Reveil Matinal Orphanage Foundation
We have over a decade of successfully educating and caring for this community of girls. Currently there are over 30 girls, living in two different home environments, depending on their age.
By Haitian law, they are not adoptable. Therefore, we are committed to ending the cycles of poverty by empowering them through quality education. We work with a Haitian Education Director, on staff, who monitors their progress along with a board member who acts as an Education Specialist and Haiti liason. We send the girls to private schools in their neighborhood and are committed to helping them achieve their individual education goals.
As of 2023, ten of our girls are at university or in a vocational school!
#NotJustAnOrphanage!
We create opportunities for our girls to become new leaders in Haiti and to break the cycle of poverty.
How?
We are like a big, chosen family!
We send them to private schools in their neighborhood.
We hire tutors.
We support a home for them after they turn 18.
We are committed to supporting their entire education.
We are deeply involved in their education journey.
Our Work with RMOF: A Brief History
In January 2010, a devastating earthquake hit Haiti causing destruction and a substantial loss of life. A team of medical volunteers from Ukiah Valley Medical Center (including our founders) arrived to provide care to the people of Haiti. The team also had an additional goal of finding and providing relief to an orphanage.
They discovered great need at Reveil Matinal Orphanage. This orphanage had been in existence for 6 years, housed 20 girls, and was run by the Reveil Matinal Orphanage Foundation (RMOF), based in New York City. Charlucie Jaboin the president of RMOF was thrilled and relieved to create a partnership with Hearthstone Village.
At this time, the girls were in an unsafe location. They did not have consistent adequate nutrition, and the staff was untrained. Hearthstone made a commitment to support the safety, psycho-social, nutritional, and educational needs of the children.
In 2011, the orphanage moved to a safer house in Port-au-Prince. With Hearthstone’s support, all of the girls and the staff had their nutritional and educational needs met and RMOF began to stabilize.
By this time, it became clear that now that the girls had a stable home environment, they needed better education options. We began raising money to send them to private schools and tracking their progress.
In June 2012, the first set of girls passed their 6th grade government tests, after beginning school outside the orphanage.
In 2013, our founder, Lynn Meadows started the Education Sponsor program to help with school costs. We increased our numbers to 23 girls, including two toddlers.
In 2015, we moved to a bigger house in the Delmas neighborhood of Port-au-Prince and expanded to serve 29 girls. With our support, all were attending school daily.
From 2016 to present, we’ve focused on meeting the girls’ nutrition, educational and social needs. We’ve worked with staff to establish trust, to discipline in new ways.
As girls reach their 18th birthday, we now have access to a transition house for these girls to grow in their independence, still with education and medical support, and welcome new young ones to the orphanage.
By 2019, 4 girls graduated from high school with several to follow in 2020. Two girls began university in Port-au-Prince. This is a huge accomplishment in Haiti, where only 10% of the entire population graduates from high school. And, it proved to the other girls that higher education was a real possibility for them.
By 2023, 10 girls are in higher education such as university or vocational schools.
