Haiti Partners Executive Summary
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come
because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
― Dr. Lilla Watson, Murri activist and academic (Indigenous Australian)
The Context
Despite the beauty of its land and the resilience of its people, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and ranks nearly last in the world for percentage of GDP spent educating its children (CIA World Factbook).
Haiti’s brutal history of colonization, slavery, and exploitation has traumatized its people and created a culture of authoritarian leadership that often leads to abuse of power and a scarcity mindset. These factors can stifle the positive evolution of institutions such as families, schools, organizations, businesses, and government. Leaders that abuse power perpetuate conditions that inhibit people from growing, innovating and discovering their potential.
Unfortunately, the educational experience of most Haitian children serves to perpetuate a broken society characterized by ineffective institutions. Haiti’s schools typically use archaic practices such as rote memorization, corporal punishment and humiliation, and teach prejudice, conformity, and passivity while stifling critical thinking and the out of the box thinking that Haiti desperately needs.
Haiti Partners
Haiti Partners’ (HP) purpose is to empower Haitians to change Haiti through education. HP envisions a Haiti in which the traditional, authoritarian system of education has been replaced with a liberating, community-based model that—through collaborative leadership, innovative educational methods, and collective change-making—provides students and parents the skills and knowledge they need to develop their communities and work together toward a brighter, more sustainable future.
HP has brought this vision to reality, first, by developing its Children’s Academy and Learning Center as a model of community-based, quality education for the nation. HP also draws on this model to strengthen its partner schools so they, too, can provide education that helps their students and communities develop. HP also hosts visiting teachers, school administrators, and education officials—from Haiti and overseas—as well as provides training to other education networks in Haiti, so that this liberating model of community-based, quality education can multiply for maximum impact.
Programs, Services and Scope of Operation
Haiti Partners promotes innovative, quality education and collaborative leadership through a school-based community development model in Haiti. HP opened the Children’s Academy and Learning Center in 2012 as a place of innovative, high-quality learning, accessible to Haiti’s most disadvantaged children.
- Current enrollment for The Children’s Academy and Learning Center is 503 students, preschool through 10th grade, with plans to expand to 13th grade by 2027.
- The Children’s Academy provides a comprehensive, private education in Haiti for less than $1,000 per student per year.
The Academy embodies the Haitian practice of konbit, a native Haitian ideal that includes dignity, solidarity, responsibility and collaboration. Much more than a school, the Academy is the center of a flourishing community. Distinguishing factors making the Academy unique:
- A culture of joy and respect: Unlike many Haitian schools, there is no corporal punishment/humiliation used for discipline at The Academy.
- The school engages parents as partners: The school staff works with parents to help children receive an education that empowers them to become change agents. Parents also receive training on children’s rights and preventing domestic violence.
- Parent Service Hours: Academy parents volunteer 4 service hours/weekly to have their child enrolled.
- School/Home Gardens: HP teaches permaculture techniques to students and parents to strengthen families and community resilience through gardening and nutrition.
- Papermaking/Greeting Card Social Business: The Academy’s employees and parents work in this micro-enterprise on campus to transform banana plants and vetiver into handmade paper and greeting cards that are sold to raise funds for the school and are also given as a thank you to donors.
HP advises/supports 6 partner schools: impacting 1,120 additional students.
Future Direction
Gang warfare among Haiti’s 300+ gangs, especially around the capital, Port-au-Prince, has resulted in 362,551 internally displaced refugees in Haiti in 2024 (CIA World Factbook). Many displaced families are settling near the Children’s Academy searching for a safer, more stable community. These refugee families need to enroll their children in school. The Children’s Academy must respond to this growing need in its community by admitting more students than anticipated. HP must expand its school staff, facilities and programs over the next three years as follows:
- Expanding the school over 3 years by 100 students per year from 400 students in 2023-24 to 500 students in 2024-25, 600 students in 2025-26, and 700 students in 2026-27. This requires purchasing desks and chairs, textbooks, backpacks, tablets and hiring teaching staff (4 more Pre-School teachers; 2 more Special Needs Program teachers; 4 Primary School teachers; 4 Middle School teachers; and 2 High School teachers) and 2 wellness staff for the school’s Wellness Program; a Registered Nurse for the health clinic; and Trauma-Informed Care Counselors.
- Expanding Security: Doubling the number of school Security Guards and Gate Attendants (for 24/7 security coverage) due to heightened security concerns.
- Women’s and Children’s Empowerment Program: Konbit Chanjman/Gender Equity Training (2 sessions weekly for six months) for 30 men, 120 women, 93 girls, and 70 boys entitled, “Rethinking Power.”
- Capital Construction: HP will build additional hurricane-and earthquake-resistant buildings on the school campus to accommodate the new student influx, from 2025 through 2027. This will include 9 new classrooms and an auditorium along with composting latrines and additional bathrooms.
- Capacity Building: HP has developed a 3-year plan to build organizational and development capacity to support continued expansion of its programs in Haiti. This includes hiring a US-based Development Director, implementing hub city fundraising events, recruiting additional Board members, expanding HP’s foundation and corporate support, training staff and securing technology to enhance organizational efficiency.
Contact Information:
Merline Engle, Co-Founder, Co-Director; merline@haitipartners.org
John Engle, Co-Founder, Co-Director; john@haitipartners.org
Haiti Partners
P.O. Box 7882 – Delray Beach, FL 33482
U.S. EIN # 26-3768289
haitipartners.org
U.S. Mobile for Merline/John Engle: (202) 236-6532
Thank you for your consideration. An in-person or Zoom meeting with HP leadership and/or additional information on HP initiatives are available upon request!
