Haiti Adolescent Girls Network

Please help empower 300 Haitian adolescent girls with educational skills to prevent violence against women and girls.

Haiti Adolescent Girls Network (HAGN) is an organization dedicated to the empowerment, safety, health, and well-being of girls in Haiti. HAGN leverages the power of female leadership within communities to provide girls with educational skills that address sexual and reproductive rights, financial literacy, gender-based violence prevention, and leadership. The organization aims to foster a well-resourced, public-private network of places where girls can regularly meet to build their health-related, social, economic, and cognitive assets. Since its founding in 2010, HAGN has reached over 20,000 adolescent girls who have been taught by female mentors in girls-only safe spaces.

Haiti is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, created by economic and political struggles within the country. Gang violence is a particularly devastating problem, which has contributed to restrictions on freedom of movement and access to basic services for people in Haiti. Many gangs have targeted schools specifically, and UNICEF reports that shootings, ransacking, looting, and abductions of teachers and students have increased ninefold between 2022 and 2023. Sexual violence against women and girls has also grown at an alarming rate as the humanitarian crisis deepens. As a result of the deteriorating security context, many principals in Haiti made the decision to temporarily close their schools to protect children. While most schools have since reopened, many students did not return.

The Haiti Adolescent Girls Network envisions a world where adolescent girls are free of violence and discrimination, a world where girls feel supported, heard, and safe, allowing them to reach full potential. This project is centered in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, with a focus on the unsafe areas of Cite Soleil, Delmas 2, and Bel-Air. It will help overcome barriers to girls' education while promoting engagement in their communities to help prevent violence against women and girls.

From September 2023 through June 2024, HAGN will recruit and train three female mentors from the community who will facilitate skill-building sessions around sexual and reproductive health, financial literacy, and prevention of gender-based violence. These sessions will be held in community-contributed safe spaces with 300 girls, ranging from 10 to 19 years of age. HAGN will also provide referrals to resources for additional support. The participants will receive assistance for tuition fees or cash vouchers for protective emergency response. HAGN will recruit participants by focusing on the most underserved members of the community: girls out of school or at risk of not returning, girls with disabilities, teenage mothers, survivors, girls living with one or neither parent, and girls seeking alternatives to gang life. The female mentors will also facilitate conversations among community members to promote changes in social perceptions, particularly with respect to sexual violence.

With your support and the skills acquired through this project, girls will gain the confidence to speak out and promote alternatives to violence within their families and communities. Please contribute and share this campaign with others.

Facebook

Website

This project is supported by the Girls Opportunity Alliance.

Your donation to benefit this campaign/project will be allocated to the Girls Opportunity Alliance Fund (“GOA Fund”), a project of GoFundMe.org (a U.S. public charity). The Girls Opportunity Alliance Fund may grant a refund in limited circumstances at its sole and absolute discretion, however, donations are not refundable after the GoFundMe payment platform has transferred your donation to the Girls Opportunity Alliance Fund. Transfers from GoFundMe to Girls Opportunity Alliance fund typically occur once monthly. All donations are subject to the variance power of GoFundMe.org, as stated in the applicable GoFundMe.org policies (https://www.gofundme.org/policies/). Subject to applicable law, donations may be tax-deductible.

The GOA Fund is restricted to supporting girls' education and your donation is made for the support of the above described project. Notwithstanding that the campaign description may name a specific organization that is anticipated to engage in the projects, GoFundMe.org retains variance power, that is, discretion and control over how funds are disbursed within the purposes of the GOA Fund generally, and within the purpose of the project specifically. For example, if the project does not reach its minimum fundraising goal, GoFundMe.org may re-assign money raised to another campaign within the GOA Fund.

As of April 11, 2019, the Direct Impact Fund operates as GoFundMe.org.