When a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti nearly two months ago, all schools in Port-au-Prince collapsed. Haitian children who survived the earthquake experienced trauma that could negatively affect them for life.

To help restore children’s sense of well-being, Kaplan Early Learning Company has partnered with Mercy Corps and the Bright Horizons Foundation for Children, a global workplace childcare provider, to bring comfort to displaced children.

The Comfort for Kids counseling methodology was first developed in New York by Mercy Corps and Bright Horizons to help children recover from the trauma of 9/11. Subsequently, Mercy Corps has used Comfort for Kids to help children recover from the China and Peru earthquakes and Hurricane Katrina.

Over 4,000 Comfort Kits, assembled and delivered to Haiti by Kaplan Early Learning Company, have now been distributed Mercy Corps.  Presented in small, child-friendly backpacks, Comfort Kits are designed to promote emotional security, comfort, and basic developmental support to infants, toddlers and preschoolers. The youngest children received kits that include a stuffed animal, toys, and a book. Preschoolers received kits that include a stuffed animal, crayons, books, a doll and play people.

Watch this moving video of Mercy Corps workers handing out Comfort Kits (small, child-friendly backpacks stuffed with blankets, soft stuffed animals, toothbrushes, crayons, paper, and other comforting items) to the children in Haiti.

To lay the groundwork for longer-term recovery, Mercy Corps recently announced a partnership with Haiti's First Lady, Elisabeth Delacourt Préval, to implement Comfort for Kids trainings for adult caregivers. The First Lady and UNICEF will organize “safe spaces” in camps to run arts, sports and music activities for children, while Mercy Corps will run simultaneous sessions — in French and Creole — to educate parents and caregivers about child symptoms of trauma and how they can be addressed.