Growing young readers
The reader is built before the fifth birthday.
Haiti's future depends on a generation that reads. The window opens at birth, and it opens in Kreyòl.
0–4
The window that matters most
A child's brain builds itself most intensively from birth to age four. Libraries equip village teachers, parents and caregivers with that knowledge, and with the books that turn it into daily practice. The joy has to come first, and it has to come in Kreyòl, with books that teach, delight and challenge.
We call them book deserts
6
rural schools we surveyed
32
classrooms we walked through
0
extra books we found in them
Not one bookshelf, and no source of books anywhere nearby. Haiti's mountain villages are cut off from age appropriate books and from a culture of reading. Seventy percent of primary schools are private and rarely budget for pleasure reading. Where a family lives on less than 2.15 dollars a day, buying books is out of reach. A library or book corner nearby changes the paradigm.
Why Kreyòl
Kreyòl is the spoken language of ninety five percent of Haiti's people. The old standard was colonial French, taught by rote, which frustrated struggling readers. UNESCO's education institute reports that about forty percent of Haitian children leave school before ninth grade.
In February 2022 Haiti's Minister of Education proclaimed that public schools should teach children aged three to eight in Kreyòl. Every PILH book, chart and training is built on the premise the government now shares: a Haitian child should learn to read in the Haitian language.
Put ten books in young hands
Fifteen dollars a month funds ten Kreyòl children's books, every month.