The Digicel Foundation and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have launched a project which trains at-risk and out-of-school youths in Haiti to convert shipping containers into primary schools. The Digicel Foundation and USAID have already opened the first school built under the public-private partnership. Ecole Louis de Borno in Leogane will welcome 600 primary students when the new school year begins on 4 October. The Digicel Foundation plans to open 50 such schools, which will provide permanent and transitional courses for up to 30,000 children.
August, 2010:
A New Haiti Education Plan
A plan to build a new education system in Haiti is one of the most encouraging things to emerge from the rubble of the Jan. 12 earthquake. It is expected to be endorsed at a meeting on Tuesday of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, the joint Haitian-international body created to guide the country’s rebuilding.
Talk and promises have been far more abundant than visible improvements in the lives of struggling Haitians. After a frustratingly slow start, the commission is finally confronting a range of urgent issues, including housing and debris removal. It is right that this meeting — only its second — is immediately tackling education reform head-on, since the current system’s failures are at the root of the country’s thwarted potential. (more…)
HONEYWELL BREAKS GROUND ON NEW SCHOOL IN JACMEL, HAITI
In Partnership with Operation USA and the City of Jacmel, Honeywell Delivers On Its Commitment to Haiti; New School Slated for Completion by January 2011
MORRIS TOWNSHIP, N.J., August 10, 2010 — Honeywell (NYSE: HON) broke ground today on a public school, Ecole Nationale Jacob Martin Henriquez in Jacmel, Haiti. In attendance were Tom Buckmaster, President of Honeywell Hometown Solutions, Richard Walden, President and CEO of Operation USA, Jacmel Mayor Edwin Zenny and Parliament Senator Joseph Lambert. Construction of the school, which will serve approximately 600 local students in grades K through seven, is scheduled to be completed by January 2011.
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Miami Dade College students to rebuild Secours D’en Haut
By REBECCA HUVAL (Miami Herald) – Last year, Ashley-Jo Villard, 19, originally from Port-au-Prince, and her Miami Dade Honors College classmate, Natalia Valbuena, 20, had promised the townspeople of Trou Caiman — population 22,000 — that they would build a new school for 100 students.
But after the earthquake hit, their U.S. donors redirected money toward first-aid relief efforts, and Trou Caiman residents feared the college students would abandon their earthquake-ravaged town some 45 minutes northeast of the capital, Villard said. (more…)