College d'Emmanuel, which opened in September 2016, now serves over 600 students in kindergarten, primary and secondary grades, providing a Christian education and a warm meal to children from the orphanage, the community and the mountains surrounding the village. Our scholarship program allows children from the community to attend school and, because of the warm meal, remain in their family rather than being given away to orphanages or to another family in a child slavery system knows as “restaveks.”

The 16 room school building at Emmanuel was built in 2016-17 by our Canadian partner, Christianne Malenfant. 500 students are enrolled in classes for the 2019-2020 school year, and they receive a warm meal each and every school day, often the only one they have in a day. Mt. Carmel sponsors the school on a monthly basis and provides those meals. Funds for the school bus were donated in 2015 through Mt. Carmel and that bus now travels into the mountains two times each morning and two times each afternoon to pick up and drop off schoolchildren who would not be able to attend school otherwise. The bus also provides transportation for church members to be able to come to worship services and allows our teams to take the whole crew to the beach! 

The 2018-19 school year marked the beginning of the Community Kids’ Scholarship Fund - sponsors pay $250 for tuition, a uniform and a backpack for a child from the community around Emmanuel - these children would not be able to attend school otherwise. The first year we had 25 children in the program and 55 this current school year. What we learned from these children’s mothers is that without the meal they receive every day at the school, these mothers would not be able to keep their children. Rather than allowing their children to literally starve, they would give them to friends, family, witch doctors or strangers as “restaveks,” household servants who are not allowed to go to school and often sleep on the floor. This child slavery system which is widespread in Haiti is the perfect setting for abuse of all forms.

The Emmanuel children all wear uniforms...grey for the high schoolers, blue check for the middle grades and pink check for the kindergartners.