Candid Platinum TransparencyBooks in Kreyòl
We publish and place easy readers written for Haitian children about Haitian life, plus the alphabet chart that took thirteen years and MIT linguists to get right.
Rural Haiti, since 2011
A child who reads in her own language never stops.
Partners in Literacy Haiti puts Kreyòl books into the hands of children who have never held one, and builds the village libraries that keep them coming back.
3,000+
Kreyòl books placed in children's hands
What your gifts have built
3,000+
Kreyòl books placed in children's hands
5
village libraries mentored and modernized
98
schools supplied with charts and books
3,800+
students reached through teacher training
Figures from our published annual reports. Independently verified financials are filed with the IRS each year.
The challenge
We visited 32 classrooms and found zero books.
Not one storybook. Not one bookshelf. Across six rural schools and thirty two classrooms, children had nothing to read beyond their required lessons, and no chance to discover the joy of reading for themselves. For families struggling to meet basic needs, buying books is out of reach, and rural schools face the same hard choices. Your support helps change that, one book, one classroom, and one young reader at a time.
“Where there is no book, there is no reader. We start with the book.”
Dr. Sara Currie Mansbach, Founder
38%
of adults in Haiti cannot read
40%
of children leave school before ninth grade
95%
speak Kreyòl, yet almost all books are in French
Sources: USAID International Data and Economic Analysis, 2022. UNESCO IIEP, 2020.
How we work
Three things, done properly, in one village at a time.
We do not parachute in. We partner with a village that wants a library, and we stay for years.
A real library
Shelves, light, power, internet, computers and a paid library worker. A safe room where a child can sit down and read after school.
Trained people
Library workers complete an eleven module curriculum built in Haiti. Teachers learn how to read aloud, how to run a book corner, how to keep a child curious.
Where we work
Five libraries. Three departments. One standard.
We mentor a library until it can stand on its own, then we help the next village.
In their words
“The only books in Kreyòl I ever had the chance to read were in a school textbook. I wish we had a big library where you could find all kinds of books. My dream is to write one myself one day.”
A young reader in rural Haiti, after receiving her first PILH book
Give
Pick the gift that fits you.
Every amount below is real. We buy the books, we ship them, we report back.
$15a month
Ten Kreyòl children's books, or shelving for twenty
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$50a month
A month of internet service for a rural library
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$100one time
Four classroom sized Kreyòl alphabet charts
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$250a month
A month of a librarian stipend and literacy workshops
Give nowTax deductible in the United States. EIN 87-0904773. · PILH is led by an all volunteer board. Our books are purchased in Haiti when possible so the money stays in the Haitian economy.
News
From the field
A new digital home for Partners in Literacy Haiti
PILH relaunches haiti-literacy.org as a quadrilingual platform, welcomes new board leadership, and renews its mission for the next chapter of children's literacy in rural Haiti.
Over 3,000 PILH Kreyòl books are now in children's hands
A milestone worth celebrating, and a testimonial that says it better than we ever could.
An early literacy book celebration
Children under six enjoyed activities and free Haitian Creole, French, Spanish and English books.