Hollywood Stars Fund a School for Haitian Teens

           

Despite billions of dollars pledged by donors to help Haiti rebuild, reconstruction efforts remain painstakingly slow, with only incipient signs some progress may be taking hold.              

 

In response, some Haiti aid contributors sought to chart their own path.  

            

The Artists for Peace and Justice, a group of Hollywood stars including Clint Eastwood, Penelope Cruz, Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman among others, partnered with a local Haitian foundation to help build the secondary school.  

            

Organizers said it raised $4.5 million during a brunch held days after the quake.  

            

As the school reopened on Monday after vacation, students in brown uniforms filed into the building.  

            

Mertilus Aland was among them. 

             

Born in Cite Soleil, Haiti's largest and most notorious slum, he is trying to make up for lost time. 

 

After his father and a brother died in 2005, Aland, who speaks with a stutter, said his mother did not have enough money to pay the administrative fees for him to attend public school. 

             

Aland said he is impressed that strangers cared so much about him and his classmates to fund the school.  

 

[Mertilus Aland, Student]:          

"It means a lot to me that there are people who are thinking in a positive way for us. These are things that the government should have done and to see artists come from far around the world to build a school in Haiti, this means a lot to me, this is amazing."

             

Aland spent three years outside of school before one day building up the courage to carry his report card to an elementary school run by the Haitian partner of Artists for Peace and Justice and asking if he could attend.  

            

He said that decision changed his life.    

 

[Mertilus Aland, Student]:        

"There are certain (bad) things that I did before coming to this school but my teachers have now taught me how to do better in life. That's put me in another state of mind. I won't do those things ever again."

              

The 18-year-old eighth-grader is now flourishing in the new school and dreaming of one day becoming a doctor in the violent Haitian slum he calls home. 

             

The success of the school stands out in Haiti, which is still struggling to lift itself from the rubble left by an earthquake two years ago that killed roughly 300,000 people and left more than 1.5 million homeless.    

          

After buying land and setting up a temporary school with classrooms of concrete walls, the school opened in October 2010. 

 

A newly-built and larger school building was then constructed and inaugurated late last year.