News

September 28, 2006

Wyclef Jean’s Foundation Yéle Haiti and Comcel Award Scholarships to Schools and Children in Cap Haitian

Comcel is the largest corporate sponsor of primary school scholarships in Haiti

September 28, 2006 – Cap Haitien, Haiti – Wyclef Jean’s foundation, Yéle Haiti (www.yele.org), along with Comcel, Haiti’s premiere cell phone service company, is in Cap Haitien today to award scholarships to schools and children.

In its first year of operation in 2005, Yéle Haiti, funded by Comcel, provided scholarships to 3,600 children in Gonaives after the devastation by Hurricane Jeane. In its second year of operation, Yéle Haiti, with funding by Comcel, is almost doubling the amount of the scholarships and spreading them throughout Haiti, providing tuition in 5 regions. 6,800 scholarships will be provided to children in Port-au-Prince, Gonaives, Les Cayes, Port-de-Paix and Cap Haitian through Yéle Haiti and Comcel’s efforts. Comcel has been investing in the community since 1999, and with this, is the largest corporate sponsor of scholarships in Haiti to date.

The scholarships are being administered by Fonds de Parrainage National, run by Executive Director Antoine Levelt. FPN is one of the leading and most successful education NGOs in Haiti, administering scholarships for 50,000 children per year in Haiti.

Today’s event will gather the scholarship recipients Yéle Haiti/Comcel funded scholarships along with the school administrators. Each school will receive tuition for 50-60 students, and each school will receive a certificate acknowledging them for the receipt of Yéle Haiti/Comcel scholarships signed by Wyclef Jean. Today, 17 schools will receive certificates and 807 children will receive scholarships in Cap Haitian.

Yéle Haiti creates projects in the areas of education, health, environment and community development. Yéle Haiti currently has 16 projects in progress since the launch in January of 2005, with primary school scholarships as one of them. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt visited Haiti in January of 2006 with Wyclef Jean to celebrate the one year anniversary of the foundation.

Other scholarship events to award certificates have occurred in Port-de-Paix on October 10, 2006; Les Cayes on October 13, 2006; and the last will be held in Gonaives on December 5, 2006