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Terri Bucci, Department of Teaching and Learning

Posted on | October 20, 2010 | 1,334 views | Comments Off

What are the goals of the Haiti Empowerment Project?

The Haiti Empowerment Project provides intellectual and human resources to our Haitian colleagues in higher education. For the past five years, we have worked exclusively in the field of teacher education, but the project is now expanding to other fields. We are now assisting in areas of business, medicine and food science. Typically, we take students, faculty and other US experts to Haiti, spend time in the field on the ground in Haiti to assure that our work is grounded in the realities of Haitian culture and then provide 15-hour seminars with collaborating Haitian universities. In addition, we organize collaborative meetings with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), governmental organizations and universities to encourage professional learning communities and group problem solving on some of the critical issues facing the country.

What are the foundational principles of the work of the Haiti Empowerment Project?

Our work is based on the work of Paulo Freire, specifically, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In this work, Freire provides valuable insight into the process of working with our Haitian colleagues in an attempt to meet their self-proclaimed critical needs and in response to an oppressive, historical situational way of being. The Haiti Empowerment Project has, by definition, empowerment as a primary goal and that empowerment is attained through teaching, education as a system and community (world and national).

How did the Haiti earthquake affect the work/focus of the project?

Since the earthquake, the Haiti Empowerment Project has been working with five tent communities to help develop community-run schools. The communities approached our organization asking for assistance in serving the children of their communities. The communities, all in the Croix-des-Bouquets area of Haiti, range in population from 500 to 3,000. The leadership from the communities met with our project faculty and designed educational programs (schools) that met the needs of the communities and tapped in local resources. We will be going to Haiti on Oct. 17 and will be joined by PhD student Christopher Sutter from the Fisher College of Business. He will be working with the community leaders in conducting market research and helping them find entrepreneurial solutions for sustainable funding of the teachers in their schools.

As of this fall, our university partners in Haiti are resuming regular classes. For the first time since the earthquake, we will be teaching seminars for University Caraibe and University of Notre Dame in Haiti on mathematics education, educational administration, special education and grant/educational project design. These courses will be taught in Port-au-Prince and in Jeremie, which is on the southwest peninsula of Haiti.

What are some other initiatives focused on the betterment of Haiti that you are involved with?

During this October trip, we will be meeting with a group of US institutions with a goal of creating a consortium of US universities to work with Haitian universities. The group will be working with our Haitian colleagues to address issues that have been exacerbated by the earthquake, lack of institutional infrastructure, issues of administration and access. As with the rest of the work in Haiti, this will be driven by the needs of our Haitian partners, and we will be working together to find solutions to tough situations.

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