Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:
•Explore the core challenges faced by children in Haiti.
•Examine the impact poverty has on access to education, nutrition, basic healthcare and child mortality.
•Identify some of the social, political and economic variables that affect Haitian children.
•Become familiar with the UNICEF Child Alert: Haiti Summary Paper.

Teaching Process

Written for students. You can add this directly to your class as an assignment!


1. Download the UNICEF Child Alert: Haiti report (except Group 1).

2. Once you have been placed in your assigned team, download the document for your group:
•Group 1: UN Special Representatives
•Group 2: Education Advocates
•Group 3: Health Advocates
•Group 4: Poverty and Unemployment Experts
•Group 5: Security Experts

3. Each group except Group 1 will read the Child Alert: Haiti Report. As advocates or experts on a specific issue (e.g., education or health, etc.), you must summarize the challenges children face in relation to that issue, and list findings and recommendations. Use the set of guiding questions from the group document you downloaded to help generate the information you need. List the information on newsprint distributed in class; you may also select one representative of your group to post the findings as a blog entry, or upload a document to your team page linked to this assignment.

5. Group 1: The UN Special Representatives’ Group is a team traveling to Haiti on a fact-finding mission. In the interest of time, their group should divide up and send members of the team to groups 2, 3, 4, and 5 to conduct simultaneous interviews. Group 1, your assignment is to collect information on the issues to prepare a presentation at the “UN Children of Haiti” Summit.

Once the UN Special Representatives have gathered their information, they will take themselves aside for five minutes to prepare their presentation.

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Educator Instructions:
6. While the Special Representatives are working, re-arrange the room to participate in the ‘Children of Haiti Summit’ at the United Nations.
7. Call all participants to order and tell them they are about to listen to a presentation from a team of international experts on the status of children in Haiti. Direct the Special Representatives to present their report.
8. Tell them that you (teacher/facilitator) will act as the chair of the summit and facilitate a brief conversation after the presentations about the information presented (or left out).

Teachers Notes

The Guiding Questions for the five groups for the Children of Haiti Summit have been consolidated into one document below. This document may be downloaded and printed on separate sheets for distribution to students; alternatively, you may wish to separate into five documents for students to download from the TIGed virtual classroom.