Hope for Kidz: It's Picture Time!

Did you know that the Hope for Kidz team here in Haiti is already working hard preparing for the 2018-19 school year? Yes, you read that right: 2018-19 is not a typo! Just last week the team started traveling to various schools to begin taking pictures of every child available to be sponsored for the next school year. The first round of picture taking will continue 4 days a week and last through the end of November.

Why start early for the next school year? While some school locations are close by, many others require hours of travel. Many of you know from experience the kinds of roads we travel to get to your sister church. It’s exhausting work just getting there! One of the main reasons to start early is that it takes time to enter each sponsored student’s new photo as well as update all the student information in our database. We currently have about 3,200 kids in the program, so this takes a lot of time. Taking photos in the fall also gives us an opportunity to check in on each sponsored child and make sure they are attending class. In a few months, the team will head out again for round two of photos, to get students missed the first time around or add new students as US churches request them.

Our HFKz Haiti staff is well prepared as they travel to each school. The travel bin is stocked with all the paperwork necessary to take photos of the right kids for that week, including names, ID numbers and grade levels of each sponsored child, last year’s photos for comparison, and new applications for the US churches that are ready to take on new sponsorships. Once they arrive at the school, they line up the sponsored kids in each grade level and get to work. The team works hard to get the kids to smile or laugh, but it’s not always an easy task! These kids see the opportunity to be sponsored for school as a very serious endeavor.

I think the best part of picture taking time is gifting each sponsored child with their photo from last year! For many of them, it is the only photo they will have of themselves. You can tell by the way they receive and look at the photo that it’s a gift they treasure. As the kids lined up for photos, it struck me that just this simple task of taking pictures brings hope to each child; hope for their future and knowledge that there are others who love and care about them and their education.

If you sponsor a child through RMI’s Hope for Kidz Program, thank you! You are truly changing a child’s life!