ELI Haiti 2019 wraps up another year in Cap-Haitien, Haiti

We have had another amazing year at the Educator and Leadership Institute in Cap-Haitien, Haiti!

Teachers from an early learning course

Kids engaged with a science and language activity

Today, we had a graduation ceremony with 200 participants who have completed three years of training. Amazing!

We also recognized 50 Haitian university students who completed a week of ESL classes.

Sr. Vieginat, our primary Haitian partner, and Josee Landirault, a Canadian principal

And, perhaps most enjoyably, we witnessed 200 girls (and about a dozen brave boys!) who completed a week of STEAM activities.

Gabriel Osson and Steve Sider at College Regina Assumpta

It is quite an effort to coordinate the entire effort but a team of four including Jhonel Morvan, Megan Borner, Gabriel Osson, and me works closely with our key Haitian partner - Sr. Vierginat - to make it all happen.

It's definitely a team effort!

How can technology bridge the educational divide?

Technology carries great potential to bridge the educational divides that exist globally. These divides include those which exist that prevent girls from attending school in equal measure as boys and those that prevent those in poor communities from having access to quality education.

Technology can help by providing access to educational resources that otherwise would not be available.

One way that this occurs in the Educator and Leadership Institute is by the use of USB memory keys. Our instructors put valuable resources on these memory keys so that our participants can use them in the training of others. They can also print documents or watch videos that are stored on these memory keys to help in their own professional learning.

Technology can also be used to break down geographical barriers.

A new experience for ELI this year was a connection that was facilitated by one of our Canadian instructors, Josee Landriault, a principal from Ontario. Josee has been instructing a course for Ontario educators preparing to be principals. She also is an instructor for the leadership group of ELI. This week, Josee was able to set up a video connection so that both groups of participants were able to meet. It was an amazing experience to see the joy that both groups had in meeting the other. What a powerful opportunity to bridge a divide.

Ontario principals join a group of Haitian principals (on the screen) through a video conference

Technology has the potential to perpetuate and even expand the educational divides that exist in the world. But we cannot let this happen. Technology has tremendous potential to ensure that every child - and teacher - can access a quality and inclusive education. Companies such as D2L, Vrette, and 360Insights - all partners in ELI - are working with us to ensure that this is how technology benefits those that are currently excluded from such a quality and inclusive education.

What does sustainability mean? Examining a model in Haiti

Organizations develop processes and structures to ensure that they can survive - and thrive - over the long term.


The question of sustainability becomes more difficult when we develop initiatives in challenging parts of the world. The "challenge factor" of sustainability increases when the initiative involves partnerships between the global south and the global north.

In 2016, we launched the Educator and Leadership Institute in Haiti. We were committed to a sustainable model and put into place a number of strategies to support its sustainability. These included:

• many meetings in advance of the launch to ensure solid partnerships between Haitian and Canadian partners
• a common goal and core values
• a financial model that included contributions from both Haitian and Canadian partners
• each participant - both Haitian and Canadian - would contribute to the cost of participating in ELI
• a budget that included no compensation for any person thus minimizing overhead
• division of responsibilities so that no person had too many things to do or too much authority
• no financial support provided from the Canadian to Haitian partners
• a research component to continually examine the model

Now that we are in our fourth year, we are still working on some of the details of how to support the sustainability of ELI in Haiti. A number of new aspects are supporting the sustainability of ELI:

• Haitian teachers who are working with the Canadian instructors and gradually taking on more teaching responsibility
• moving the location to the school of our primary Haitian partner
• a leadership development program for Haitian teachers who've been identified as having significant potential for leadership
• engaging Haitian university students who are working with Canadian university students to host the STEAM camp
• developing a Leadership in Training program for children attending the camp so that they may be future leaders of the camp

We really will not know if ELI is sustainable until the Canadian component has been significantly decreased. Will ELI continue? This year, we have reduced the Canadian component by 25% (compared to 2018) and this will increase to 50% next year. So far, things have run even more smoothly than the previous three years so that is a great sign! 

Is ELI sustainable? We have put into place many strategies to ensure this ... and so far this model appear to be highly effective with great promise for the future.

A picture is worth a thousand words: Today at ELI Haiti

Today's blog post is simple: Pictures that represent the three aspects of the Educator and Leadership Institute. Enjoy!

Learning about leadership under a tree. What metaphor could we develop from this?

Teachers engaged in a science course!

Children enjoying a story in the STEAM camp

A Laurier teacher candidate guides a science activity for girls

Our university ESL program

We have had an amazing day ... and tomorrow will be even better. Our mission of supporting the capacity of educators in Haiti is being lived out every day!

A quality education for a sustainable and positive change: A shared vision for ELI Haiti

Wow.

How else can I describe our first day of the Educator and Leadership Institute? We are off to an amazing start with 600 teachers, 200 children, and 50 university students ... and 30 Canadian educators! All on a relatively small urban school campus. This was our first year hosting ELI at this new school - although they have been a foundational partner since the beginning. And we were unsure how it would all work since it is a smaller, more urban campus than where we have been the past three years.

Opening session but what can't be seen in this picture are the dozens of teachers
who were at the back and out the back doors of the auditorium.

But our first day was "wow."

It was incredibly hot - with humidity it felt over 100 Fahrenheit - but our first day was amazing. Our Haitian participants were engaged. Through the sweat, our Canadian instructors demonstrated student-centered, active learning. Children were laughing as our Laurier university students supported interactive lessons. And the Haitian university students commented on multiple occasions how much they valued the English as a Second Language support.

Preparing supplies for classrooms including USB memory keys where participants will have access to all of the ELI materials, compliments of a donation from 360Insights, one of our Canadian partners

STEAM camp supported by a generous donation by Gay Lea Foundation

Leadership course participants

How do you feed 600 people? One step at a time! 

Wow.

Perhaps the biggest wow factor today was the "unveiling" of a common vision statement that our Haitian and Canadian participants developed this past May. One of our Laurier students developed it into an art piece and I used it as a key component of an opening talk I gave this morning.You can see the French version of the vision statement in the picture below.

 A quality education for a 

sustainable and positive change.

Wow.

Shifting practices while changing perspectives: Canadian and Haitian educators teaching together

Our full team of ELI Haitian and Canadian instructors

This is our fourth year of the Educator and Leadership Institute in Haiti and it is the year where we are sharing teaching responsibilities with our Haitian partners. Today, our 18 Canadian team members met their 18 Haitian teaching partners. The Haitian instructors have been participants in the Educator and Leadership Institute - many for three years - and also completed a weekend of leadership training in May. The Canadian and Haitian instructors spent part of the afternoon preparing their classrooms and preparing for the week ahead.

Sr Vierginat, our main Haitian partner

While the instructors were working on preparation, our university students were planning the Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) camp. There are six Canadian students or recent Bachelor of Education graduates and ten Haitian university students who are all working together to lead and support the STEAM camp.


In the midst of the preparation, I've been struck by how who we work with can shift our perspective. If we only work with those with whom we are comfortable or who have similar backgrounds as us, then we will never be pushed in our understanding. When Canadian educators work with those who have different backgrounds to our own - such as our Haitian colleagues - then we begin to have a better understanding of the "other." This week, we are excited about welcoming 100s of educators to engage in learning ... but I am really interested in the learning that will occur when the Haitian and Canadian instructors teach together. I am confident that this shift in practice will change our perspectives. And we will all be better for that..

Feels like coming home: Returning to Cap-Haitien for the start of Educator and Leadership Institute Year 4

This afternoon our team of Canadian educators returned to Cap-Haitien, Haiti for Year Four of the Educator and Leadership Institute. There are 30 of us this week who will be supporting 600 Haitian teachers and principals as well as 200+ children in a STEAM camp and 50 university students in an English as a Second Language program. It will be the largest ELI since we started.

As we took an old school bus from the airport to our hotel, a number of Canadian participants commented on how much it felt like coming home. And it does. There is a feeling of connectedness to the area. Deep relationships have been established.

And yet we really are not coming home. None of us live the life of our Haitian colleagues. For the most part we don't live in a fragile context where political protests can take over a street, where the value of a $1 a year ago is worth 1/2 that today, or where we are unsure that we are going to get paid at the end of the month.

Yet, we can feel a sense of home - not because we live or can fully understand what it means to live in a context like Haiti - but because we share common ideas of home: A place where we feel welcomed, where relationships exist, where we feel special, and where we can have uncomfortable conversations.

This does describe my/our relationship with Haiti. There are many, many aspects of this country that I will never understand. There are many aspects of my own country - and my own community - that I will not fully understand. Yet, it is still home. So too Haiti is home.

Tomorrow we build on the work of the past four years in an afternoon of planning with our Haitian partners. This year, Haitian and Canadian instructors will be supporting each other in teaching the courses. This is a first for ELI and will support the transition of ELI from a predominantly Canadian led experience to one that has shared leadership. This is what happens in homes too ... leadership transitions. Stay tuned through the week as I hope this will be a re-occurring theme!
 

Steve and Jhonel, two of ELI's leaders