Photo of the President’s house in Port-Au-Prince, 1 year after the Earthquake

 

  • Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.  80% live in abject poverty.
  • 95% of aid to Haiti has been reduced since the early 1990s.
  • 70% of Haitian people live on an annual income of $700 per year.
  • There are approximately 1,000,000 impoverished children living in Haiti.
  • 200,000 impoverished Haitian children live in institutions (the rest are fostered, live with relatives, are street children, or are slave children).
  • 50% of the population is under the age of 18.
  • Life expectancy is 52 years of age.
  • Child-headed households are becoming more common as potential guardians succumb to AIDS or other causes of death.
  • Less than 45 percent of all Haitians have access to potable water.
  • Ninety percent of all HIV and AIDS infections in the Caribbean are in Haiti: over 300,000 infected people have been identified and deaths from HIV/AIDS have left 163,000 children orphaned.
  • Haiti’s infant mortality rate is staggering: 74 deaths per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality rate is approximately 1400 deaths for every 100,000.
  • Only 1 in every 10,000 Haitians has access to a physician.