Health - Access to health care in Haiti is obstructed by a lack of money and geographic proximity, especially in rural areas. Adding to low medical resources and supplies, malnutrition, and lack of access to water and sanitation services, the results appear in high rates of respiratory infections, diarrhea, and other communicable diseases.

The leading causes of child mortality in Haiti are diarrhea diseases, acute respiratory infections, and malnutrition. Major causes of hospitalization for children 0–14 years old in 1995 were premature birth (23%), pneumonia (16%), mal-nutrition (8%), meningitis (8%), typhoid (6%), and gastroenteritis (5%).

74 out of each 1,000 live births die before their first birthday, and approximately 131 never reach their fifth birthday. In the year 2000, a prior study put infant mortality at 101 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Water supply and basic sanitation services are lacking. No city has a functional public sewerage system, and there are only a very few secluded wastewater treatment centers in the major cities. 

Because of wide spread poverty, the social structure of the country has been severely damaged; prostitution has become a survival technique.  As a result, currently 4,000 to 6,000 infants  each  year

are born HIV-positive in Haiti, according to the Associated Press. More than 5% of Haitian adults ages 15 to 49 are HIV-positive, and approximately 30,000 Haitians died last year of AIDS-related causes.

Welcome to the Haiti's Children Relief Fund, Inc.

The Current Situation

Economy - The Republic of Haiti is situated in the western third of the Island of Hispaniola, which it shares with the Dominican Republic.  Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. According to World Bank figures, per capita GDP was US$120 in 2002, equivalent to US$696 adjusted according to purchase power parity (PPP), making it one of the lowest in the world. The rate of inflation for this year reached 60 percent as of June 15, 2003.

The economic situation in Haiti is rapidly deteriorating into chaos. The economic sanctions that were imposed in 1991 and persistent political turmoil contributed to the rapid deterioration of the economy. The crisis has worsened given that the gross domestic product has been declining since the US imposed economic embargo. Haitian citizens do not have any buying potential. "Per capita income is decreasing while the population is increasing at a fast rate. 

Widespread unemployment and under-employment also affect the country. More than two-thirds of the labor force does not have formal jobs.  Haiti's labor market is in a depressing structure, with un-employment hanging between 65-75 percent, and the minimum wage only $1.50 per day.

stopped making disbursements, the World Bank "cut off aid before the IDB did and closed its office (in Haiti), while the European Union made its aid conditional on Haiti's resolving its political crisis."

Education - There are an estimated 10,000 schools across the country with some 1.6 million students. Western educationists are shocked to know that, with only 30,000 teachers in the country, the student/teacher ratio is 53 to one.

In spite of a law proclaiming schooling for all children, more than one-third of the school age children fall outside the school system. They live on the streets and others work as domestic slaves in wealthy homes and it means they are not given any chance to go to school.