Glimmers of beauty

Violence, poverty, and armed gangs. These are the three traits that consistently describe Haiti, one of the most difficult places on earth to live in. There, the state no longer exists; 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, is in the hands of gangs that conquer swathes of territory through violence. Those who wield weapons are mostly children. And then there's poverty, widespread and difficult to combat. Yet, even in Haiti, life goes on: those who can still go to school or run some small business. Precious glimpses of beauty persist, mixed with the daily grind. This is what forty young people involved in a project proposed by Avvenire, the Avvenire Foundation, and the AVSI Foundation, tell. They were asked to photograph the most beautiful and carefree moments of their days, to show a different side of the island. The young people participated and, armed with their smartphones, took on the role of photographers for a few days.

They succeeded: the images they took speak volumes. Dukens, 18, captured the beach where he goes swimming every week. The sand is white, the sea is crystal clear, and there are dozens of people in the water. "It's the best moment of my week," he wrote. Seventeen-year-old Franklin's photo, meanwhile, features three doves. "Every day I wait for the moment when I can feed them the rice my family grows," he wrote. Many have photographed their friends in memory of afternoons spent together playing or studying. Among the images is one showing a paved square, a building, and a few trees. Nothing out of the ordinary stands out. "I chose this photo," Morose writes, "because the street is clean. It's like that because the people who live in that area take care of the space."

Sometimes, then, the harshest reality resurfaces. Kensley, 17: "The image I chose is the courtyard of my first school, a space full of memories.
Now, however, it is used as a refuge for families who moved there to escape gang violence. For Haiti, the hope is always that the opposite will happen: that places scarred by violence will once again become villages, towns, and cities of peace, where they can build a home again.

"The boys and girls involved in the project," explained Anna Zamboni of the AVSI Foundation, involved in project coordination, "are well aware of the island's usual narrative: they live there, violence and poverty are concrete realities.
For this reason, focusing on the beauty that still endures has prompted important reflections. They are happy to share another piece of their daily lives."

Chiara Vitali
NP October 2025