News
YouthBuild IDEJEN rebuilding academy launches in Haiti
YouthBuild International is proud to announce the launch of YouthBuild IDEJEN Rebuilding Academy, a major initiative in partnership with a highly respected Haitian non-profit, IDEJEN. Together we will mobilize 9,000 Haitian young people over the next five years to play a leading role in rebuilding their earthquake-devastated nation. Young people will work and be trained at 12 centers located in urban and rural locations across Haiti.
This project builds on a four year partnership between YouthBuild International and IDEJEN, in which Haitian youth learned construction skills and built community centers and sanitation blocks at four sites in response to the hurricanes that struck Haiti in 2005.
The first YouthBuild IDEJEN training center will be opened on January 13th, a day after the first anniversary of the earthquake, in the town of Leogane, which sits at the earthquake's epicenter. The YouthBuild IDEJEN Rebuilding Academy will offer continuous year-long programs in 12 communities for out-of-school, unemployed, Haitian youth, ages 15 to 26. For the first six months, young people will learn construction skills to rebuild homes, schools, health clinics and sanitation blocks. They will spend part of their time in a classroom learning basic reading, writing and math skills, and receive job readiness training, leadership development, savings and financial literacy instruction. During the second six months, the program will offer young people intensive follow-up coaching and counseling, links to productive livelihoods in the formal and informal economic sectors, and business development support for those who pursue self-employment through entrepreneurship.
We are profoundly grateful for generous support from the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, theMasterCard Foundation, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Additional partners who will join the initiative are the U.S. Agency for International Development, Catholic Relief Services and Education Development Center.
The other major rebuilding effort that YouthBuild USA launched in 2006 after the Gulf Coast hurricane disaster, the YouthBuild AmeriCorps’ Katrina Rebuilding Project, established locally-controlled permanent programs in Biloxi and New Orleans which continue today. Their success fueled our confidence that YouthBuild International could make a difference in Haiti as we have on the Gulf Coast.
To learn more about the YouthBuild IDEJEN Rebuilding Academy in Haiti and how you can support this work, click here
Best wishes,
Tim Cross, President, YouthBuild International, a division of YouthBuild USA, Inc.
Dorothy Stoneman, President and CEO, YouthBuild USA, Inc.
Roy O. Priest, Chairman, Board of Directors, YouthBuild USA, Inc.
