Haiti

Post Date: March 5, 2026

Author: Med Laz

Fr. Med Laz has been involved in Haiti for over 20 years. He witnessed thousands of Haitians in the Dominican Republic working 12 hours a day for $1.00 a day cutting sugar cane. The children all had distended bellies and orange hair due to malnutrition. What grabbed the heart of Fr. Laz was that not a single face showed an ounce of hope.

For 20 years Fr. Laz has invited his friends and parishioners to work with Food for the Poor to build a school, clinic, operating room or homes and wells each and every year. This has made a tremendous impact on thousands of lives in Haiti.

Gang violence in Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti, has been over-whelming with kidnappings and killings. As many citizens in Haiti are dying as there are citizens dying in Ukraine the last four years. A country of 12 million people, Haiti is only 750 miles or 1 and ½ hours off the coast of Florida.

Outside of Port-au-Prince, life still goes on in a largely normal fashion for 9 million people. The right kind of education is what is needed most. For 7 years Fr. Med Laz has partnered with Raygine Francois, the founder and director of the Haiti STEM Alliance. haitistemalliance.com. Raygine is the “boots on the ground” in Haiti and has lived in Haiti for 15 years. Fr. Laz from Florida provides her with laptops, tablets, generators and financial resources.

Three years ago, the Haiti STEM Alliance began a mission to provide digital education by placing computers directly into the hands of students who had never used one before.

The arrival of more than 90 laptops transformed what began as a small community initiative into a structured and expanding regional education program.

These laptops became mobile classrooms, training centers, and innovation tools, allowing thousands of students to develop digital literacy and coding skills without leaving their communities. The laptops have been used over the past three years and they continue to serve as the foundation of an expanding national digital education movement.

Two years ago, the Haiti STEM Alliance embarked on a bold mission: to teach high school students how to use a computer for the first time. At the time, no computer labs existed locally. Rather than waiting for infrastructure, the program became mobile. Each morning, laptops were packed into protective bags and transported by motorcycle from Coteaux to Tiburon, a journey of approximately 18 kilometers (11 miles) along difficult coastal roads.

Training was conducted seven days a week.

Classes were organized wherever space was available: classrooms, community centers, churches, temporary learning spaces. In many cases, instructors delivered up to three training sessions per day, working tirelessly to meet demand.

Students were introduced to: basic computer components, keyboard skills, digital literacy fundamentals, document creation, file management, and internet navigation.

The long-term impact of the program is already measurable. To date, three former participants are now enrolled at a university in Les Cayes, pursuing degrees in computer engineering. These students began as first-time computer users through the laptop program and have progressed to higher education in a technology field.

Their achievement demonstrates the tangible outcomes of sustained investment in digital education and highlights how early exposure to computer skills can create real academic and career pathways for youth in rural Haiti.

Building on two years of experience, the current phase represents the program’s largest expansion yet. This year, Haiti STEM Alliance extended its reach beyond digital literacy toward coding education, introducing students to programming through SCRATCH.

The objective evolved from teaching students how to use computers to teaching them how to create with technology.

LOOKING AHEAD

The Haiti STEMAlliance has launched an ambitious initiative: Introduce 60,000 students to coding by the end of the year across four geographical areas of Haiti. This effort uses a scalable model built over the previous two years: 1.Mobile outreach experience. 2.School integration partnerships. 3.Standardized coding bootcamps using SCRATCH.
The laptops remain the core infrastructure enabling this expansion.

THE NEED

Fr. Med Laz, Raygine Francois and the Haiti STEM Alliance need new or used (in great shape) laptops or tablets. We pay our teachers $150.00 a month, so your financial support is also needed. Without your help, we will lose a whole generation of students in Haiti who are poorly educated and desperately needed to transform Haiti from within.

We are teaching the students in Haiti how to fish, instead of giving them a fish.

Fr. Med Laz would love to hear from you and obtain your support.

Checks can be made out to Hearts for Humanity.