Violence is traumatizing Haitian children.
FILE - Girls holding hands are led past a burnt car blocking the street as they evacuate the Delmas 22 neighborhood to escape gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, May 2, 2024. As young Haitians are increasingly exposed to violence, the country is undergoing a wider push to dispel a long-standing taboo on seeking therapy and talking about mental health.
Still, many would fall asleep in class, unable to focus after sleepless nights punctuated by gunfire.“It’s hard to focus at school or focus on playing a game when the rest of your body is worried about whether your mom and dad are going to be alive when you get home from school,” said Steve Gross, founder of the U.S. nonprofit Life is Good Playmaker Project.
With no school, high poverty and trauma such as having to sidestep mangled bodies on streets, kids have become easy prey. Between 30% to 50% of members of armed groups are now children, Maes noted.A 24-year-old man who offered only his last name, Nornile, for safety reasons, said he was in a gang for five years.
“Ghetto men don’t fight for education or a hospital. They fight for territory,” he said. “They only care about themselves.”“The reality of the gang is that the person can carry a weapon, but in his mind, that’s not what he really wants," Nornile said.Jean Guerson Sanon, co-founder and executive director of Gèrye Jwa Playmakers, stressed the importance of parents interacting daily with children to boost their mental health.
At the training on a recent Sunday, parents learned games for their children. One was mirroring the other person; another was pretending an inflatable ball was a piece of cheese that the child, pretending to be a mouse, had to steal. One parent, Celestin Roosvelt, said he tells his children, 2 and 3, that gunfire is not a bad thing, a lie he called necessary.At the end of the training, parents were given a copy of the presentation, crayons and an inflatable ball.
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