Summary

“I can count the numbers of rice on the spoon the women I am staying with gives me. When I was living with my mother I used to ask her, When will you buy a pair of shoes for me? She said, the little money is not even enough to feed us. How can I buy you a pair of shoes?” Gerald Tide

Household

I think I am 11 years old. I don’t know the years. When I ask my mom about the year she said, “I don’t know.” I was born at Puit Blain, in the country in Haiti.
My father’s name is Lifet Tide. I don’t know his age. He makes charcoals, and he grew corn and sweet potatoes. My mother’s name is Marie–France. I don’t know her last name, and her age. She is selling food, and washes clothes for people to help us in the house.
My parents have 6 children. They are:
Rodner Tide, he is 20 years old
Rony Tide, he is 19 years old
Manise Tide, she is 17 years old
Kenold Tide, he is 15 years old
Sonson Tide, he is 4 years old
And me. Only my sister started going to school, but she stopped because my parents can’t continue to pay for it.

Work

I am staying as restavek [child slave] with a woman named Rose Myrtha. I wake up at 5 in the morning so I can go to get water for the lady to wash her body. One bucket for her, one for her husband, one for her child, and other buckets to wash the dirty dishes, and to use in the house.
I sweep the floor of the house, and the yard too. I clean the rooms. She does not give me enough food to eat. I cannot let her know that because she is not my mother.
The lady beats me with an electric wire when I play with her child because she does not like that, to see me playing with her child. She hits me in my head with a brush too. I don’t have nice clothes, no shoes.
I go to sleep late. I am always tired.
My father is cultivating land. He plants corn, peas and Congo. He makes charcoal to sell. But he does not take care of us. He left the house to be with someone else.
My mother, she washes clothes for people to earn some money. With that money, she is trying to buy others things like rice, to start a little business. But each time she tries to set up a small business the mayor took the goods, and she has to restart all the time.
Life is so difficult to my mother by herself, without a father. That’s why she sent me to stay as restavek.

Education

I have never been going to school in my whole life.

Food and Nutrition

She never gives me enough food to eat, never. I can count the numbers of rice on the spoon she gives me. Two spoons.

Shelter and Clothes

When I was living with my mother I used to ask her, When will you buy a pair of shoes for me? She said, the little money is not even enough to feed us. How can I buy you a pair of shoes?

Health and Medical

I am not in good health. Most of the time I have headache, fever, and stomachache.

Personal qualities and Dreams

I like to play very much with the children of my age. I like to run and play soccer with the children in my area. I love to dance, and I also like to smile. I am polite, I respect everybody. I listen to people when they are talking to me.
I do what the people that I am staying with ask me to do, even when I am really tired and I don’t feel like I could do anything. I am obedient.
Dreams
I would like to go back to my mother’s house, because I think too much about her, and to my brothers and sister.
I would like to go to school, and learn how to become a Carpenter, to earn much money and be able to help my mother and my brothers and sister.

Restaveks

According to UNICEF, as many as 300,000 Haitian children live apart from their families in unpaid domestic servitude. Although the treatment these children endure varies, this practice is generally regarded by international human rights groups as a modern form of slavery.
Many of these children are forced to work endlessly, with no time to attend school, play, form friendships, or rest. Physical and sexual abuse is common. About three quarters of these children are girls, many of whom end up pregnant from rape during adolescence.
This usually leads to their being forced from the household often with no place to go but the streets. Almost all these children, boys and girls, grow up emotionally wounded and illiterate.
They are used until they are used up, run away, or become too big to control and are turned out to fend for themselves. If they survive, they grow up to fill the poorest economic strata of the poorest nation in our hemisphere.
A child living in servitude is often called a restavek, a Creole word that literally means a “stay-with.” The word restavek has come to be a foul word in Haiti, an insult one would use to say someone is worthless. And this is how restavek children generally feel.
(From Beyondborders.net)

Specific programs

The specific plan for the first year of the Partnership is as follows:
Research and Workshops ($35)
School, including uniform and supplies ($133)
Medical care (up to $35)
Birthday celebration ($12)
Available: $18 x 12 months = $216
Sending the restavek (child slave) back to live in their family is not included in the first year, but can be part of a longer-term plan. Our main focus is personal development, especially going back to school. Food, clothing and shelter are not addressed in this plan, but options for additional help in these areas are available. The Financial plan page will allow you to trace how your money is being used at all times. For more details about our programs, including the research, workshops and classes which each partner participants in, go here: http://peopleinneed.info/index.php/plan/program/C95/

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