Last Thrusday

Last day of school!!!

When I dropped him off, I could barley hold a conversation because I was about to break into the ugly cry. You know that cry right? The kind where you can feel yourself about to lose all control and start sobbing at the top of your lungs.

Have I mentioned that I hate the ugly cry?

Thankfully I held my composure but didn't even say goodbye to his teachers like I wanted. Richard picked him up from school . He said he did not have any problems with an ugly cry.

Haiti Thursday

In order to keep my blogging regular, I am going to try to designate certain days of the week to a theme. Obviously, by the title, Thursday is about Haiti. (It is Thursday right?)

Today I wanted to share some staggering statistics with you.

HAITI AT A GLANCE

The country of Haiti has a population of just over 8 million people. The unemployment rate is a staggering 80 percent. The majority of the Haitian population lives on less than $1 a day, with the median income being only about $60 a year. Only 25 percent of the population has access to safe drinking water, and less than 30 percent of the population has access to adequate sanitation.
Just under half of the population is literate. In addition, the average life expectancy for Haitians is less than 50 years.
All of this makes Haiti the most impoverished country in the Western hemisphere, and children are hit especially hard by the widespread poverty:

• Of the just over 8.2 million people who live in Haiti, children under the age of 18 make up almost half of the population.
• There are 1.2 million children under the age of 5. Over half of these children suffer from malnutrition.
• Only 25 percent of Haitian children have the vaccines they need to survive, making Haiti the country with the lowest vaccination rate in the world.
• The country of Haiti spends $21 per child for public and private health care, compared to $38 per child in sub-Saharan Africa and $202 per child in Latin America.
• The infant mortality rate in Haiti is 76 of every 1,000 live births, more than twice that of any other country in the Western Hemisphere.
• Only 53 percent of Haitian children ages 6 to 12 are enrolled in school.
• Only 14 percent of Haitian children ages 13 to 18 are enrolled in school.
• Only 43 percent of students entering first grade ever reach the fifth grade, and only 29 percent ever make it to sixth grade.
• Only 38 out of 1,000 children who enter the first year of primary school finish secondary school.

[[ Article courtesy of the Youth Worker Journal, as exerpted from the book, The Hands and Feet Project by AUDIO ADRENALINE with Mike DeVries (Regal Books/Gospel Light), available September 5th. ]]