• Haiti ranked 145 of 182 countries in the 2010 United Nations Human Development Index, with 57.3% of the population being deprived in at least three of the HDI’s poverty measures.
• It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
• The literacy rate hovers at about 50% of the population.
• Unemployment is rampant, with more than 66% of the population without a job.
• The average person exists on less than $3 a day.
• Private schools, often run by Christian organizations, offer free education to some. The meal they get while at school will probably be the only meal they eat all day!
• Public education, when it can be found, is not free. There is a charge. This is why so many people never get to go to school.
• The Inter-American Development Bank estimates that the government will need at least $3 billion USD to create an adequately funded system of education, which will not happen for years . . . if ever. This is why Christian schools in Haiti are so important.
• Cite Soleil (in the Port-au-Prince area) is considered one of the worst slums in the Americas; most of its 500,000 residents live in extreme poverty. 
• Poverty has forced at least 225,000 Haitian children to work as “restavecs” (unpaid household servants); the United Nations considers this to be a modern-day form of slavery.

Mark Sutton Ministries is dedicated to helping alleviate many of these problems. MSM, through your charitable contributions, is helping fund schools, buy food and clothes for children, build houses, help build churches, and educate the church leaders in Haiti.