HEALTH PROGRAMS

To support girls healthy development, our team of nurses and health partners provide physical health, mental health, and nutrition services to all our participants.

PHYSICAL HEALTH

Our physical health services include: offering regular health screenings, reproductive health education, training in first aid and CPR, distribution of health kits, and promotion of activities like oral hygiene, handwashing, and food hygiene to maintain good health. Some highlights from our work in 2023 include:

  • Facilitated staff trainings on sexual education and the safe use of technology to support the offering of education sessions on these themes with program participants.

  • Raised awareness about the misuse of antibiotics with a group of girls aged 15 and older.

  • Carried out health education workshops on personal and oral hygiene during summer camp.

  • Trained cooks on nutrition.

  • Provided health education on breast self-examination.

  • Raised awareness about cholera following cases listed by the Ministry of Public Health and Population in the department (mode of transmission & prevention).

MENTAL HEALTH

Lidè offers mental health supports through individualized psychological counseling to participants in need, home visits to program participants, and support calls to participants and their families.

In 2023:

  • We offered 117 individual counseling interviews

  • 57 participants took part in a discussion group on trauma, 6 girls on stigmatization, and 34 on conflict management.

  • 22 girls aged 8-11 participated in a bereavement group for a Lidè participant who passed away

  • We conducted over 150 home visits to families of participants

In 2021 and 2022 in the aftermath of the earthquake in the south of Haiti in August 2021, Lidè launched a new program on mental health in Les Coteaux. Conducted in collaboration with the Haitian Association of Psychologists and funded by the Obama Foundation’s Girls Opportunity Alliance, the program included capacity building for and training on the emotional and social impacts of disasters, the importance of psychosocial first aid, how to promote psychosocial wellness, and skills to foster long-term psychological resilience and well-being with their community.

The first part of the program, which began in January 2022, focused on psychoeducation, including training sessions with: Lidè participants, our staff facilitators, schools in the community, staff working at the police station, and staff at the local court. The focus of these initial sessions included talking about the aftermath of emergencies like the 2021 earthquake and helping people understand their trauma and identify their psychological symptoms. The second part of the program focused on the implementation of therapeutic groups. These groups allowed the psychologists leading the program to identify people that need continued psychological support. Through these efforts, as girls' traumatic experiences are identified and reported, families are being engaged in support of their children. We saw a high level of responsiveness to the program, especially in schools, where principals modified their schedules in order to give the psychologists time to work with students!  

The final stage of this work involved training Lidè facilitators and other community leaders about such topics as: workplace stress, stress management techniques, practicing active listening, learning how to identify sexual harassment, and emphasizing the importance of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

NUTRITION AND MEALS

Our community food program serves hundreds of meals a week to our participants and over 4,000 a month. Our participants receive a meal on every program day, often the only meal girls will have that day. These meals are prepared locally by women in the communities and have a variety of healthy foods including vegetables, whole grains, and beans, which are all sourced locally.