The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is partnering with U.S. Fund for UNICEF to create open spaces for children in Haiti as the island country recovers from last winter’s devastating earthquake.
The JDC will give $240,000 to support UNICEF’s Child Friendly Spaces program, which builds safe and protective environments throughout Haiti for children who have lost homes, families, and communities in the earthquake, the JDC announced Tuesday..
“These are spaces that essentially offer recreational and educational opportunities for the children, ensuring that they have something to go back to,” A spokesman for the JDC told JTA. “It’s one of a number of programs.”
The JDC, which collected with the North American Jewish federation system about $7.4 million, to help in the Haitian relief effort has already partnered with Pro-Dev to build tent schools and provide water tankers in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.
It will soon open a middle school for 600 children in the village of Les Orangers, outside of Port Au Prince. It has partnered with World ORT to train local builders to create stable housing and worked with Partners in health to feed more than 2,00 hungry Haitian children. And it will soon open up the first prosthetics lab on the island in partnership with Haiti’s General Hospital in Part Au Prince, Magen David Adom, the Haitian Red Cross and the Sheba Medical Center in Israel.
Here is the press release regarding the UNICEF project.
