"Children, Let's Read" is the translation of Tí Moun Annou Lí, a Haitian Creole call to action, and is the name of a new program that is being run in five pediatric medical sites in Haiti since February 2010, less than a month after January 2010’s devastating earthquake leveled Port-au-Prince and surrounding towns.
Like its companion Reach Out and Read in the United States, Ti Moun Annou Li gives new books to families, starting at the 4-6 month well-child visit. In Haiti, the program is adapted to include hospitals, chronic disease clinics, and outreach programs in the community.
By Dr. Bronwen Anders
After visiting Port-au-Prince as faculty for the Children’s Environmental Health workshop that was jointly sponsored by the International Pediatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and hosted by the Haitian Pediatric Society in early 2009, a small group in San Diego began, under my leadership, to look at ways to bring more children’s books to Haiti to increase the chances for improving literacy, particularly in the rural areas. Dr. Nicole Prudent from Boston Medical Center was Tí Moun Annou Lí’s cofounding member, with numerous contacts in Port-au-Prince.
Only 1 year later, the earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, killing more than 200,000 people, leaving many hundreds of thousands of families homeless, and literally changing the living conditions of the entire country. With this backdrop, the efforts and excitement of Tí Moun Annou Lí began to coalesce into a multinational, multidisciplinary group that includes authors, illustrators, and publishers along with pediatric health professionals from both Haiti and the United States, including members of the Haitian Pediatric Society, with whom members of the AAP’s Section on International Child Health (SOICH) have had an affiliation for more than 6 years. In addition to fostering the importance of reading and its connection to lifelong literacy in all children, this effort has made it increasingly apparent that books can have a profound impact on both physical and emotional healing for children and families who are victims of devastating events.
Through donations and transport by individuals (including many pediatrician and nurses traveling to Haiti for relief work), artists, and publishers, small shipments of books have arrived at the five sites currently running the program. In these sites, health care workers are partnering with parents and caregivers to give these books to children and teach how they can be used to promote discussion and reading. Books in both French and Haitian Creole continue to be needed for all ages of children, including those in primary school.
The collaborative group is committed to discovering means and funding to publish books (by Haitian authors and artists) in Haiti as well as to partner with U.S. publishers who would be willing to sell and ship the books at reduced rates. We have been successful supporting the dean of Université Caraïbe, Dr. Jocelyne Trouillot-Levy, in her efforts to publish and distribute the first Creole books for small children available in country. We have translated the Reach Out and Read bookmarks with reading advice for each age group into French and Creole.
Courtesy of Dr. Bronwen Anders
Parents and child in Haiti
Currently, the AAP chapter in San Diego and the Massachusetts AAP chapter have agreed to be official sponsors of this new program. We are soliciting funds from individuals and seeking partners to help with ongoing support for a coordinator’s position for Ti Moun Annou Lí both in the United States and in Haiti to build a sustainable funding source for both purchase and publishing of new titles that will supply the program. Many pediatricians throughout the United States (quite a few through the AAP’s Disaster Network) have generously donated volunteer time to work in Haiti over the past 18 months. Many of them have graciously made room amidst medical supplies for our children’s books.
If you or your state AAP chapter, your local library, your church, or your book club is interested in either giving financial support or becoming partners to help with Ti Moun Annou Lí, please contact Dr. Bronwen Anders through the AAP. Checks can be made out to the Pediatric Foundation of Massachusetts, c/o MCAAP, 860 Winter St., Waltham, MA 02151. We hope to have a website for updated information and donation online in the next months with a link from the AAP SOICH website.
This column, "Passport to Pediatrics," regularly appears in Pediatric News, an Elsevier publication. Dr. Anders is professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego, and is on the executive committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on International Child Health. Dr. Anders said that she had no relevant financial disclosures.