Located on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. Our project is focused on the College Mixte La Modestie, a small rural school situated north-west of Port-au-Prince, in Cabaret.
Project Initiator
French and based in Paris, Sandrine has worked as a multimedia project manager and web designer for the last 20 years. Passionate about traveling and exploring the world, she adopted her daughter Luna in Haiti in 2009, and has since stayed in contact with the birth family. As part of OWP’s extended team, she’s helping to launch the Haiti project.
Project Initiator
French and based in Paris, Sandrine has worked as a multimedia project manager and web designer for the last 20 years. Passionate about travelling and exploring the world, she adopted her daughter in Haiti in 2009, and has since stayed in contact with the birth family. As part of OWP’s extended team, she’s helping to launch the Haiti project.
The project involves improving and expanding the College Mixte La Modestie, a small school situated north-west of Port-au-Prince, in the town of Cabaret. The school was started four years ago by Massé Dieudonné, a local pastor who could not resign himself to seeing the local children play in the streets all day and not receive an education.
With the help of his community, he coordinated the construction of the school, built of timber and corrugated metal. There are currently two small structures, one of them also serving as a church. During a trip to Haiti in February 2017, Sandrine and Luna had the opportunity to spend a week with the family and help at the school on a daily basis. They have been direct witnesses of the extreme poverty of the community and the very limited income available to run the school. Massé has no personal resources and unfortunately receives no funding from the state or the county. Improvising is on the daily agenda.
There is no running water or electricity on the grounds, but the walls of one of the school buildings have recently been rebuilt in concrete. Massé says that the school welcomes approximately 50 students (3 kindergarten classes / 6 primary school classes). When possible, the school distributes food to the children.
The economic and political situation in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, is currently critical. A recent UN report found that intense food insecurity affects roughly ⅓ of the population and intense violence makes normal operations of even this rudimentary institution extremely difficult.
50
total number of students
€ 1,500
food, learning materials, wages
€ 10,000
planning and initial investment
TBD
Provide staff wages and daily meals for students, and invest in learning materials and classroom furniture.
Develop plans to construct permanent school facilities, providing additional classrooms and tourism focused vocational spaces such as craft workshops and seminar spaces.
When the political and security situation in Haiti improves to make operations more feasible, OWP plans to help draft concepts for improvements to the site and conceptualize possible tourism and vocational related projects.
