OUR VISION
A Haiti where every girl can PLAY, CREATE, LEARN, and LEAD.
OUR MISSION
To accompany Haitian girls in underserved communities as they improve their learning, health, and well-being through art-centered educational programs in safe and nurturing environments.
WHO WE SERVE
LIDE serves over 1,000 girls and young women ages 10-24 each year across seven sites in the remote regions of Gonaïves (Artibonite) and Les Coteaux (South). We focus on girls in these communities at the intersection of maximum vulnerability and maximum opportunity, where poverty, geographic isolation, and security concerns create the greatest barriers to advancement and the greatest potential for transformative change.
As a Haitian-led nonprofit, our field team is 100% Haitian and 87% women-led, ensuring cultural relevance, trust, and strong local leadership as we accompany these girls through art-centred educational programs and health and wellness support in safe and nurturing environments.
OUR PROGRAMS
Use creative writing, visual arts, dance, theatre, and artisanal crafts to empower learning, healing, and community building across all programs.
ARTS PROGRAMS
Our arts programming is the soul of LIDE’s work and an innovative distinguisher amongst other models of girls and women’s empowerment programming in Haiti and across the Caribbean. At LIDE, girls discover their unique voice through our arts programs, which include creative writing, theater, photography, dance, and visual arts.
HEALTH, WELLNESS & NUTRITION
Mobile medical clinics, on-site nursing, psychosocial support, GBV prevention curriculum, health education, locally sourced daily meals.
ACADEMIC SUPPORT
Literacy, scholarships, tutoring and mentoring, mobile computer lab, leadership training. Use creative writing, visual arts, dance, theatre, and artisanal crafts to empower learning, healing, and community building across all programs.
FAMILY & COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
At LIDE, we promote meaningful participation and collaboration of parents and community members in LIDE’s work, through workshops, home visits, and advocacy training.
OUR IMPACT
ANNUAL REPORTS
OUR STORY
LIDE was established by Author Holiday Reinhorn, Actor Rainn Wilson and Dr. Kathryn Adams as a short term project to provide healing through the arts for adolescent girls who had survived the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. During a two-week program, the three of them watched girls mend and find their own voices. Afterward, they watched those same girls try to hang on to those voices and teach other girls what they had learned. But they needed support, and so the idea of creating year-round programs aimed at building resiliency and empowering adolescent girls began.
LIDE started working in the Artibonite region of Haiti, in Gonaives, in January 2014 and initially partnered with CARE, who provided us with participants that needed schooling.
To hear more about the origin story of LIDE and it’s evolution, listen here, and here.
Join us in creating brighter futures for vulnerable girls in Haiti. Your support can spark transformation, inspire hope, and open doors to new opportunities. Donate today, join our newsletter, and follow us on social media to make a meaningful impact!
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