On International Women’s Day (and Every Day), THP Honors the Gift of Womanhood for Our World

by Esther P. (LCS '02), Director of Operations, Louverture Cleary School

Increasing the female enrollment at Louverture Cleary School is one of the best decisions we could ever take as an institution that has the mission to build a better Haiti. Education benefits our young women because education brings self-confidence. When a girl has self-confidence, she will have the ability to make good decisions in any aspect of her life. 

Educating women benefits families. With an education, a woman has what she needs to deal with poverty. Educated women are better equipped to choose their careers—careers of which their families can be proud. Educated women are role models for their children and make their families stronger and stronger for generations. 

Someone once told me, “Educating a girl is educating a nation.” 

An educated nation will definitely "grow up." One of the most important keys to ending poverty in Haiti is to educate its women. Educating women at a young age will make any positive change in Haiti more effective.

There is a common expression in Haiti that women are the “poto mitan.” This means that women are the central column or pillar of support that holds up the whole structure. Educating women strengthens society at its core.  

An Ash Wednesday Reflection

from Christina Moynihan, THP Director of Community Development

Through the wisdom of the Church we have been given 40 days during our liturgical calendar to open our hearts and our souls to the resurrection of our Lord. These 40 days of Lent are modeled after Christ’s respite in the desert (Matthew 4). We prepare by praying more, fasting, confessing, serving and giving to others (almsgiving). 

When my family and I were living in Haiti, I found it easier to live a Christian life. We never needed anything. Of course, my children wanted this and that; but, in reality, all we needed was each other and the other basics that our Louverture Cleary School community provided, like friendship, shelter and food. We would walk out the front door and see a need, improvise a solution, and fill the need to the best of our capabilities.

I prayed all of the time—sometimes with great verbal exasperation: “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I need you. Where are you?” 

Scalabrini Fathers Joseph and Isaiah were my confessors and only a car ride away at a local seminary. We fasted quite often, mostly out of necessity because groceries are expensive and there’s not much variety. And with all of the many distractions out of the way, we could focus on Christ in others. God put His daily objectives for each of us right before our eyes. Our Christian duty was clear.

The irony of Lent is that we need to create Heaven here on earth while living in a “Son-lit” desert. Awake, O Sleeper, and Christ will give you light-direction (Ephesians 5:14). We are set apart (Matthew 5:13) and meant to spread His fragrance in this world (2 Corinthians 2:15). We are created to be His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20).

Nothing of this world can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38); but it is time to come back to Him with all our hearts (Hosea 14:1, Joel 2:12) and share ourselves with Him.

This Lent, take some time to accompany Christ in the desert and experience its rejuvenation. Remember…we are created to be in the world but not of it (John 17:14). 

Louverture Cleary School was able to reopen earlier this week since protests are no longer preventing access to marketplaces and transportation. While we hope for the best and that this relative calm will continue, we are continuing to monitor the situation very closely for signs that appropriate civil disobedience might again boil over into unrest. It has always been THP’s mission to operate in Haiti not because of stability but, with due concern for the safety of our students, to be stability. For the moment, at least, we are grateful to be up and running again as a haven and model of stability during challenging times.

A Volunteer at Louverture Cleary School (LCS) wears many hats: teacher, supervisor, mentor, coach, sacristan, and community member, to name just a few. Volunteers live in community with Haitian colleagues who have chosen to live the intentional life of the Volunteer Community in two houses adjacent to LCS: the men reside in the St. Francis House and the women reside in the St. Clare House. As with the early Christian communities, Volunteers live and work together from sun up to sun down for the collective good of the community.

Here’s a glimpse at a day in the life of a Volunteer at LCS:

5:00am—6:00am: Volunteers wake up to do some early morning grading, reading or study, eat breakfast, and get ready for the day.

6:30am: Volunteers gather with members of LCS Staff in the chapel for morning prayer.

7:00am—3:25pm: Volunteers teach between four and eight periods of classes. Classes typically taught by Volunteers are English, Religion, Economics, Math, Spanish, Athletics, and Computers. During off periods, Volunteers plan their lessons or fulfill other community responsibilities, such as supervising their weekly Work Hour, assisting in the Koukouy Sen Kle (Fireflies of St. Clare) Early Childhood Development Program, or fulfilling their cleaning duties in their house community.

3:35pm—4:30pm: Volunteers supervise the students during afternoon Netwayaj (clean-up) or supervise Study Hour.

4:30pm—5:30pm: During Play Hour, Volunteers run various activities and clubs for students like soccer and basketball, Language Store, theatre and art. If it's their night to prepare dinner, Volunteers spend this time cooking dinner for the residential house community.

6:00pm: Volunteers and Staff in the St. Francis and St. Clare Houses have dinner together.

7:00pm—8:45pm: Volunteers supervise Study Hour to ensure that the students are studying diligently and quietly.

8:45pm—9:00pm: Volunteers gather in the chapel for evening prayer together.

9:00pm—10:00pm: Volunteers return to their respective houses for some final lesson planning, grading, reading, and study before going to sleep.

10:00pm: Lights out for the Volunteers and the LCS community to recharge and do it all again tomorrow!

THP Volunteers: when teaching is more than teaching…

The Haitian Project’s Volunteer Program is central to fully carrying out its mission and has been for 25 years. While teaching Louverture Cleary students makes up the bulk of a Volunteer’s daily work, teaching is not actually considered a Volunteer’s most important job. A Volunteer’s most important job is to be fully present within THP’s community as a physical embodiment of the Louverture Cleary School motto: “What you receive for free, you must give for free.” Matthew 10:8

THP Volunteers are certainly teachers, supervisors, coaches, mentors. They also help form programs that focus on care of the environment, community outreach, and economic development. But, as they continually offer the gift of themselves, their value lies in more than their work. Volunteers are not expected to be polished teachers, but rather, members of a community—responsible for carrying out THP’s mission as an expressing its charism. Volunteers are truly “leaven in the dough” elevating the work of all.

THP is grateful for the current Volunteer Community members serving at LCS and all Volunteer Alumni who came before them!

Know a Good Volunteer?

The Haitian Project is currently recruiting Volunteers to serve in Haiti for the 2019—2020 school year. To learn more about applying to our Volunteer Program, click here. Thanks! 

Yesterday, The Haitian Project reached out to its support community with a statement on the recent civil unrest in Haiti. Today, our regularly scheduled community update addresses a specific topic related to poverty in Haiti—deforestation. This problem is featured in a recent article by Geographical entitled, “Haiti looks set to be entirely wiped of its native forests.”  

While it may seem untimely to provide an update about an environmental issue in light of current events, The Haitian Project community always has an opportunity and responsibility to understand how the many effects of poverty in Haiti are interrelated—and perhaps especially during difficult times. When we think about the relationships between various problems, we can better understand how important it is to direct our efforts towards solving problems at their source.  

Deforestation, like civil unrest, is a downstream problem. Education is the UPSTREAM solution. 

An upstream solution creatively addresses a problem at its source. While some situations call for sending help downstream to address an immediate problem, generally “downstream” solutions do not present a permanent or even semi-permanent fix. Instead, chronically focusing on downstream solutions can exhaust resources that could be better put to use upstream. For example, while it may be admirable to spend one’s time constantly restoring houses in the flood zone of a river, it is critical to remember to set aside the resources needed to keep the river from flooding in the first place.

After nearly three decades of incredible results and hundreds of successful alumni, The Haitian Project (THP) recognizes that education, specifically a Louverture Cleary education, is an upstream solution to poverty. With an education and a willingness to share one’s talents with others, a Louverture Cleary School (LCS) graduate is equipped with the tools to not only earn an income that eliminates the threat of poverty for themselves and their family, but they have the tools to rebuild their country. With an education they can, so to speak, both work to stop the “river” from flooding in the first place, even while addressing immediate needs created by the flooding.  

In sum, whether the issue is deforestation or civil unrest, long-term solutions are only as effective and sustainable as the capacity and commitment of the people on the ground (Haitians) to provide capable and principled leadership in government, business, and all other social institutions that need to function well in order for a nation to succeed for the good of its people.  

Working for a brighter future…today. 

Long before your local superstore had bins designated for recycling, paper, and plastic waste, LCS students and volunteers were sorting and repurposing waste, turning compost, and being a good environmental neighbor to the other residents of the neighbohood around the school.  Louverture Cleary was a trailblazer in using solar energy and remains a completely solar powered school. Now, as THP embarks on the Louverture Cleary Schools Network, our focus expands to the environmental impact of the next nine schools. Last year, THP sent an advisory team of experts to evaluate how future LCS campuses can positively interact with the physical and social environments in which they will be built. 

Michael Moynihan, Ph.D., biologist and president of AGCT Consulting, is a member of this advisory team. In considering the LCS Network, Mr. Moynihan is focused on evaluating how each new school will contribute to both the sustainability and the stability of its environment. From years of his own experience, as well as the experienced shared by his brother, THP President Deacon Patrick Moynihan, he is a firm believer in the upstream solution of education:

It is a part of education to develop and understand that everyday actions of individuals can have wide ranging effects. The goal of each Louverture Cleary School should include the development of persons who will work together with others to develop practices and businesses that provide increased economic reward from sustainable productive activities. Louverture Cleary students are imbued with a sense of responsibility and commitment to improve not only their own situation, but their community, nation, and the world. 

To learn more about this topic, we invite you to read The Louverture Cleary Schools Network: An Upstream Solution to Poverty and Development in Haiti for more information.

The following reflects The Haitian Project’s (THP) statement and update on the ongoing unrest in Haiti as of 5:30am ET on 2-13-2019. The statement has been prepared under the advice of THP President Deacon Patrick Moynihan and Haitian private sector leader, THP Board Member and Head of THP’s Partner Foundations in Haiti Patrick B., during their assessment of the situation on the ground early this morning in preparation for the exit of THP’s U.S. Community from Haiti.

North Kingstown, RI & Port-au-Prince, Haiti—February 13, 2019—The Haitian Project (THP) pulled its U.S. community out of Haiti this morning, joining the U.S. Embassy in Haiti which yesterday ordered the departure of family members of Embassy staff under the age of 18 and approved the authorized departure of adult family members and non-emergency U.S. personnel. Louverture Cleary School is closed due to the inability of students and staff to safely travel to the school and will remain closed until the security situation improves.

The situation on the ground in Haiti and/or the fear created by the current conditions has created an impediment to THP’s operation, an operation that has withstood earthquakes and other times of unrest.

The current unrest is not a civil demonstration, but one involving violence and the destruction of property. It impedes regular daily activity. It is different than the demonstration marches of the past. 

It is clear that the general population is not with the movement to bring about an end to the current government. The general population deserves the right to daily activity, schools, marketplaces, etc. 

Having monitored the situation closely since it began last week, THP now believes U.S. support is warranted and that U.S. military forces should be deployed to provide security in Haiti once again.

THP President Deacon Patrick Moynihan has provided the following statement on behalf of THP:

“I would hope that the United States will once again support rule of law and ordinary daily life with security forces if necessary. I find it challenging that we have military bases and ongoing activity in regions far away and antithetical to our way of life when Haiti, the second oldest republic in our own neighborhood, is left to chaos. How can we be serious about democracy and the ending of the criminal, immoral legacy created by slavery and not come to the aid of our brothers and sisters in America. America is one and Haiti is at its root.

“My plea for assistance is in the name of the general population, especially the children who are being kept from going to school. Whatever issues may or may not present in the current administration can certainly be better handled through a judicial process rather than the streets. Haiti must emerge from revolution and strife to a full practice of Justice and Democracy based in civil process.”

THP has long recognized the importance of family in the lives of children and the health of a nation.

Note: What follows is one story about Christina Moynihan’s forward-thinking efforts to reunite Haitian children with their parents after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake. There are many problems surrounding the use and funding of orphanages in the most economically disadvantaged populations. Recent research shows that worldwide, 80 percent—90 percent of children in orphanages have at least one living parent. We invite you, after reading this update, to visit the links provided below to gain a deeper understanding of this important issue. 

“We said yes to the mission because we love our own children. All other children deserve the same quality of life. What we have found in Haiti is that the families want education for their children because it will break the cycle of poverty and change their futures.” – Christina Moynihan  

When the Moynihan family came to live at Louverture Cleary School (LCS) in 1996, Christina Moynihan became quickly in tune with the neighbors of LCS—families who occupied the “zone” around the school. There was one event in particular that set her relationship with the women of the neighborhood into motion.

She heard the cry of a three-year-old boy who was left alone outside, locked out of the house by his mother who wanted to protect the house from robbers while she went to the market to work. Moynihan cared for the little boy, as she insists anyone would do. However, it was her response after his mother returned home that is unique and, sadly, not a well-trod path of action.

When the child’s mother returned home, Moynihan wisely took the time and effort to learn her story. Because she had already begun to form relationships with women in the zone, she knew that this child was not the only one who was in need of a safe place to play during the day. Other children were routinely abandoned, and some children of school age simply had no place to go. Moynihan (acting as mother, teacher, and partner in mission with her husband, THP President Deacon Patrick Moynihan) knew what needed to be done. She wasted no time in welcoming parents and children from the neighborhood into the gates of LCS, and thus, into a community of support. An early childhood education center at LCS was born. 

January 12, 2010—A major earthquake shakes Haiti.

Chaos ensued and nine children who attended the early education program at LCS daily were nowhere to be found. Moynihan visited their families and learned the missing children had been given to ”orphanages.” Many parents did not know the whereabouts of their children.

Utilizing help from a very wide cast of characters, Moynihan located each missing child. She visited ten orphanages in total and what she found were heartbreaking examples of abuse, neglect, and exploitation that strangely contrasted with the smiles of visitors who came to “help” during the earthquake. These orphanages were not legitimate or monitored by the state. Instead, they were “pop up” operations set up on the fly to make a profit from the earthquake chaos.

Moynihan recognized that in each case, the parents of these children had been coerced with a promise that their child would receive food, education, and a better life. While the children were being fed minimally, they were not receiving education, let alone any element of nurturing. In a bold move, Moynihan, with the help of a trusted team, returned each child to his or her home. 

In solidarity with the parents of these children, Moynihan asked them this question:

“If our school (LCS) takes care of your child from morning until afternoon. If we feed them, bathe them, educate them, and let them play, and all you have to do is take care of them from 4pm to 8pm and then put them to bed and bring them back the next day—will you keep your child?"

Each parent said, “Yes.” As did Moynihan herself, and a whole team of volunteers and staff who agreed to the nurturing of the children in what is now a formalized program at LCS called the Koukouy (Fireflies) of St. Clare. 

The program continues strong today with 50 plus children attending every day. Several children who have attended the Koukouy program have gone on to attend LCS and university in Haiti because Moynihan took the time to understand the problems of the women of Santo 5 and address them in a manner that empowered both them and their children.

Moynihan promoted, not exploited, the natural love between parents and their children. And, once again, education proved to be an upstream solution to what seemed to be an overwhelming problem.

For more on this topic, we invite you to visit the following links: 

Standing Against Orphanages That Are Not by Deacon Patrick Moynihan, President of The Haitian Project

80-90 Percent of Children in Orphanages Are Not Orphans by Tom Price, Catholic Relief Services

Most Children in Orphanages Are Not Orphans by Emma Batha, Thomson Reuters Foundation

Watch a video of THP’s Koukouy Early Education and Development Program

And, please look for more on this story in the March 2019 issue of Haitian Project News.

On January 1st, Haiti commemorates the declaration of independence from France that was made in 1804. The Haitian Revolution began in 1791 when slaves and some free people of color began a rebellion against French authority in what was then known as Saint-Domingue. The revolution made Haiti the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful slave rebellion. A prominent leader emerged during the rebellion, Toussaint Louverture, whose name is honored in the name of our own Louverture Cleary School.

January 1st. A day of Resolutions. Commitment. Thankfulness. 

It is also a special day in Haiti—Haitian Independence Day.

On today, Haitian Independence Day, we would like to thank our Community for your outstanding support of the school which bears the name of a hero of the Haitian Revolution—Louverture Cleary School (LCS). You are our heroes. We are proud to say that thanks to you, we have exceeded our goals for 2018! Your generosity has put The Haitian Project (THP) in the best position possible to secure the major philanthropic interest necessary to create the Louverture Cleary Schools Network!

January 1st —New Year’s Day— is also known traditionally as Commitment Day.

On January 1st, we start a fresh year, full of promise and possibility. In other words, Commitment Day is the ideal time to make a heartfelt pledge and see it through to the end. 

As we look back over 2018 and are filled with gratitude for everyone in our Community who has continued to support us in our efforts to increase access to education in Haiti, we at THP are making some pledges for Commitment Day:

• We re-affirm our commitment to our LCS students to give them the best education possible, thereby giving our graduates the potential to lift themselves, their families, and their country out of poverty
  

• We promise to continue to make paramount a culture of service at LCS, teaching our students to live by Matthew 10:8 (What you receive for free, you must give for free)
  

• We pledge to give the best support to our alumni as they take confident steps down bright paths of opportunities, building a brighter future for Haiti in the process
  

• We will continue our efforts to increase access to education throughout all of Haiti through our plans for the Louverture Cleary Schools Network

None of this would have been possible without your support and faith. Thank you for joining us on this journey. Together, we are making a difference for Haiti. And, if you can, enjoy a traditional bowl of pumpkin soup today to celebrate.

Bònn Ane et Bònn Fèt Lendepandans!

Happy New Year and Happy Independence Day!

The end of the year is always a great time to reflect on what we have accomplished in the past 12 months and look forward to the coming year. 2018 has been a historic year for The Haitian Project by several standards. Here are just a few of the milestones we achieved together this year:

1. LCS Class of 2018 achieved a 100 percent pass-rate on the Baccalaureate—Haiti’s national exam that students must pass in order to be eligible for university.

2. THP launched a national campaign to promote the Louverture Cleary Schools Network—a national network of 10 tuition-free schools across the country of Haiti.

3. THP’s Site Evaluation and Advisory Team (SEAT) started visiting potential locations for LCS 2 in a different department of Haiti.

4. Thanks to the generosity of our community, THP completed its $2.9 Million capital campaign Rise: Let Us Be On Our Way— the largest campaign in our history!

2018 is already set to be a historic fundraising year for THP, too. We have only one mark left to make before we can chalk up this year as 100 percent successful and move full force into The LCS Network in 2019: We need 100 new donors to give online before the end of the year. Can you help us get there?

If you have not already given this year, please consider making an online donation today. And, everyone can multiply their impact by spreading the word to family and friends! Please feel free to share this post or direct people to our donate page: haitianproject.org/donate so we can meet this final goal and finish 2018 strong!

Thank you for supporting education in Haiti!