NEW YORK (JTA) — The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is partnering with the U.S. Fund for UNICEF to help 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 their 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 JDC spokesman told JTA. “It’s one of a number of programs."
The JDC, which together with the North American Jewish federation system collected about $7.4 million to help in the Haitian relief effort, had partnered with Pro-Dev to build tent schools and provide water tankers in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.
It soon will be opening a middle school for 600 children in the village of Les Orangers, outside of Port-au-Prince.
The JDC also has partnered with World ORT to train local builders to create housing and worked with Partners in Health to feed more than 2,000 Haitian children. It soon will be opening the first prosthetics lab on the island in partnership with Haiti’s General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Magen David Adom, the Haitian Red Cross and the Sheba Medical Center in Israel.
