WORLDBLU Team in Haiti
December 25, 2011
My co-workers and I (John Engle) were thrilled to host in Haiti the WorldBlu team December 10-17. Their training on organizational and workplace democracy for our partner school leadership teams and for 35 people in our LEADERS Program was incredible.
We are so grateful to Vista Hermosa Foundation for making their visit possible. WorldBlu team also participated in Open Haiti Camp open space meeting, that was a follow-up to TEDx Port-au-Prince, and met with business and NGO leaders. Haiti Partners is deeply grateful to be part of the WorldBlu worldwide network of democratic workplaces. Thank you for making time available, WorldBlu team, to spend time in Haiti to help us build better schools and institutions!
Click on links below for albums of photos:
Habitat Santo Visit
Visiting Partner Schools
Seminar for Partner Schools Leadership Teams
LEADERS Program Seminar
WORLDBLU, Miranda Ash’s Photos
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WorldBlu Team in Haiti
December 12, 2011
My co-workers and I (John Engle) are having a wonderful time hosting WorldBlu team in Haiti this week. They’re putting photos and updates on their Facebook page. Click here.
We are so grateful to Vista Hermosa Foundation for making their visit possible. In addition to them participating in Open Haiti Camp open space meeting, that was a follow-up to TEDx Port-au-Prince, they’re networking with business and NGO people and will do seminars for leadership teams of Haiti Partners partner schools and for 35 participants in our LEADERS program. Thank you for being here, WorldBlu!
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LEADERS Seminar – Social Business
August 15, 2011
Last week was another LEADERS seminar. Our LEADERS program consists of four seminars a year over three years for community leaders and school principals. The focus of this year’s seminars has been social business. In December this 3-year phase will be finished and we plan to start a new three year LEADERSHIP Program in March 2012. Click here to learn more about the three-year training that is finishing in December. Click here to learn more about the social business component.
Click here for more photos from LEADERS Seminar focusing on Social Business.
Posted in Capacity Building 3 Training, Capacity Building 3 Training, Circles of Change, LEADERS Program, Social Enterprise for Quality Education, Vista Hermosa Foundation | No Comments | Email This Post
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Social Business Expert to Help Partner Schools
August 4, 2011
Thanks to our partnership with Grameen Creative Lab and to another grant from Vista Hermosa Foundation we have hired a Haitian expert who will work full-time to help our partner schools create social businesses.
The purpose of this is two-fold. First, it’s a revenue source. Haitian schools rarely have adequate funds to pay teachers even a tiny salary. They limp along without enough funds for materials, decent school furniture or to maintain their modest facilities. Social business offers a potential solution. The school creates an income generating activity, the parents and students can participate along with school director and teachers, and the school develops an addition revenue stream for helping to cover salaries and other school expenses.
The second reason this is so important is because students and teachers learn entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship and education are key for helping a country to develop.
We’re excited for another reason. Our “Natif Natal” film about a Haitian success story of grassroots groups creating social business to pay teachers’ salaries to educate their children is going to be shown throughout Haiti on local television stations. And, we’re going to use this as an opportunity to promote the social business concept in Haiti and to foster greater collaboration among organizations working in social business. Click here to view the film.
Posted in Annonciation Community School, Bèl Platon Community School, Cabois Community School, Capacity Building 3 Training, Cité Soleil Community School, Grants, Henri Christophe Community School, IMN Community School, Lalo Community School, Partner Schools, Social Enterprise for Quality Education, STUDENTS Program, Vista Hermosa Foundation | 1 Comment | Email This Post
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THANK YOU USAID and GRU!
July 2, 2011
Haiti Partners thanks USAID/Haiti Recovery Initiative for the very generous donations of a large Cummins diesel generator, thirty-two 12-volt batteries, two inverters, 4 desks and chairs, filing cabinets and more. We are grateful!
Our partnership with USAID/Haiti Recovery Initiative earlier in the year made it possible for 1,000 Haitian educators and grassroots leaders to learn collaborative leadership and participative learning methods as they studied the Haitian constitution. Learn more about this project by clicking here.
Friends at USAID, THANK YOU!
Friends at GRU, thank you again for temporarily holding these items! For individuals and organizations interested in learning more about GRU and the many ways that they’re helping, contact them: http://grassrootsunited.org/.
Posted in Capacity Building 3 Training, LEADERS Program, PARTNERS Program | No Comments | Email This Post
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10th Annual Open Space Haiti Gathering
June 29, 2011
This past weekend was the 10th Annual Haiti Open Space Gathering. Every year this gathering convenes 60-80 educators and community leaders for an inspiring learning exchange. This event, which is completely run by Haitians, is among our many efforts to develop professional learning communities.
We couldn’t be more grateful to Open Space Institute, USA, for the generous contribution that allowed numerous committed colleagues who didn’t have the means to participate in this meeting.
Posted in Capacity Building 3 Training, Circles of Change, Haiti Partners, LEADERS Program, Open Space, Reflection Circles, TEACHERS Program, Uncategorized | No Comments | Email This Post
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Grameen Social Business Lab
May 21, 2011
My co-workers and I are thrilled to be affiliated with Grameen Creative Lab. The Social Business Lab that their Haiti and Germany-based staff organized yesterday at Karibe Convention Center brought together extremely interesting people who are working on interesting things.
Please stay posted. Haiti Partners is committed to social business which can do three extremely important things for our partners schools:
- Revenue generated can help pay teachers’ salaries and cover other expenses in school’s operating budget.
- School leadership, teachers, parents and students will learn more about entrepreneurship.
- The social business will provide the community with desirable products.
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Social Business Seminar with Grameen Creative Lab
May 6, 2011
35 community leaders/school directors are convening for three days as part of Haiti Partners LEADERS Program, which is funded with a grant from Vista Hermosa Foundation.
This is a three-year training to help leaders build capacity in: use of computers (they all receive laptops), in participatory education and leadership, and in institutional development. This year’s focus is social business. Participants convene four times each year. Yesterday we fortunate to have Claudine Francois, Country Director of Grameen Creative Lab (GCL).
Haiti Partners is thrilled to be in partnership with GCL. Among the possibilities being explored for social business that can help our partner schools to become more autonomous is green houses and hydroponics.
Posted in Capacity Building 3 Training, Capacity Building 3 Training, Circles of Change, Haiti Partners, LEADERS Program, Partner Schools, Social Enterprise for Quality Education, Special Projects, Vista Hermosa Foundation | No Comments | Email This Post
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Reports on Major Grants
April 10, 2011
Haiti Partners has the privilege of working with Vista Hermosa Foundation, which is making possible through significant grants, two important Haiti Partners projects: Capacity Building 3 and Social Enterprise for Advancing Quality Education.
We invite you to review our two-year and 18 month reports, respectively, for these projects.
Click here for Capacity Building 3 Two-Year report.
Click here for Social Enterprise for Advancing Quality Education 18-month report.
Click here for presentation of Grameen Creative Labs Haiti project plan.
We’re excited about partnering with Grameen Creative Labs Haiti!
Posted in Capacity Building 3 Training, Capacity Building 3 Training, Circles of Change, Grants, Haiti Partners, LEADERS Program, Open Space, Partner Schools, Reflection Circles, Social Enterprise for Quality Education, Special Projects, STUDENTS Program, TEACHERS Program, Uncategorized, Vista Hermosa Foundation | No Comments | Email This Post
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Film About Community Enterprise for Education
April 4, 2011
My colleagues and I (John Engle) are delighted to share a film that we’ve (we includes the amazing Luke Renner and Sylove with Fireside International along with others involved) created about a wonderful Haitian success story of communities creating income generating activities to pay teachers’ salaries to educate the children in their communities.
The purpose of this film is to stimulate imagination and creative solutions among Haitians toward tackling the problem that so many families and communities in Haiti confront of not having resources to educate their children.
The website address at the end of the film, www.natifnatal.org (natifnatal means local Haitian solutions) will eventually go to a website that is filled with information about Haitian solutions to the current education problem. We are grateful to Vista Hermosa for providing the funds to create this film along with a companion booklet for guiding groups through process of creating a community business. And hats off to our friends on La Gonave who are doing this amazing work seen in the film!
Posted in Capacity Building 3 Training, Capacity Building 3 Training, Grants, Haiti Partners, LEADERS Program, Partner Schools, Social Enterprise for Quality Education, Special Projects, STUDENTS Program, Vista Hermosa Foundation | 5 Comments |
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Circles of Change Spreads by Tens of Thousands
March 28, 2011
Haiti Partners’ mission is to help Haitians change Haiti through education for students, teachers, leaders, and disciples. Our educational efforts focus on helping Haitians change their country’s top-down, dictatorial teaching and leadership approach to one that empowers children and adults to discover their potential to create and to collaborate effectively.
Our educational and leadership practices are grounded in mutual respect and are designed to help people develop their capacity to think critically and outside of the box, and to collaborate to solve complex problems. This is in stark contrast to Haiti’s “rote memorization” teaching approach and to authoritative commands shouted from on high to subordinates. Haiti’s present state is not surprising given these practices that can so effectively stifle human development.
Knowing that changing cultural practices, especially those concerning education and leadership, would be a significant challenge, our team of Haitians and ex-pats developed early on a strategy to foster local and international organizations integrating our Circles of Change methods, which are largely shaped by Touchstones Discussion and Open Space methods.
Concern Worldwide, PADF, Save The Children and many others have learned the Circles of Change methods from our trainers and have integrated them into their activities. Below, longtime friend and colleague Dr. Steven Werlin, a professor at Shimer College and staff member of Fonkoze, shares how Fonkoze will be using this new book they’ve just published with 50,000 women who are part of their micro-credit program.
The book contains stories that will be discussed by the women using our Circles of Change approach. Steven first started coming to Haiti in 1996 and has played a critical role in the development of our Circles of Change program. Click here for his regular great essays about his life in Haiti.
Posted in Capacity Building 3 Training, Circles of Change, Haiti Partners, LEADERS Program, Open Space, Reflection Circles, TEACHERS Program | No Comments | Email This Post
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LEADERS Program: Social Enterprise
March 14, 2011
The successful long-term development of Haiti relies on Haitians acquiring and employing the skills they need to exercise their independence and autonomy in inclusive and respectful ways. Unfortunately, most Haitian leaders lack both the practical skills to make them effective and the experience which would allow them to lead inclusively and respectfully.
To address this, this weekend Haiti Partners held another three-day Capacity Building training. These Capacity Building trainings – the centerpiece of our LEADERS program – are generously funded by a grant from the Vista Hermosa Foundation and have been taking place four times a year since February 2009. They convene 40 community leaders from all over Haiti to help them strengthen their leadership capacity so they can be more effective change agents in their communities. Over the last two years these leaders have learned a number of crucial skills: they’ve learned how to integrate computers into their work – including using email, word processing, and spreadsheets; they’ve learned how to create measurable personal plans so that they can create clear goals and be able to evaluate progress against them; they’ve deepened their understanding of participatory/invitational/democratic leadership methods; and, they’ve learned how to better network so that they might find the resources they need to make their dreams a reality.
This weekend’s focus was on creating social enterprises, a key approach to generating revenue and ultimately making these leaders’ projects sustainable. To learn more about social enterprise, please view the short video below.
Posted in Capacity Building 3 Training, Capacity Building 3 Training, Haiti Partners, LEADERS Program, Social Enterprise for Quality Education, Vista Hermosa Foundation | No Comments | Email This Post
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Trinity Lutheran Church – Advocate Trip
November 1, 2010
We’re delighted to be hosting in Haiti from Trinity Lutheran Church: Kurt Jacobson (Pastor) along with Aron Adkins and Mary and Ed Elworthy. They’ve come as part of our Advocate Program to explore partnership possibilities.
Click here to view Aron Adkin’s photos.
Posted in Capacity Building 3 Training, Haiti Partners, PARTNERS Program, Reflection Circles, STUDENTS Program, TEACHERS Program, Uncategorized, Youth Choir | No Comments | Email This Post
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Disciples Network Organizes to Educate on Cholera
October 26, 2010
Yesterday, we received a message from one of our Disciples Program leaders, Ysmaille Dorsainvil, who lives and works in the Central Plateau, where the cholera outbreak began. As soon as Ysmaille learned about the outbreak, he connected with a local nurse and organized a meeting with 38 members of his network as well as other community members. At the meeting, they learned about what cholera is, how it spreads, and how to avoid and treat it. Using the laptop he received as part of our Leaders Program training, Ysmaille downloaded, printed and distributed copies of Creole handouts about cholera that circulated on our listserv immediately after the outbreak began.
Here are a couple of pictures from the meeting. Ysmaille is wearing the striped shirt in the top picture.
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USAID “Civic Empowerment” Grant
October 20, 2010
Thanks to a grant from USAID, 1,000 Port au Prince and Leogane-based educators will go through a 3-month Circles of Change training. The training will be customized so that in addition to learning participatory teaching and leading techniques, educators will also spend time studying together the Haitian Constitution and civic responsibilities.
*For project description, click here.
*For documents about this project in Haitian-Creole and French, including an invitation to register to participate, click here.
*For a detailed grant report on the first Civic Empowerment meeting, click here.
Posted in Capacity Building 3 Training, Circles of Change, Grants, Haiti Partners, Open Space, Reflection Circles, TEACHERS Program, Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Email This Post
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