Yéle Haiti

Yéle Haiti was a charitable organization found by Wyclef Jean, Jerry Duplessis and Hugh Locke in January 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Jeanne which devastated the island. The organization seeks change in Haiti through programs in education, sports, the arts and the environment.

In its first year of operation, the foundation, with funding by Comcel, provided scholarships to 3,600 children in Gonaïves, Haiti. The organization expanded by adding community service programs including food distribution and mobilization of emergency relief. The organization quickly became known for focusing global attention on Haiti.

In May 2008, Yéle partnered with the World Food Programme of the United Nations to launch www.togetherforhaiti.org. In September of that year, Yéle expanded beyond Haiti's borders delivering food to Hurricane Ike victims in the United States.

In 2009, Yéle and the Timberland Company joined forces to help raise environmental awareness in Haiti. Their campaign was created to push to support and educate the country as well as helping to improve health care and the environment, and the community.

Yéle Haiti was profoundly and permanently changed by the earthquake of January 12, 2010. The current programs are a combination of emergency relief and long-term rebuilding.

Recent updates

• Yéle Corps - Yéle Begins Vocational Training for Construction Jobs
• Yéle Corps continues to employ 2,000 workers daily cleaning streets and canals, and in January 2011 added the Yéle Corps *Vocational Training Program. The first 120 students began studying carpentry, masonry and plumbing in January 2011. After successfully completing the six-month course, graduates will get job placement help. Three quarters of the students were chosen from among the best performing Yéle Corps workers, and this will continue to be the case moving forward with the second term students in Fall 2011.^[1]

Yéle Haiti: Developing Education in Haiti

Since its establishment in 2005, Yéle Haiti has been committed to making a difference within realistic constraints in terms of delivering aid and assistance to those in greatest need.

Yéle Haiti has identified youth development and education (schooling and youth services) as one of three principal areas to concentrate their resources and efforts on. Their commitment on this area has led to the creation of a substantial number of signature initiatives and collaborations with significant partners.^[2]

Present Projects

1. Since 2005, it has been providing scholarships for 4,500 children annually. These children come from needy families in Port-au-Prince, Gonaives, Cap-Haitien, Port-de-Paix and Cayes who are unable to afford the fees for primary education.^[3]

2. Since 2008, 12 elite students majoring in different fields have been sponsored scholarships to attend four of the top universities in Haiti.^[4]

3. The Help Haiti campaign was launched in 2005, where seven schools in Alberta, Canada helped raised funds to put 20 children in schools in Haiti. The 2008 campaign raised sufficient funds to put 345 children in school for one year and the figures rose in 2009 to 370.^[5]

4. This ongoing project also sponsors the transformation of children’s jail into a rehabilitation center with programs to help develop skill for the boys, by providing them with educational and vocational training in order to help them escape the cycle of crime and violence.^[6]

5. The Youth Sports Program ongoing since 2005; boosts a soccer and tutoring program for 650 deprived children. In addition to their educations being paid for, they undergo soccer training and have full access to equipments and clinics with a well nutritional supplement program.^[7]

6. Yéle Corps, a joint venture between Yéle Haiti and the Hope for Haiti Now Fund, together with BET’s Saving OurSelves Program, is a job training and employment program, one of the first of such initiatives. Since the program began, approximately 2000 people have been employed to remove rubble and debris piled up after the earthquake.^[8]

Future Projects

With focus on developing education for future generations in Haiti and turning the tide on the brain drain in the past decades, Yéle Haiti is planning new initiatives:

1. There are plans to build more computer labs with more equipped with internet connection over the next year. Each will have a minimum of 25 computers and support equipment that includes a generator, inverter and a dish for internet connection.^[9]

2. A new K-12 educational campus named the Yéle Campus School (YCS) will be built to offer top-notch education stressing academic, artistic and vocational training.^[10]

3.Next fall, Yéle Haiti will name 10 underprivileged students to be sent to American for an all expenses-paid scholarship. In return, the program will require participants to return to Haiti for at least two years upon graduation from college.^[11]

Tent Camp Improvements

It’s not a house and it’s not a tent, but somewhere in between. The two SoftHouse structures installed in the Yéle-supported Place Fierte Tent Camp in Cité Soleil in February 2011 have a poured concrete foundation, a structural steel frame covered by high-strength mesh fabric, and a full-size door that opens on hinges. Yéle is partnering with the Haiti SoftHouse Group to build an initial 20 units as part of our upgrade of the Place Fierte Tent Camp.The SoftHouses are very spacious inside with 166 square feet (15.4 m²) and no interior supports. The outer walls start at 8 feet (2.4 m) and the roof goes up to 14 feet (4.3 m) in the center. Cross ventilation is excellent because of screen panels that can be covered during rain and at night. If necessary, the whole unit can be taken down by hand and moved in a matter of hours. And given the location, it is important to note that the SoftHouses are engineered to resist both category 3 hurricanes and earthquakes.There is no single solution to the housing needs of the more than one million people still living in tents, but what is clear is that tent camps are going to be around for a considerable time. The SoftHouse is put forward as one option that bridges the gap between tent and permanent home, and which is flexible enough to be used afterwards for commercial or other secondary needs.^[12]

Jean et Marie Orphanage

Yéle is providing ongoing support for the 55 children and nine staff members at the Jean et Marie Orphanage in La Plaine, near Port-au-Prince. The meager facilities at Jean et Marie were damaged in the earthquake. Yéle is now helping with additional repairs and improvements including adding a school and kitchen, expanded dormitory space, and improving the latrines and showers. Yéle currently supplies water, food, clothing and other supplies on a regular basis to Jean et Marie, and has begun to help the orphanage’s management upgrade their administrative practices to better serve the resident orphans. ^[13]

Nutrition for Kids

Yéle announced plans in November 2010 to double the size of their Nutrition for Kids program, and in February 2011 reached that goal, providing 2,000 orphans a week with fresh vegetables grown by peasant farmers who are part of the Afè Nèg Combite (ANC) cooperative based in Kenscoff, near Port-au-Prince. There are now 35 orphanages in the program, and they receive a basket with between 150 and 200 lbs. of vegetables every Saturday (some larger orphanages get more than one basket). The orphanages are located in Port-au-Prince, Kenscoff, Croix-des-Bouquets, Leogane and Tomazeau and range in size from 40 to 200 children.^[14]

Tree Planting

Yéle Vert is a multi-year program in which farmers operate tree nurseries that supply multi-purpose and fast-growing trees for food, animal fodder, building material and fuel. Each nursery also provides an agricultural service that supplies seeds, tools and training to help farmers improve their crop production and integrate tree planting into their farming practices. In the communities served by Yéle Vert, an environmental education initiative helps children and youth in the area learn about the role of trees and how they should be protected. Popular musicians are enlisted to take this message to the general public. Yéle Vert was conceived prior to the January 12th earthquake, and was launched in the Gonaïves area in February 2010 with the establishment of six nurseries. Those nurseries produced the first 100,000 trees in June 2010, and by the end of the year an additional 375,000 trees will be transplanted by farmers to their fields and community owned land. Beginning in January 2011, the annual capacity of the Gonaïves site of Yéle Vert will be 1 million trees a year.^[15]

Yéle's mission is to provide aid and assistance to the communities in Haiti in greatest need, where severe poverty, widespread unemployment, rampant malnutrition and crippling illiteracy are most pervasive. In doing so, we strive to balance emergency relief with support for long term sustainable initiatives that together are giving both hope and practical assistance to the people of Haiti.

Financial Issues

The Foundation filed its tax forms for 2005–2007 all in August 2009, a delay Charity Navigator characterized as "odd" even among charities, and "beyond late".^[16] Much of Yéle Haiti's money has been paid out to Wyclef Jean, his relative and fellow Yéle Haiti director Jerry Duplessis, or companies they own. For example, of the $1,142,944 in total revenue the foundation collected in 2006, at least $410,000 was paid directly to Jean and his business partner for rent, production services, and Jean's appearance at a benefit concert.^[17] The Foundation paid $250,000 to Telemax, a television station controlled by Jean and Duplessis, $31,000 to rent its own offices from Platinum Sound owned by Jean and Duplessis,^[18] and $100,000 for Jean's own performance at a benefit concert in Monaco, when Jean had been paid only $40,000 as headliner at 2002 festival at the top of his career with the Fugees.^[19]

Hugh Locke, president of Yéle Haiti, said "I think people should be very comfortable that any money given to Yéle Haiti is going 100 percent to emergency relief." and that the group hopes to increase the percentage of its budget on services as it gains experience.^[18] He described the concert payments as "not our finest hour".^[19] A spokesman for Yéle Haiti's public relations firm described paying Jean's and Duplessis' companies as an opportunity to receive services at a "severely reduced" rate and a "significant discount".^[18] Yéle Haiti, and its predecessor the Wyclef Jean Foundation, have been involuntarily dissolved several times by the Florida Division of Corporations on multiple occasions for failing to file required state disclosure reports. The long overdue records from several years were submitted to the FDC and the sanctions were lifted after a month.^[20]

References

External links

• Official website