NewsJanuary 13, 2006Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt Join Wyclef Jean in Haiti for Yéle Haiti TourJolie and Pitt visit a children’s prison, elementary school, soccer program and garbage clean up program and join the fun at the Yéle Haiti 1st Birthday Party January 13, 2006 -- Port-au-Prince, Haiti – Wyclef Jean on behalf of his foundation, Yéle Haiti, today announced the one year mile marker of the foundation and is celebrating by a visit to Haiti with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt that includes a day of activities and site visits culminating in a Yéle Haiti Birthday Party. Angelina Jolie, a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and highly visible activist against global poverty, is a supporter of Wyclef Jean, Yéle Haiti and alleviating the plight of Haiti. At the birthday party, Comcel, Haiti’s leading cell phone service provider and current funder for Yéle Haiti, will present Yéle Haiti with a check that will reaffirm Comcel’s corporate commitment to meaningful and socially responsible programs that target underprivileged youth in Haiti by becoming the “Yéle Haiti Education Sponsor.” “In a time when Haiti seems so dark, that’s when we should focus on the light,” said Wyclef Jean. “The poorest country in the western hemisphere has the richest spirit in the western hemisphere.” “We hope that our support for these various educational programs will not only positively impact the lives of these young Haitians; as importantly, we also hope that these resources contribute to improve the standards of educational institutions in Haiti, which remains an essential factor in economic and social development!”, said Bernard Fils-Aimé, Executive Director of Comcel. Wyclef Jean will host Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt for a series of visits that will provide them with a picture of everyday life in Haiti. The first stop will be at one of two of Haiti’s prisons for children, L’Apena Prison Civile De Delmas. Children ages 9-17 are imprisoned for an indefinite and arbitrary length of time, often without being formally charged with a crime. Young boys, imprisoned in substandard conditions, 18 to a cell, spend most of their day inside with no real rehabilitation program. They are all children who have been recruited by the gangs to be child soldiers. Jolie, Pitt and Jean will visit the children and distribute toys and bread with jam, and Yéle Haiti will announce a donation of $2,000 to help in establishing the prison’s first educational system through the assistance of the NGO Institut Mobile d’Education Démocratique (IMED). Next, the group will stop at Ecole Immaculee Conception, a school in Delmas. Jolie, Pitt and Jean will be greeted by students from the school and youth from L’Athletique d’Haiti, an NGO that Yéle Haiti supports with funding from Comcel that provides young girls and boys with the opportunity to play sports. This program, founded 8 years ago by former political prisoner Bobby Duval, currently services 650 children from the worst slums in Haiti: Cite Soleil and Bel Air. The program stipulates that the children must be in school, for the purpose of keeping them out of gangs. In addition, the children receive after school tutoring and one hot meal a day. They will also be met by workers from Yéle Haiti’s garbage clean up initiative, Pwoje Lari Pwop, Creole for “Project Clean Streets”. Pwoje Lari Pwop is implemented by the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) with funding from USAID. There is little funding in Haiti for street garbage pick up and this has resulted in mounds of garbage on many of the streets, creating a public health crisis. Launched in June of 2005, Pwoje Lari Pwop initially employed 600 workers a day servicing six municipalities: Tabarre, Carrefour, Croix-des-Bouquets, Delmas, Port-au-Prince and Pétion-Ville. The project has since increased to employ 1,400 workers a day, adding on the slums of Cite Soleil and Bel Air. The final stop will be the Yéle Haiti Birthday Party to celebrate Yéle Haiti’s accomplishments for its first year. Comcel will present Yéle Haiti with a check to fund education programs for Yéle Haiti’s second year of operation, and Yéle Haiti will proclaim Comcel as the official “Yéle Haiti Education Sponsor.” Comcel has taken the lead in corporate social responsibility for Haiti, setting a global example. The impact of the support makes a ripple effect that affects community affairs, economic growth and the human condition. With the distinguished position of being the largest funder of scholarships in Haiti, in a country where the concept of attending school for free is almost non-existent, Comcel is breaking new ground in social venture. The programs of Yéle Haiti are created, executed and managed by Orsa Consultants in conjunction with Wyclef Jean. # # # # # Haiti, once one of the richest nations in the western hemisphere, is currently the poorest. The unemployment rate is 80%. Most schools require tuition payment whether they are public or private; funds are lacking to support the school system, resulting in an illiteracy rate of over 60%. Because the majority of its 8 million residents live on less than $1 per day, many children do not go to school. 65% of the country does not have electricity and homes in the slums of Cite Soleil are built on mounds of garbage. Less than 2% of its forest cover remains, resulting in a lack of barriers for floods. The average life expectancy is less than 50 years; in the U.S., it is 77. The maternal mortality rate is 680 per 100,000 live births; in the United States, it is 17. The infant mortality rate is 71 per 1,000 live births; in the United States, it is 7. Haiti bears the largest burden of HIV in the Western hemisphere. # # # # # About Yéle Haiti About ComCEL About Orsa Consultants |
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