Working at Diakonos

morning brush-up

One cannot be failed to be impressed by the work carried out by Diakonos International over the last five years.


Despite the clear hardships faced post 12th January, they have clearly established a very caring and loving community of children and personnel. Their original site was completely destroyed by the earthquake, and the institution has had to relocate to their current site where i am currently based in Carrefour, west of the city centre.


Due to a most fortuitous excursion, unbelievably all the children survived the brunt of this devastation, but the new site can only be described as primitive.

Most of the internal walls are severely cracked and the outer walls completely destroyed. The front and back gates are temporarily constructed from corrugated iron and barbed wire. Not quite the image the institution wants to portray to the outside world.


Running water has been installed for two very basic shower facilities and an emergency gasoline generator provides power whenever necessary, which is quite frequent as the local power source is often down. The site has just one toilet shared between 38 children (aged 18 months to 15 years old) and the 12 staff members. At the moment my computer is the only cyber-link and has become a very much shared resource.

The children are not all orphaned, but have, on occasions, been recommended here due to either neglect or abandonment, not just from Port au Prince but other regions of Haiti as well.

There is only one full time teacher (Mme Nadine) who works with an open classroom with a blackboard and a few benches. Her efforts are nothing short of heroic – i´m exhausted after a fifty minute stint at an introduction to English class. There are just a few bits of plain paper and a handful of pencils for the students. It is hoped that the children will be able to attend the local school next week if it is finally able to open.

my new classroom is somewhat basic and extremely hot

The behaviour of the students is nothing short of immaculate. They help each other and the community at large, through not just complete love and care for each other, but also through doing daily chores around the site which are done with a smile and a big heart.

everyone lends a helping hand at this tight-knit community

You can help this worthy cause by clicking here direct.