Project profile — Improving Security in Haiti through Relationship Building in the Community

• Haiti (100.00%)

• Basic Education: Basic life skills for youth and adults (11230) (15.00%)
• Secondary Education: Vocational training (11330) (20.00%)
• Conflict Prevention And Resolution, Peace And Security: Civilian peace-building, conflict prevention and resolution (15220) (60.00%)
• Banking And Financial Services: Informal/semi-formal financial intermediaries (24040) (5.00%)

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (not targeted)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (significant objective)
• Youth Issues (significant objective)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)
• Nutrition (not targeted)
• Disaster Risk Reduction(DRR) (not targeted)

This initiative seeks to address youth violence in Haiti by engaging and empowering youth, and young adults to have a voice in community decision making. In Haiti youth, who increasingly lack hope for the future, have limited economic opportunities, have experienced interruptions in their education, have broken ties with families and have experienced violence and discrimination. With GAC’s support, Mercy Corps addresses two key drivers of community violence: (1) a lack of voice for youth and young adults in decisions affecting their communities; and (2) scarce social and economic opportunities that offer productive alternatives to crime and violence. Mercy Corps intends to implement targeted activities that address specific drivers of violence for different age groups of the community, which include female, male, and priority youth and adolescents.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased partnership between communities and police on achieving security; (2) increased youth participation in community decision-making and peacebuilding processes; and (3) increased demonstration of constructive behaviours and positive participation by youth in Haiti’s Carrefour Feuilles, Canaan and Arcahaie and Miragoane communities.

Results achieved as of the end of the project (March 2023) include: (1) increased the skills of 108 youth (47 women and 61 men) between the ages of 15 and 30in developing and writing peacebuilding proposals; (2) implemented violence prevention plans that included a gender analysis and incorporated a gendered perspective in five Haitian communities; (3) increased the capacity of 51 women from women-led organizations to advocate for gender equality in governance and peacebuilding processes; (4) produced 51 reports on drivers of violence in communities; and (5) trained 14,160 at-risk youth and their parents (6,615 women and 7,445 men) in foundational life-skills.

• Proactive disclosure