Our Programs
Education
Core Mission: Education: KCH Kids Connection Haiti offers high school, trade school or university to at-risk young adults. Our graduation rate is 99%. Together with the students, we create a realistic career plans considering immediate needs, academic skills, circumstances, and interests.
Life Skills, Women’s Empowerment and Career Development Workshops: Growing up without parents or in unstable family situations, our students learn life skills that they might not have learned at home. In their last year, students in their last year participate in career development training to increase the chance to find their chances at finding employment. Our girls participate in “No means No” training, menstrual health education, and International Women’s Day
Community Service
Our students’ favorite!
Mandatory for everyone, community service greatly enhances self-esteem, group bonding, work experience, professional network opportunities, and most of all: The realization that no matter how poor you are, you can always help someone else!
Girls House
KCH opened Girls’ House especially for girls from extremely tragic circumstances who have nowhere else to go.
The Girls’ House provides a peaceful, family-like environment, where they participate in daily activities, go to school, and learn a trade.
KCH Stars
Skills and Training to Achieve Real Success. Our program for non-KCH students
Orphanages often struggle to prepare their older youth for independent adulthood. Because Kids Connection Haiti graduates have a successful track record of finding paid employment, we have created workshops, community services, career coaching and health care services for young adults who are living at orphanages. For more information, please contact Astrid@kidsconnectionhaiti.org
Emergency Support
Haiti is in a humanitarian crisis. Violent gangs control more than 80% of Port-au-Prince. Basic services have nearly disappeared, essential supplies are running out, and the government is largely non-functional. Food scarcity and inflation are making it increasingly difficult for our students to meet even their most basic needs.
Kids Connection Haiti is committed to providing food assistance to our students when they are struggling. They have the right to essentials, including enough food to eat.
Medical: The Lourdia Exavier Memorial Health Fund
The need for medical support is more urgent than ever in Haiti, a country with a weak health care system and where many people live in poverty, without access to health care.
The Lourdia Exavier Memorial Health Fund was created in loving memory of our student Lourdia who passed away on March 25, 2020. By honoring Lourdia, we hope that her dedication to serving others continues to inspire us all.
Our full-time nurse, a former KCH student herself, monitors our students’ health and ensures they receive the medical follow-up and treatment they need, in partnership with local clinics and specialists. She assesses underlying health concerns, provides medication, and refers students for specialized care when necessary. She also leads health workshops that help our students learn how to better care for their own health.
All students receive annual physical and dental exams, as well as access to a weekly outpatient clinic.
Lourdia’s Story
After spending her entire youth in an orphanage, Lourdia joined KCH to study international diplomacy. She was a happy, brilliant student who worked hard and graduated with honors. She went on to earn an internship with the United Nations in New York, becoming the first, and so far only, KCH student to go abroad.
As a young professional, Lourdia always looked for ways to help others. She was a ray of sunshine—a gentle and wise soul who touched the lives of everyone around her.
Lourdia died suddenly from sickle cell anemia, a genetic blood disorder.
Our sadness and shock at losing Lourdia led us to recognize an urgent need: our students have little or no access to Haiti’s medical system. Her death inspired us to establish a health program to make sure our students have access to the medical care and support they need.