16 March 2010: There are children everywhere.  A group of rambunctious boys are playing soccer. A dance class is just getting underway while music class students belt out a tune on their recorders.  Some children are quietly drawing, hunched over their drawings while others play tag while blowing enthusiastically into their little plastic whistles.  

I am at one of Plan’s newly established child-friendly spaces, visiting with some of my colleagues. Among the flurry of activity, I feel a little tug on my bag.  I look down and see a sweet little round face with innocent eyes looking up at me.  I kneel down to talk with her.  “Hi sweetheart, how are you?” I ask in Creole.  

With shy words uttered in not more than a whisper, she says: “I want to tell you my name.”
At the age of 5, she could sense that something important was going on. She wanted to be part of it.  She wanted to be recognised. She wanted to be acknowledged.  She wanted to be heard.

Helping children to speak out

My moment with this little one is representative of what is happening on a higher level with the Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) consultative process currently ongoing in Haiti. In the flurry of the urgency to design a plan for the reconstruction of Haiti, Plan wants to make sure the decision-makers hear the voices of children and youth when they decide what will be done to rebuild the country and how it will happen.  

Even more than that, decision-makers must not only hear but listen to and validate these young Haitians’ views, opinions, and wishes for the new Haiti. 

Plan action

There is a lot of activity this week around the PDNA with various actors lobbying the Haitian government and donors alike to include the interests and needs of key groups of people in Haitian society – people who are often excluded from decision-making circles.  

Today through Wednesday there is a technical conference in the Dominican Republic.  A roundtable discussion on ‘The Child/Youth Perspective in the Reconstruction of Haiti’ will take place on 18 March in Miami, with a consultation between civil society and the government in Port-au-Prince on 19 March.  Plan is participating in these events to ensure that the voices of Haitian children and youth are kept on the agenda and in the plan.

This is all leading up to the grand finale on 31 March when the final PDNA framework will be presented to donors at a conference in New York.

Courage

It took a lot of courage for that little girl to come up to me and assert herself like that.  But she did it and she captivated us with her quiet song that followed.  Now it is up to us to do the same - to seize and keep the attention of the decision-makers in Haiti and the international community, and to make Haiti’s children and youth a priority in the rebuilding of the nation.

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