Summary

“Sometime when I am too tired and can’t do anything, she hits me all over my body with wood or cable, anything she finds. I am always sick, as you can see my throat came big like a balloon. I have never been going to see a doctor for that. I like to smile, play soccer with an empty bottle in the street.” Jocenel Lubain

Household

I am 10 years old. I was born in Mirbalais, in the Haiti countryside. I don’t know the month because I never have had a party to tell me it’s my birth day, but my mom says that I am 10 years old. My father’s name is Osnel Lubain. He is doing many things to make a living. He is a worker. My mother’s name is Berta Jean Baptiste. She is not working. She does nothing to make a living. I don’t know my mother and my father’s ages. My parents had 6 children, two of then are dead. My parents and my brothers and sister are living together.
They are:
Johnny Lubain, died when he was 6, my mom told me
Yonel Lubain
And another died while he was a baby
Bebinel who is 2 years old
And Jocenel Lubain, who is me
Baby just born, I think she is one month. None of them go to school
Things were very hard for my mother and father in the country side. My mother said if we are going to Port-au-Prince I think things will get better. But since I came to live in Port- au Prince she sent me to say with another family as restavek.

Work

I am living with a man and his wife, because my parents can’t send me to school and take care of us. We are too much in the house, my mother says. And the man said to my mom that he would send me to school if I came to stay with him. But he did not.
My father is a worker. He is doing many thing to make a living. He helps some people and wishes to have some money after.  But it’s never enough to feed us. Some days he finds nothing to do, and we pass these days without anything to eat at home. My father left the countryside to come to live in Port-au-Prince long before I came with my mother.
They make me wake up every morning at 6 am. When I wake every morning, I have to put everything out for the dirty washing. She makes Fritay every night. I must wash everything the next morning. And I clean the house. Sweep the floor. After all these things I go in the street where she is making the Fritay, to sweep the street. I go without sandals, I don’t have clothes to wear.

Education

I started going to school when I was in Mirbalais. Dad could not pay, then I stop going to school, but I liked going to school.

Food and Nutrition

I don’t eat well, I am always hungry. They do not take care of me. I don’t have enough food to eat.

Health and Medical

I am always sick, as you can see my throat came big like a balloon. I don’t know what I have. I have never been going to see a doctor for that.

Personal qualities and Dreams

I like to play very much. When I have a little time to play, I like building houses with sand and stones, planting flowers around that house. I like to run too with the children who are living close to the house where I am staying. I like to smile, play soccer not with balloon, cause I don’t have, but with an empty bottle in the street. I am obedient, but sometimes I don’t always do what they tell me to do. They hit me for that.
Dreams
I would like to find someone to help me so that I can go see a doctor for my throat. I would like to go back to school. I would like to learn how to make pretty Iron gate, and fence for beautiful houses. I would like to go back to my mom’s house.

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/

Video clip

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Sponsorship plan

Immediate needs:
Go to visit a doctor.  Have some food to eat. Clothes and shoes to wear.
Development:
Go back to school, and to his mother’s house.
Dreams:
I would like to become a Blacksmith.