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“Madam, can you stop the armed groups? Can you stop what the gangs are doing to us?”
Her plea reflects the reality facing children in Haiti, where violence has disrupted schools, upended families and made the simple act of going to class an act of courage.
As children around the world return to school, the start of the year in Haiti once again unfolds under the shadow of insecurity, displacement and hardship. Children must cross gang-controlled zones to reach schools, risking gunfire and forced recruitment.
But in a country plagued by gang violence, schools remain spaces of hope – where children can learn, reunite with their classmates and, despite everything, begin to imagine their future.
For Etzer, a father of four, internally displaced person and refugee rights advocate, going back to school means more than just going back to school.
After fleeing their neighborhoods due to gang violence, many refugee children are reuniting with their friends and rebuilding social lives disrupted by the crisis.
“School is like therapy for these kids,” he said. However, in many areas, learning conditions are still very difficult.
Children attend school in Delmas, Haiti, as increasing gang conflict disrupts the country’s school system.
Hope and fear
Jasmide, mother of seven-year-old Woodayline, is happy classes are back. But behind these hopes are the hardships that many families face: hunger, unemployment, insecurity, and school costs, which weigh heavily on those who rely on private institutions.
“We as parents in Haiti support the reopening of classes – but not under the inhumane conditions imposed on us,” he said.
These concerns are widely shared among refugee families and communities who fear violence. Everywhere, Narayan said, he heard the same plea: to see children go to school safely.
“Most importantly, we want security and continuity of education,” he added.
Deadly insecurity
The scale of this crisis is staggering. UNICEFThe latest figures released by the Government for the 2024-2025 academic year show that more than 1,600 schools have been affected by insecurity – disrupting school activities for more than 240,000 children and the work of around 7,500 teachers.
Woodayline and Etzer’s four children are among the many children no longer provided with classrooms.
A young girl sits in a temporary camp set up for people who fled their homes due to violence.
In Port-au-Prince, where 90 percent of the capital is under gang control, several schools were closed, inaccessible, or destroyed. Others now protect families who have nowhere else to go.
For many children, the danger begins before they even reach the classroom.
“Just yesterday, two young girls were kidnapped on their way to school. It happened the day after the school year started,” recalled Narayan.
Incidents like this cause “huge fear and anxiety” among families, he explained – to the point that some parents are now reluctant to let their children travel alone.
And the fear doesn’t go away once students are seated in class. A child who is a refugee or exposed to violence cannot concentrate as before. The teachers themselves may have left their communities or can no longer reach their schools.
Keep classrooms open
In response, UNICEF is helping more than 174,000 children this year in the West, North and South.
The work undertaken ranges from distributing school supplies and helping children register to creating safe learning spaces, providing psychosocial support, training teachers to recognize and respond to signs of trauma, and rehabilitating damaged schools.
The institute also runs remedial classes and accelerated learning programs for children who have been out of school for months, or even years – a bridge back to the formal system. This support flows through the Ministry of National Education and targets state schools in the country.
Young Haitian students smile as a UNICEF spokesperson visits a school in Delmas 45.
‘They were very happy to be there’
At the launch of the school year, Narayan said he was impressed by the enthusiasm of the students. “They were so happy to be there.”
Parents want to be able to send them to school without fear. Teachers want to do their work in stable conditions. Kids just want to learn, and feel normal again.
Despite everything, Haitian families and their children have common and challenging goals: to go to school, learn, find friends again, and imagine a future for themselves.
