Year 1 (2004-2005)
In 2005 the International Childhood Enrichment Program selected its officers and board, registered as a 501(3c) tax exempt charity, held its first fund raising event and built its first playgrounds in Afghanistan and Haiti. We located sites and built and installed nine playgrounds - five in Afghanistan, four in Haiti - at remarkably low cost. This was made possible by ICEP's all volunteer staff and cost effective model of operations. We used local labor to manufacture complete playgrounds in secure, accessible, and child-friendly places.

It was also a period of learning and development for the ICEP board and our contacts in Afghanistan and Haiti. Modifications were needed and made in playground design. Governance and post-war reconstruction moved slowly ahead in Afghanistan, but the struggle for power and civil conflict persisted throughout the year. As a result we were occasionally forced to modify programs. In one instance delivery of components to the site in Jalalabad, Afghanistan was delayed when the road was closed by fighting for several days. And, in Port au Prince, Haiti, conditions of near anarchy required a change in location of one of the playgrounds. But such incidents were rare and a predictable aspect of working in these difficult countries. The lessons learned will be applied in future programs.

During the year ICEP developed a cooperative program with two schools in Windham and Wells, Maine. The school children and their teachers adopted a country and playground project, raised funds to build it, and learned about the country's geography, culture and history. The program, titled Children Enriching Children, was of academic benefit to the American kids, who enthusiastically integrated country studies into their school routine, and it enriched the lives of the Haitian children, who were welcome recipients of a secure place to play.

Our first four projects were completed in the last quarter of 2004 and the spring of 2005. Since March 2005 we have built a second and third playground in Port au Prince and have just finished a fourth in Point des Mangles, Haiti. We installed a third Afghanistan playground in Jalalabad, a fourth in Kabul and a fifth in Mazar-i-Sharif.

Over the course of the year ICEP raised approximately $23,000 from two benefits, three exhibits, the two school programs and unsolicited donations.

Thanks to your generosity we have had a remarkably successful first year of operations at International Childhood Enrichment Program. We have achieved our objectives of launching secure places to play in two of the world's most distressed countries for an average cost of only $2000. The playgrounds are located in schools and orphanages and are visited periodically for maintenance by local workers paid from funds deposited by ICEP in local banks. The delight on the faces of the children of Afghanistan and Haiti is ample testimony to their benefits from the program. ICEP has also begun to raise the awareness of young people in the United States of the realities of the daily lives of the children in these countries. We have spent your money wisely and now ask for your help funding our second year of operations. We have plans to begin programs in Liberia and Somalia and to construct fifty additional playgrounds in our four areas or operations across the world. Your continued support will help bring additional smiles to the faces of thousands of the world's most desperate children.

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Year 2 & 3 (2006-2007)
The ICEP Board of Directors in 2006, nominated and elected Dalinda Carpenter as Executive Director. ICEP began to focus on evaluating our progress of the past years and on ways to attain our goals for the future.

ICEP Vice President Kerem Durdag took on the challenge of producing an ICEP short video presenting our program. This video is available by request and we hope that it will encourage corporate support for our organization. Video was taken by our representatives in Afghanistan and Haiti showing the children enjoying the playgrounds, provided by ICEP. Watching them at play and the sounds of their happy voices is a real joy. We hope that their joy is contagious and you will help us spread it.

The Falmouth Middle School in Falmouth, Maine studied world cultures using the book Material World as their focus and allowed ICEP to bring our Children Enriching Children program in to this study. ICEP welcomed the opportunity to share our photographs and President Charles Carpenter enjoyed sharing his adventures in Haiti, Afghanistan, Somalia and Liberia with the students. The Falmouth Middle School students designed a program they called "Give It Up for the Playground." This program asked students to forego buying something they wanted and donate the cost to building a playground in Qarabagh, Afghanistan. ICEP appreciates reporter Steve Minich of television station WMTW for his coverage of the Middle School Students efforts. ICEP would also like to thank the teachers at the school for their efforts on our behalf. Our ICEP representative in Afghanistan (Javed) has photographed the children on this playground, they have caught the OjoyO thanks to Falmouth Middle School Students and Teachers. Our Children Enriching Children program is offered to any school, just contact us.

Dalinda Carpenter traveled to Haiti for the first time since 1996 in 2006. For her, it marvelous feeling to return, knowing ICEP had something to offer the people of Haiti. She visited schools and clinics and walked though neighborhoods. The people of Haiti were just as friendly and welcoming to her as she remembered from 1996. She also met Edy Joseph, who was hired become our ICEP representative in Haiti. There are many places in Haiti with children looking for a safe place to play, ICEP looks forward to providing them with those places. Just as the children in Port Au Prince have caught the "joy" with our playgrounds, now it is time to spread that "joy" to Cap Haitien.
Please visit: http://www.lifeandhopehaiti.org



The ICEP focus for 2007 is to build four playgrounds in Haiti and two new playgrounds in Afghanistan.

The first playground in Haiti is under construction at the Ft. St. Michel Clinic in Cap Haitian. Dalinda Carpenter will be traveling to Cap in October to visit the site and photograph it. St. Michel is a neighborhood Health Center, brought to ICEP attention by Konbit Sante. Madame Jasmin, a nurse and director of the clinic, welcomed the suggestion of the playground and is excited for the children in this neighbor to have a place to play off the crowded street.

Two of our Haitian playgrounds will be build at schools. The Baptist Church of Good Faith, in City Chavel, which is another neighborhood of Cap Haitien, will receive a playground. The other school is a village community school outside the city of Milot. The school near Milot is being built by Lucia Anglade and her family, on the site of their childhood home. Lucia Anglade is now living in New York and is happy to help with education in her Haitien village. Lucia and her brother, Charles, travel back to Milot to supervise the school as often as possible. We were fortunate to meet her in Cap Haitien and visit the school with them. ICEP enjoys partnering with Lucia and her family and providing this school with a playground as soon as possible.

ICEP is happy to have our representative Edy Joseph refurbish his childhood playground in his neighborhood as our fourth playground. Edy Joseph joined ICEP as our representative in the fall of 2006. We are very fortunate to have Edy working for us. We have enjoyed working with Edy on our trips to Cap Haitien and we look forward to seeing the playgrounds he is building.

Javed will soon be starting the playground at the girl's school in Qarabagh, Afghanistan.
He was responsible for the wonderful playground footage in our ICEP video.

Somalia and Liberia remain in our plans and in our hopes that one day soon we will have representatives there also.