By Travis Ross and Roger Annis, published on the Haiti blog of Rabble.ca, March 21, 2012

When President Michel Martelly was elected in April of 2011 he made a promise to create space for all Haitian children at school. Soon after, he announced his intention to tax all international phone calls as well as money transfers in and out of Haiti in order to fund the policy.

Although the Haitian constitution does not give the president the power to levy taxes, Martelly launched a ‘National Fund for Education' in May 2011 with the goal of collecting $8.5 million per month by taxing all international phone calls in and out of Haiti at 5 cents per minute and all international money transfers at $1.50 per transfer. Haiti's largest source of foreign revenue is the money transfers that its Diaspora sends back to family members.

For most Haitians, education is an unattainable goal. According to the UN, the cost of an elementary school education can be prohibitive--40 per cent of family income to the average Haitian family. Only about two-thirds of Haitian children were enrolled in primary school before the earthquake; less than one third of those reach sixth grade. Haiti's illiteracy rate is an astonishing 57.24 percent, the highest in the western hemisphere.

The earthquake made the situation even more desperate. According to a report by UNICEF in March 2010, "80 percent of schools west of Port-au-Prince were destroyed or severely damaged in the earthquake, and 35 to 40 percent were destroyed in the southeast. This means that as many as 5,000 schools were destroyed and up to 2.9 million children here are being deprived of the right to education."

Original version and posting at Sactuary for Kids

Photos by: Darren Ell

January 12, 2010, an earthquake ripped through the southwest end of Haiti, leaving thousands dead, and millions injured and homeless. The capital city of Port-au-Prince, with a population of 2 million living within 14 square miles, suffered the brunt of this quakes catastrophic effects. Over two hundred years since Haiti's independence, foreign exploitation of her citizens created a poverty that has wreaked havoc on the majority of the population. It was this chronic poverty and over population in Haiti's Capital that led to the devastating effects of this quake.

Those millions, who were left homeless, sought large open spaces to form makeshift camps.  These camps are cobbled together, using any materials on hand. Bed sheets, old tarps and scrap metal fashion homes that are so close together, people are virtually living on top of one another. These camps are stiflingly hot, increasingly dangerous for women and children, and have poor sanitation, with cholera spreading like wildfire.

All of these camps residents come from the poorer sect of society. Even before the earthquake, these poor majorities had little to no hope for employment or education, and now, have little hope to leave this deplorable living situation. Sauvlyne Louis Jean is a young woman whom I met in the summer of 2011; a student attending SOPUDEP School, a Haitian community school our foundation supports. She is a resident of one of these camps and was kind enough to let us see her world.