a1828: U.S.-funded school builds future of hope in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Deibert

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, April 26 (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 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.
     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.
     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 haven 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."