Hip-hop to move Haiti forward

Meet "Coeur à Coeur," a boy band that calls a UNICEF-supported residential center in Port-au-Prince home. The center provides the boys with housing, hot food, an education and vocational training. The staff is also working to reunify the boys with their families. Elizabeth Kiem is the online producer of unicefusa.org.

I've spent the past week reviewing dozens of what we call human interest stories - personal vignettes that remind us that there are real people and real lives touched by the work we do around the world.

This is the one that has kept me humming for two days straight ... so it's GOT to go on FieldNotes.

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Meet "Coeur à Coeur," a boy band that calls a UNICEF-supported residential center in Port-au-Prince home. The center provides the boys with housing, hot food, an education and vocational training. The staff is also working to reunify the boys with their families.

If this music video featuring Coeur à Coeur's "biggest hit" is any indication, I'd say the center is doing a remarkable job.

The song is called Nap Decide, or "We're making up our mind." It's a long song and the kids rap fast, so we'll do without the full lyrics, but the best verse goes:

We're making up our minds to take the country where it supposed to be,

Hand in hand we have to get up so that Haiti can change,

Let's collaborate together to have the children move forward,

Youths hand in hand so that Haiti can change.

And yes -- these wise, inspired lyrics are the original poetry of one of the boys in the band. His name is Youri and he's 13 years old.

They don't all have such strong voices. Be their Voice. Stand with Haiti for the next 365 days.