Quality Education for All

Studies show that one of the major reasons families send their children away from home to larger towns and cities and into the restavèk system is to provide them with better educational opportunities. Limyè Lavi’s work demonstrates that when rural parents have access to better schools in their communities they are less likely to send their children away from home, and even go get them and bring them back from having lived as child domestic workers.

Quality Education for All, the educational component of the Model Community Initiative, has two aspects: increasing the access children have to local schools, and improving the quality of rural education. Limyè Lavi’s educators hold teacher trainings, organize school networks, work with school leaders to implement strategies to increase parental involvement and student motivation, and to effectively manage school resources.

Building on the information that was collected in the initial Community Relationship Building phase of the Model Community Initiative which identified families who had children living away from home, Limyè Lavi has also implemented ‘Accelerated School Programs’ whereby students, already past elementary school age, can complete 6 years of school in 3 years. This encourages parents to go get their children to finish their schooling in their home communities, and serves to further diminish the flow of children into child servitude.