A Post-Grad Path to Success
THP Board Member Patrick Brun and Director of External Affairs Minel Lofficial receive the first $15,000 check from Voilà to start the new Office of External Affairs.
The Haitian Project is proud to announce that Louverture Cleary School has graduated 274 students, 90 percent of whom now have steady jobs or are studying at the university level. These amazing statistics are the result of the hard work of the men and women in Louverture Cleary School’s Office of External Affairs (OEA).
Early in the school’s development, THP President Patrick Moynihan recognized the struggles that students undergo when finding university support and/or employment in a country where two-thirds of the population do not have formal jobs. In order to support LCS grads in these endeavors, LCS opened its Office of External Affairs at the school in 2003 to develop relationships with Haiti’s business world. “Better connections with the business community, better jobs, and more scholarships supported locally equals quicker change for Haiti. The Office of External Affairs is our commitment to finishing the mission of making sure our students can indeed rebuild Haiti,” Moynihan said.
In the past few years, THP Board Member Patrick Brun and the OEA employees have noticed some amazing, new opportunities to work with the local businesses. So, the OEA decided to move closer to where the action is – downtown Port au Prince. “The new space will provide us a more formal structure in order to be in a better position to capitalize on current relationships and create new ones,” said Minel Lofficial, Director of External Affairs and 2005 LCS grad. Lofficial will facilitate many of the new business relationships, which will provide new in-kind funding for the school, new jobs for graduates and intelligent employees for local businesses.
In order to make the move, THP needed funding. So, former OEA employee and Director of Projects, Christina Crow, wrote a grant proposal in the amount of $30,000 to Voilà, one of Haiti’s leading cell phone providers. Voilà generously agreed to the request, which is over half of the office’s start-up cost for the first year.
“It is a partnership for the future,” Moynihan said. “Voilà has an interest in well-trained employees at all levels of operation. Professional education leads to gainful employment, and gainful employment leads to economic growth. This means more clients for Voilà as well.”
Thanks to the dedication of The Haitian Project Staff and community, the new Office of External Affairs will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. four days a week, providing the hard-working students of Louverture Cleary with a path to further their mission to build a Haiti where peace and justice thrive.
