Hands of Hope

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Beraca Vocational School was established in the mid 1980s. It was the vision of a Haitian man called Kenny Vil who saw the young people around him growing up unable to find useful employment in the community because of the lack of any practical or technical training. After approaching British aid agency, TearFund for financial help, the beginnings of Beraca Vocational School were constructed with Kenny as its director.

TearFund volunteer, Andy Brooke, led several work teams to Haiti to work on expansion projects at the school, the first being in 1990. Andy Brooke later went on to be one of the founding members of the Hands of Hope Charity and this is how the relationship with Haiti first began.

 

Hands of Hope have been supporting Beraca Vocational School for the last 4 years and have so far provided funding which has paid for :-

Solar panels for the school building

Contributions towards teacher’s salaries,

Provision of teaching tools and equipment e.g. sewing machines, computers, hand tools

More recently, the charity has helped to fund the building materials and labour needed for the construction of a new library annex.

The aim of Beraca Vocational school is to teach manual, technical and academic skills to young people and so enable them to find gainful employment and give them the ability to support and provide for their families and communities with pride and dignity. The school academic year usually starts in September until June.

 

The school is, however, like many institutions and establishments all over Haiti, presently experiencing dire financial crises. High unemployment, rising food/fuel prices and high cost of living make it very difficult for many students to find the money to pay the annual tuition fees and to complete the full 3 years of their training. Often students from poor families attend the school but are unable to pay their fees. The school will often accept these students on compassionate grounds, but this often leads to teachers going for long periods without full wages and in some cases with no  wages at all. Under such recent circumstances, Hands of Hope have been able to intervene, and have provided a small emergency grant so that the teachers have been provided with some wages in order for them to meet their own living costs.

 

The school Principal Bernadin Sainsurin writes: