Endeavor to Develop Education is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing an education to impoverished Haitian children. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and the people there are in desperate need of help to improve their situation. As individuals and as an organization, we are dedicated to working to help the Haitian people help themselves by providing an education to the youth of the country. Here are some of our students that we have helped or are currently helping. We currently provide our students with tuition, books, and uniforms. We plan to increase the number of students we are helping, and build a school. Obviously we cannot expand our program without your help.
Endeavor to Develop Education was officially organized in 2006 and is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. After years of helping students in Haiti on a personal basis, we realized that working alone we could never make the impact that we wanted or that the people of Haiti needed. Our mission is to improve the lives of young Haitians by providing them with the education that they need so they can become self-reliant. Education is the key to progress for the people of Haiti and especially the rising generation. Our Vision is a generation of Haitians who have the tools to rise above poverty, disease and oppression and we believe that educating the rising generation is the only way to make this vision a reality.
Endeavor to Develop Education is also known as EDE which is the Creole word for "Help" because that is what we are trying to do. The founders of EDE each spent years in Haiti living among the people and coming to understand their problems and concerns. As we saw the abject poverty in which many of the people lived, we were surprised to see their joy in small things. In addition, we saw large families living in small shacks made of sticks, mud, cardboard and corrugated metal who were striving to make enough money to feed their family and send their kids to school. There are so many children who are forced to stop attending school because their parents cannot afford food and school fees. In addition many students start the school year, but then are unable to keep paying the monthly fees forcing them to stop attending classes halfway through a school year which they will then have to repeat the next time they are able to go to school.
Because of an unemployment rate of more than 65%, most fathers leave the home early in the morning to go out and look for ways to make enough money to buy food and basic necessities for their family. Struggling to even provide food makes it almost impossible for these fathers to provide an education for their children.
We are dedicated to helping as many children as we can to obtain an education. We currently provide funding to students to cover tuition, books, and uniforms, but we are working to build schools in Haiti. If you have any ideas or would like to join us in our mission, then please.
Piti piti zwazo fe nich. (Haitian Proverb) Little by little the bird builds its nest. . . And little by little we are building the youth of Haiti so they can work to improve their own country.
WHY WE ARE DOING THIS
Only a little over half of primary school-age children are enrolled in school. Less than 2 per cent of children finish secondary school.
At the same time, Haiti has a unique education system where, in sharp contrast to most countries in the world, the overwhelming majority of schooled children are enrolled in private schools. This paradoxical situation reflects the historical fact that, in the absence of a functioning system of public schools, religious communities and private operators have filled the void and gradually become the main providers of educational services in the country. This trend has accelerated in recent years. This situation raises the question of the fairness of a system in which, in most cases, the quality of the education children receive is directly related to where they live and to the level of tuition their families can afford to pay. Is private education playing an appropriate and desirable role in Haiti? Should the government expand public education to reduce existing imbalances? How can the government best use its limited financial resources to ensure that the poor have access to education? Is continued reliance on private schools a viable strategy, considering the weak institutional and financial capability of the Ministry of Education to monitor the quality of schooling and to offer incentives for improvement?