a1791: School Builds Future of Hope in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: A Wellington <souve64@hotmail.com>

School Builds Future of Hope in Haiti
Thu Apr 25,12:36 PM ET
By Michael Deibert

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - In the dusty Haitian village of Sano,
nearly 200 high school students gather in the early morning light to sing
Haiti's anthem, "The Dessalinienne," as they hoist the Haitian and American
flags in front of their ochre three-story classroom building.

The two flags are symbolic of the dual nature of the Louverture-Cleary
School and the vision at its heart.

The charter school is funded by American donations and dedicated to
providing a first-class education for disadvantaged children from the nearby
capital Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas.

After languishing for years, it has been re-energized by the partnership of
a group of American and Haitian employees and volunteers.

School director Patrick Moynihan is a 36-year-old American who left a
high-paying job as a trader with Louis Dreyfus five years ago to work full
time improving the school after what he called a "spiritual awakening."

"How does someone in the States 'earn' a car and someone here 'earns' dying
of tuberculosis on an island in the Caribbean at seven years old?" Moynihan
asks, a baseball cap shading his eyes from the bright Caribbean sun.

He approaches his work with a near-religious zeal about what he sees as a
powerful mission in a poor nation where schooling is often cut short.
According to a 1998 World Bank (news - web sites) report, 53 percent of
Haiti's children aged 6 through 12 were enrolled in school but only 14
percent of those 13 to 18.

"Yeah, most of these kids come from a fiscally disadvantaged backgrounds,
but my dream is to have an alumni meeting with 10 doctors, three senators
and a couple of lawyers, people who have benefited from the education they
got here and stayed to do something for the county," he said.

Around the school courtyard, same-sex dormitories rise three stories amid
royal palms, the classroom building and a cafeteria. A short distance away,
two buildings under construction rise from the brown earth. Students and
teachers take turns during the school day helping paid laborers with the
less dangerous parts of building new classrooms and dorms.

TOP STUDENTS FROM POOREST AREAS

The school is Catholic-affiliated though open to all and is free except for
a nominal meal fee that can be paid through a work-study program if the
student's family cannot afford it.

Louverture-Cleary's mission is to select the top students from the poorest
neighborhoods around the capital, provide them with an American-level
education and encourage them to remain in Haiti after their studies instead
of traveling abroad to find work as many of their countrymen have been
forced to do.

"School, education, it gave me the chance to win back my life," said Simon
Samuel, a 25-year-old Louverture-Cleary graduate who works as an
administrative assistant at Xerox's Haiti headquarters in Port-au-Prince.

"I want to work and eventually make my own business and go back and help the
poor," said Samuel.

Louverture-Cleary students often go on to administrative or office jobs with
placement help from the school while pursuing higher education at one of the
capital's universities.

One former student, Admaricarte Jean Baptiste, a multilingual 26-year-old
university graduate now studying law, opted to return and coordinate
Louverture-Cleary's language department.

The school library features volumes in several languages, as well as a
poster of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and a gallery
of Haitian presidents.

A different language -- English, Haitian Creole, French or Spanish -- is
chosen for any given day and all requests and commands are given in that
tongue. Students gain fluency in various languages as the result of the
daily, unscripted use.

The school has some decidedly nontraditional elements, such as Catholic mass
celebrated in a mixture of English and Creole and hymns sung to the
accompaniment of a student playing the rada drum, a traditional voodoo
instrument.

HARSH REALITIES INTRUDE

Despite administrators' attempts to create a learning-friendly environment,
some harsh realities of life in Haiti occasionally intrude.

Students from some of the capital's rougher neighborhoods, such as the
gang-ridden district of Cite Soleil, spend some weekends at the school if
violence flares up and school officials and parents deem it unsafe for them
to try to return home.

"If they had to stay in places like Cite Soleil, they might never get the
chance to help other people," said Garry Delice, the school's Haitian
principal and a former teacher "They are too busy scrambling to take care of
themselves.

"Here, though, we try and encourage a feeling of community and service,
whether it's helping to clean the school every day or helping to build a new
dorm."

Given Haiti's problems -- political violence, endemic poverty and an
electoral impasse that has prompted donor nations to suspend $500 million in
desperately needed aid -- the efforts of the Louverture-Cleary school may
seem a drop in the bucket.

Moynihan, though, never doubts the value of what he and his staff are doing.

"Elements of Haitian society are very riven, very split apart at the moment,
but there's hope that maybe these young people will be the glue that holds
society together," Moynihan said. "They're going to lead this country into a
different time, and it's going to be amazing."





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