDBITE (English) Andrea Berther, Education Specialist, UNICEF:
“We need to have a space where we can guard the children and give them some sense of normality. A lot of these children have been traumatized and also their parents, their teachers, the whole community. This is healing also. It gives them a space to come together and to express themselves and feel protected and also giving them the opportunity to come back and learn and not lose their school year that has started.”

Exactly one month after the quake these children can start to put the tragedy behind them. Are able to start moving on with their education and their lives. Mt Jacquot is the first of 150 school tents that will be set up for the affected population by UNICEF in the coming weeks.

SOUNDBITE (Creole) Oednie Kevin, 10 years old:
“I’m happy to be back at school so now I don’t have to stay at home, I can get an education and become someone”

One month after the quake, Haitians mourn their dead, their injured and their devastated country but they are also looking to the future, looking to rebuild. But for Haiti to be rebuilt, for Haiti to have a future its children must be educated.