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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Circles of Change Video
December 5, 2011
This 3-minute video provides an explanation of the two methods that we use in our Circles of Change training: Reflection Circles (influenced by Touchstones Discussions) and Open Space Technology.
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Community Open Space Meeting at Children’s Academy
December 5, 2011
Yesterday’s community open space meeting on future site of Children’s Academy convened more than 300 people. The meeting opened with Haiti Partners Youth Choir singing welcome song and closed with them too. Participants and planning committee were thrilled with the meeting. Notes were taken, will be typed up and will shape philosophy and program of Children’s Academy.
I (John Engle) had two older men, independent of the other, come and tell me, “I thank God that I’ve lived long enough to see this. I never imagined in my life that Bawosya would have a wonderful program develop like this.”
Haiti Partners is thrilled to be in partnership with Architecture For Humanity and their affiliate BAR Architects in design and construction of Children’s Academy. Click here to see the architectural plans and other documents and photos.
We’re also thrilled to be in partnership with Grameen Creative Lab toward creating a social business that generates revenue to help pay the school budget.
Click here to download vision for CHILDREN’S ACADEMY .
Photos from top to bottom: closing circle of open space mtg, small group break-out session, foundation/cistern for first building of Children’s Academy. Click here for more photos.
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Children’s Academy – Community Engagement
December 4, 2011
It’s exciting to see community involvement in construction of Children’s Academy. Below is video and photos of foundation being dug and also of folks clearing land in preparation for a large open space community meeting to discuss “The Role of Education in Development of a Community.”
Below that is a video of a community meeting in November. There are 55 community members (2 groups) participating in Circles of Change training, which helps develop communication and collaboration skills. They are also doing research toward developing a business that generates revenue for the school.
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USAID Circles of Change Project Thriving in North
November 12, 2011
Last week John Engle and I (Erik Badger) had the opportunity to visit our Circles of Change project in the Northeast province funded by USAID. We observed two of the four groups and met with mayors and their staffs. We were excited to see the level of engagement both in the groups and with the local officials. The project is off to a great start!
To learn more, view the short video below.
*For more information on this project, click here.
*To view a gallery of pictures from this project, click here.
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GRAMEEN FOUNDER, Muhammad Yunus in Haiti
October 14, 2011
Nine of my close colleagues and I (John Engle) drew inspiration from Muhammad Yunus today. Hats off to Grameen Creative Lab for organizing this conference of thought leaders, entrepreneurs (all ages) and many like my colleagues and I who are committed to social business. It was wonderful to see the two young people awarded their prizes of all expenses paid to participate in Social Business Conference in Austria.
Later in the afternoon I joined with others working in close partnership with Grameen to discuss with Muhammad Yunus our various plans and projects for social businesses. His insights, questions and comments that come from decades of experience are golden.
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New Industrial Park and Circles of Change
October 8, 2011
I (John Engle) flew from Port au Prince to Cap Haitian with two Haitian colleagues Frantzie Cyril and Wilmont Jean to finalize contract with USAID. As part of the contract Frantzie and Wilmont will move to Cap Haitian next week and join our Cap-based colleague Nellie Norristin to do a 6-month Circles of Change training for groups of 25 in each of the four towns impacted by a large industrial park soon to be built. The mayors of each of these towns will participate and help determine the other 24 people in their respective group to participate in these weekly seminars. In addition to participants learning better skills in listening, dialog and “invitational” leadership, each group will also complete a project proposal for addressing community priorities that gets submitted to USAID for consideration. We’re excited about this project and thrilled to be in partnership with USAID on it. Click here to learn more and to download actual project description.
While in the north, I had the opportunity to spend time with friends Luke Renner and Sylove who with Haiti Partners created this film about a Haitian community doing social business to fund their local school. Below is short video CIMT language lab where they have an income generating project using Rosetta Stone program to help paying customers learn English.
We love working with Luke and Sylove and have a number of projects in the works. The above mentioned film which was done for the Haitian audience already has subtitles in English and very soon DVD’s will be available with subtitles in French, English, Spanish and Portuguese. The film will also soon be airing on 80 different television stations for Haitian audiences.
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Matenwa Community School
October 1, 2011
Our friends at Matenwa Community School have a great new video that explains their philosophies and practice. This school is a wonderful example of the type of education that we are working toward with our seven partner schools. Chapo ba Chris, Abner ak tout ekip nou an ! (Hats off to you Chris, Abner and all of your team)
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TEDx Port-au-Prince
October 1, 2011
TEDxPort-au-Prince was a great success. What power there is in connecting people and sharing ideas.
I’m (John Engle) honored that I had the opportunity to present about our work. While there are a lot of things I could talk about thanks to having the opportunity to be a part of such a dynamic team for so many years, I focused on Circles of Change, which includes our more than 15 years experience with Open Space Technology and “Wonn Reflection” (influenced significantly by Touchstones Discussion method).
Video of talks are not yet on website. I presented in Haitian-Creole sharing history of our work, assumptions, successes and details about our past USAID funded project “Civic Empowerment” and our new one called “Circles of Change.”
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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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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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SOCIAL EXCHANGE RESEARCH
May 30, 2011
I (John Engle) had the opportunity to participate in research at Cirano, a Canadian-based think-tank. For some time, colleagues and I are trying to better understand the role of social exchange in people’s learning and decision-making. Click here to download the paper describing the research and findings. Below is a brief summary of this paper. We are extremely grateful to CIRANO, and particularly to James Engle-Warnick for inviting our involvement in this research.
Participatory development is an increasingly popular approach to development policy and program implementation. Part of its popularity is due to its potential to reinforce the role of social capital. We present an experiment in which we test for the effect of participating in a social exchange exercise on revealed risk and ambiguity preferences. In our experiments, subjects make choices over lotteries that reveal their risk and ambiguity preferences. They then participate with a small group in an unstructured on-line chat. After the chat, they reconsider their choices in the risk and ambiguity instruments. In a control session, different subjects view, but do not participate in, past chats. Through a content analysis we investigate the role of chat content and chat participation on changes in revealed preferences. We compare our results to the “Discovered Preferences Hypothesis” (Plott, 1996) and “Fact-Free Learning” (Aragones, Gilboa, Postlewaite, and Schmeidler, 2005). Our results suggest that the role of social capital in participatory development may operate through the social exchange of information, that is, when people have a voice.
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10th Annual Open Space Gathering: June 23-26
May 24, 2011
Open Space meeting format is an important tool that Haiti Partners and organizations in our network use to engage people’s involvement in plans and decisions that will influence their lives. Each year the Annual Open Space Gathering convenes 70-90 educators and community leaders who are either practitioners of Open Space meeting format, or who are interested in learning about it, for exchange and shared learning.
Below is information in English, French and Haitian-Creole about this year’s Annual Open Space Gathering which will be held in Carrefour, Haiti June 23-26.
Click here to view photos and video from last year’s Annual Open Space Gathering.
To download in Word documents the invitation to this year’s Open Space Gathering click on links below:
- HAITI Open Space Gathering-Invitation
- Rankont Espas Ouvri ann Ayiti – Envitasyon
- Le Forum ouvert en Haiti – Invitation
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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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