New Industrial Park and Circles of Change

October 8, 2011

I (John Engle) flew from Port au Prince to Cap Haitian with two Haitian colleagues Frantzie Cyril and Wilmont Jean to finalize contract with USAID. As part of the contract Frantzie and Wilmont will move to Cap Haitian next week and join our Cap-based colleague Nellie Norristin to do a 6-month Circles of Change training for groups of 25 in each of the four towns impacted by a large industrial park soon to be built. The mayors of each of these towns will participate and help determine the other 24 people in their respective group to participate in these weekly seminars. In addition to participants learning better skills in listening, dialog and “invitational” leadership, each group will also complete a project proposal for addressing community priorities that gets submitted to USAID for consideration. We’re excited about this project and thrilled to be in partnership with USAID on it. Click here to learn more and to download actual project description.

While in the north, I had the opportunity to spend time with friends Luke Renner and Sylove who with Haiti Partners created this film about a Haitian community doing social business to fund their local school. Below is short video CIMT language lab where they have an income generating project using Rosetta Stone program to help paying customers learn English.

We love working with Luke and Sylove and have a number of projects in the works. The above mentioned film which was done for the Haitian audience already has subtitles in English and very soon DVD’s will be available with subtitles in French, English, Spanish and Portuguese. The film will also soon be airing on 80 different television stations for Haitian audiences.