Haiti

Life in Haiti

Haiti is ranked 163 out of 191 countries and territories in the Human Development Index (HDI).  Haiti is located in North America, on the island of Hispaniola. It shares the island with the Dominican Republic and is 27,750 square kilometres in size, meaning it is the third largest country in the Caribbean by area.

Haiti is the most populous country in the Caribbean, with around 11.4 million inhabitants.  It is also one of the poorest nations on earth.  It is the only low-income country in the Americas and ranks third on the 2021 Climate Risk Index for countries most affected by extreme weather events.

Malnutrition is widespread, owing to chronic food insecurity, and a persistent onslaught of natural disasters has greatly impacted people's ability to sustain a livelihood.  It is estimated that 4.5 million people do not have enough to eat. More than half a million children in Haiti are out of school.

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti on the afternoon of 12 January 2010, causing the country to face one of the greatest humanitarian crises in history. The earthquake was devastating, killing around 250,000 people and injuring 300,000 more. It caused the displacement of roughly five million people and some 4,000 schools were damaged or destroyed.

More than a decade later and Haiti is still struggling to recover from the disaster. Political instability, food shortages, unemployment, tropical storms and hurricanes have kept most Haitians locked in a cycle of poverty for generations.

Mary's Meals in Haiti

We have been serving school meals in Haiti since 2006.

We work with three local partners – Caritas Hinche, Summits Education, and Bureau de Nutrition et Développement.

We serve our meals in the remote and under-developed Central Plateau Region, as well as in high-risk urban slum areas in and around the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Mary’s Meals currently serves more than 175,000 children in over 500 schools in Haiti.