Frequently Asked Questions

Heartline’s student sponsorship program began in 2010 with a few students from Cité Soleil. Over time, it expanded to the commune of Corail, and we managed relationships with a selection of schools in both areas where our students attended classes.

At the beginning of 2023, students in Cité Soleil and Corail returned to school after violence and insecurity had disrupted classes throughout 2022. Unfortunately for the students in our Corail program, it was short-lived. Gangs quickly overtook their community, and again, many of those who had sought peace and safety in Corail were forced to flee the area – once again, refugees in their own country. In the coming weeks, violence spread throughout Port-au-Prince, and more and more families had to consider fleeing their homes. We had to respond in order to keep kids in school, wherever they and their families ended up. In February 2023, we made the decision to expand the program.

Today, families choose a school for their child, whether they’re still in Cite Soleil or Corail, or they’re far off in the countryside. Families need to be free to choose where they live and send their kids to school.

• Before a student’s chosen school is accepted, Heartline staff research the institution and contact the administrators.

• Students and their families provide report cards after each grading period.

• Then, we continually check in with each school on a monthly basis to ensure tuition and other expenses are paid and to ensure everything is running as expected at each school.

• 4 times per year (safety permitting), we check in individually with each student in the program.

• Finally, we update student sponsors on an individual basis with a photo and note from their student at least twice per year, but generally closer to 4x per year, correlating with the individual student check-ins.

In October 2023, Heartline sold the Starting Place to Autumn Fuselier, DNP, APRN, CNM and Brooke Fox, APRN, CNM. While in new hands, the Starting Place still operates under the same model and with the same goals. While Heartline no longer operates the physical Starting Place location in Temple, TX, we do still own the property and building itself: meaning monthly rent is collected and reinvested in Heartline’s Haiti operations!

The Starting Place manual originally devised by Tara Livesay and Beth “KJ” Johnson is still a tool available to maternal healthcare professionals seeking to replicate the Heartline Maternity Center model around the world.

Haiti is a challenging place to keep track of folks. Families frequently relocate to find steady work – or in the last couple years – to escape gang violence that has stricken their communities. Education Center graduates are generally working a trade on their own, filling a need in their neighborhood, or working their trade for a local business. There isn’t professional infrastructure like LinkedIn in Haiti, nor is there a culture of class reunions and Facebook groups like we have in the U.S. and Canada.

When students graduate, unless they return to visit or a friend or family member updates us, they’re often borderline impossible to reach. That said, the stories we do get tell us good things, like we mention above: someone starting a tailoring and sewing shop out of their home, or working with computers at a small business, or doing hair and makeup at a local salon. A few students have even returned to the Education Center and gotten jobs teaching or doing different kinds of work on campus – including at Petite Palm, a socially conscious lifestyle brand that operates right on the Education & Employment Campus)

As the situation in Haiti declined after the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, it became harder and harder to operate a retail business in our community. The bakery is located on the Heartline Education & Employment Campus in Croix-des-Bouquets, which is the epicenter of gang violence in Port-au-Prince. It just became too dangerous to continue to operate a street business like the Heartline Bakery.

For now, the Bakery remains temporarily closed, and we source our bread from other bakeries around town. The Bakery and the team members that ran it every day remain valued parts of our Heartline family, and when the time comes that we can do it safely, we’ll re-open. The team has been either temporarily reassigned to other jobs, or let go with a generous severance package and a standing offer to have their Bakery position back when it’s safe.

Heartline’s student sponsorship program began in 2010 with a few students from Cité Soleil. Over time, it expanded to the commune of Corail, and now funds the education of a cohort of 70 students in schools all over greater Port-au-Prince, plus another 13 recipients of our Scholarship Fund.

In 2018, Heartline made the decision to sunset the program by no longer adding new elementary-aged students. We weren’t founded or designed to be a student sponsorship organization, and other, larger organizations were doing this work with greater resources and deeper histories. Long-term, we’ll redirect our Children’s Education resources to our other pillars: maternal & infant healthcare, career training at the Education Center, and community care.

In the meantime, we remain fully committed to every student in the program. We’ll be alongside these students through their high school graduations, and through our Scholarship Fund, each one will have the opportunity to study a trade (either through our Education Center or another trade school) or go to university. We’ll see every student through the finish line.

When the last student has their final graduation, we’ll close the program – but for now, our goal is to support the students we have until they accomplish all they can in Haiti’s school system.