More than 250,000 children in the southwest of Haiti are still out of school, one year after the earthquake of magnitude 7.2 on the Richter scale that struck the southern peninsula on August 14, 2021 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34479-haiti-flash-magnitude-72-earthquake-in-the-nippes-updated-10am.html , highlights a report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which operates in this region.

According to Bruno Maes, the UNICEF Representative - Haiti "[...] too many children will not have access to adequate educational services in the coming school year, nor will they receive adequate health services, won't drink clean water, won't have the right opportunity to grow and develop to their full potential."

School reconstruction has been delayed by insecurity and lack of funds, and can take years. Of the 1,250 classrooms and learning spaces that were destroyed or damaged in the earthquake, at least 566 still need to be rebuilt, the report said.

UNICEF and its partners have been working to provide basic services to affected women and children, although operations are often delayed or hampered by lack of resources and gang-related violence.

So far, UNICEF has repaired 22 drinking water systems damaged by the earthquake, reaching 440,000 people, or about half of the affected populations in the South West and distributed 23,000 hygiene kits there. It also rebuilt or rehabilitated 234 classrooms, installed 100 high-performance tents in damaged schools, provided school kits to 74,000 students and enabled 31,000 students in the three departments affected by the earthquake to catch up through recovery classes.

PI/ HaitiLibre