Ecole Agape is a school founded by Sister Myrtha Manigat in Lilavois, Haiti, a neighborhood of Port au Prince. She started the school for the poorest of the poor, the young girls who couldn’t afford the cost of public education. Friends of Ecole Agape, Inc. was started after her passing, continuing her work as a non-profit committed to serving the only free school for girls in Haiti.
Ecole Agape means “School of Love” and includes grades pre-K through six. The Ecole Agape preschool is run in Myrtha’s original home. The 1st-grade through 6th-grade classes are held in the afternoon, after other children leave La Providence, a facility built by an Italian group after the earthquake. Many years ago Sister Myrtha convinced this local school to allow her to use their building in the afternoon when their own enrolled students went home. In Haiti, you have to pay to attend school at an annual cost between $500-$1500 per student, in a country where the average yearly income is less than $1000.
Friends of Ecole Agape raises funds to assist in the establishment of a library, help cover the costs of school supplies, uniforms, and teachers’ salaries, and provide a lunch program for 200+ students whose families are unable to pay. The founding members of Friends of Ecole Agape, Inc. have been involved with support of Ecole Agape for decades in other ways and with other organizations before forming a nonprofit. We continue to support the poorest girls in Haiti with education and a free meal each school day, and we are working to find new ways to achieve this end.