PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, 25 October 2011 – Children run after a small truck winding its way through Centre d’Hebergement Tabarre 23, a crowded camp where hundreds of people live in tents of plastic sheeting and shacks of wood and tin.
Five-year-old Aliya Nissa Charlite peers eagerly into the boxes, spying colourful plush animals, crayons, paper, scissors and towels, items she and other children will be using here in the weeks to come, all thanks to a partnership between IKEA, UNICEF and a local NGO.
Not just diversions
IKEA, the international Swedish furnishings company donated the toys, valued at about US$140,000. UNICEF added hygiene kits to the delivery to encourage recipients to wash their hands.
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For Haiti’s children – who continue to be affected by the devastating 2010 earthquake, an ongoing cholera epidemic and persistent poverty – these materials are not just diversions from their daily routine. The toys offer important opportunities for play and creative expression, and the hygiene kits will help protect them from cholera and other dangerous diseases.
Empowering women
Children are not the only ones to benefit from this partnership. The supplies are being prepared for distribution by members of Solidarité des Femmes Haïtiennes (SOFA), a Haitian association that advocates on behalf of women, including victims of gender-based violence.
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SOFA’s role is helping empower women through economic independence. For packing the toys and kits, SOFA members earn 500 Gourdes per a day, or about US$13.
“Involving women of SOFA in this initiative demonstrates just how much of a win-win project this is,” said Françoise Gruloos-Ackermans, UNICEF’s Representative in Haiti. “Women have an opportunity to earn an income by preparing the distribution of donated toys for children in IDP camps, all of which is made by possible by the UNICEF-IKEA partnership.”
