13456: Corbett comes begging the help of your time and brains for a project to bring Haiti to world attention in 2004.

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

>From Bob Corbett

As we have read many times in the past months, there are plans
afoot for numerous celebrations of Haiti's independence in 2004.

However, I am working on a project concerning 2004 which is a
bit different.  Rather than celebrating the 200th anniversary, I want
to take steps using the internet, to bring Haiti to the attention to the
world WHICH IN GREAT MEASURE SIMPLY DOES KNOW
HAITI AT ALL.

I think this historic bi-centennial is occasion to attract
attention to Haiti via the schools of the world.  Thus I want to attract
teachers from kindergarten through advanced graduate school courses,
to do SOME WORK of SOME KIND on Haiti in that anniversary year.
To facilitate that I am working to:

1.  Provide a significant list (based in a special web site) of ideas
for teachers for curricula units from a few days to a whole semester - AT
EVERY LEVEL OF STUDY.

2.  Provide a list of people who will volunteer on-line time to aid
teachers and professors who are teaching such courses, or their students
who are doing study projects.  These volunteers need not be scholars, but
can be knowledgeable people about Haiti, as most of you are this list are,
who would be willing to work one-on-one with a teacher or student IN
LIMITED doses, as you could afford the time.

3.  Provide a huge ANNOTATED bibliography of web sites on Haiti so
that teachers and students will have one large web site to go to get an
idea of just what resources are available on line.

4.  When these materials are somewhat in place, hopefully within the
next 6 months, then I hope to reach out to the world, the whole world, of
teachers, to attract them to some "unit" of study on Haiti.

I need YOUR help at ever turn.  I don't need money.  I need your time and
your brains.

1.	I need you to share with me ideas of study that you could
recommend to teachers.  I would need to know what levels of students you
have in mind and whatever details of study you would recommend.  I will
compile these ideas on a web site done by age-group or other modes.

2.	I need YOU to volunteer some time to be available to some teacher
or student(s) to help guide them in some area of study where they might
feel more comfortable with a guide.  Don't feel you have to be a
professional educator, though if you ARE an educator, you will certainly
have special skills.

I would need your name and some details about what sorts of things you
would be willing to help with.  I don't need you to list "credentials" and
all that unless you wish to, and if so, you are welcome to do that as
well.  I just don't want to discourage the many of you who know and love
Haiti so well and have lots to offer, but don't have those academic
credentials.  We need you all who will help to make this work.

3.	I need you to send me URLs of web sites on Haiti.  For these I
need:

	A.  The web address itself.
	B.  5-6 lines maximum of what are the most important sorts of
		Haiti materials one would find on this web site.


Later on after these first three web pages are well on their way, I will
come to you all to seek advice on how to reach out to teachers to attract
them to think about doing this in 2004 since I don't really know how to
reach them.


While in Haiti LeGrace Benson and I made a presentation of this idea to
the Haitian Studies Association and there was lots of enthusiasm about the
idea.  I hope each of you will consider offering some help in the ways
listed above, to make this project work to help bring Haiti to the
attention of the wider-world in 2004.

I will bring this topic up a lot in the next few months as the work goes
forward to build these support pages and get tooled up to reach out to the
teachers of the world.

On my side I am taking this project on as the center of my voluteer
efforts for Haiti in addition to this mailing list, and will devote a
certral portion of my time to it for the next couple of years.  I think
most of your trust that I won't back away and let your support efforts
just got to waste.  I'm in for the long-haul but need Y0U, each of you,
to make this project rise to a level of quality that will allow it to
achieve a signficant contribution to the country of Haiti in 2004.

It's also obvious that the curricula ideas and the bibliography of web
sites and other such materials can remain on my web site much longer than
just the year 2004.  However, we'd need to constantly update the
"volunteer" contact list.

Please try to help.  This will take the efforts of many folks and has the
potential of doing a great deal to bring Haiti to world attention.

Thanks for your consideration,

Bob Corbett