April 5, 2012
Erik Badger

Thanks to our partnership with Habitat for Humanity International, 150 community members of the newly created Santo housing community in Leogane will participate for six months in an adapted Circles of Change training which will not only teach them democratic practices, but will result in a local governance plan created by the community.

The objective of this project will be to use an adapted Circles of Change method to introduce and cultivate democratic practices and the principles that underlie them – respect, inclusion, transparency, dialogue, etc. – in the Santo housing community and to develop a plan and practices for good governance. Participants will include members from most households and every walk of life.  Together they will learn – through practice – to lead inclusively, to listen and speak carefully, to collaborate effectively in groups, and to productively critique and take responsibility for their own words and behavior.  As a part of the project, Circles of Change  participants, with full support from Haiti Partners, will hold community-wide meetings where residents will take on the issue of how they would like to govern themselves and their new community at Santo.

To accomplish this over the course of six months facilitators from Haiti Partners network of skilled educators will use Circles of Change once a week with a total of 150 community members in and around the Santo site.  These facilitators will lead a total of six Circles of Change meetings each week.  Groups will consist of approximately 25 participants each and will collectively conduct three separate Open Space meetings as well.

Click here to download Haiti Partners response to Habitat’s “call for proposals.”

*To view pictures from this project, click here.