Hope House Breakfast Club

It can be hard enough paying attention in school, but when a child is undernourished, it is nearly impossible.

At the Hope House School, most of the children live in desperate poverty. As the only free school in Haiti, the school has been a lifeline for children, but with most families struggling to afford nutritious meals, many of the children have just one meal a day - the lunch provided by the school. Their under-nutrition risks their health, and making it incredibly difficult to learn.

For this reason, CRY has been supporting the school to run a Breakfast Club, providing nutritious breakfasts for the children that were most underweight or malnourished. 85 children met this criteria, and so now have breakfast at school each day. Consisting of an egg, bread, peanut butter sandwiches and cereal and a multivitamin supplement. The meal provides some much needed protein into the children’s diet, and helps them gain weight. They are also given iron tablets, are weighed and monitored regularly and given annual worming tablets.

The school has transformed the lives of children like Pierre.

Pierre is five and one of three children. His mother recently came to the school to thank them for the breakfast club. She said that she cannot afford to give her children more than one meal a day, and the programme had been an answer to her prayers. She cannot remember the last time she had eaten eggs herself, and was so pleased that her son was able to have them every day. She said: “He is growing tall and looking healthy. Thank you for preventing a death in my family”