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Christmas cheer for Haitian children

Permission requested to use information from http://www.bbc.co.uk

One charity organisation is hoping to bring some Christmas cheer to Haitian children this year. Haiti, already plagued with financial difficulties, is now struggling to recover from the damage caused by Tropical Storm Noel in October 2007.

Charity organisation United Caribbean Trust, based in Barbados, has launched a 'sponsor a box' programme, through which students across the island can fill shoe boxes with gifts.

The Trust's founder Jenny Tryhane said the programme started in 2006, when United Caribbean was looking at ways of introducing a child sponsorship programme in the Caribbean.

"We had identified the area in Haiti called Jacmel, which was the area we wanted to work in," she told BBC Caribbean.

"We identified the children that were in need, we had gone into the schools, and we knew their challenges."

Ms Tryhane said that to date, 50 children are being sponsored through the shoe box project.

United Caribbean's sponsor a box programme is patterned on another charity project, Operation Christmas Child, of the organisation Samaritan's Purse.

Listen to Marie-Claire Williams' interview with Jenny Tryhane

Last month the project was extended to Trinidad, and United Caribbean is looking to start similar programmes in other islands.