Colby Bowker
Why Haiti, Why Now
Why Haiti, Why Now
Colby Bowker
“The Haitian Project: A Blueprint for Solving ...
“The Haitian Project: A Blueprint for Solving Big Problems” - Ever Widening Circles

The June Issue of Haitian Project News is Here

Read all about it…

In June, the Louverture Cleary School community celebrated the graduation of its 27th graduating class! The Class of 2022 stands out for having supported one another and the school community during some of the most challenging times in the school’s history.

“One of my hopes for the future of Haiti is to see a change in Haiti, and to be a part of that change by starting to be what I would like to see in my country.”
— Gaïna D.

LCS Graduate Gaïna D.

Read all about this amazing class and hear what LCS's newest graduates say about their hopes for their future and the future of Haiti in the latest issue of Haitian Project News!

What else is featured in this issue?

  • The Frank and Jill Dulcich Center for Career Advancement (DCCA), initially called the Office for External Affairs, is one of the largest university scholarship and job placement programs in Haiti. It also supports the ongoing operation of the school, fostering relationships with and sourcing support from the local Haitian business community.

  • What author included The Haitian Project and the Louverture Cleary Schools Network in his acclaimed new book? (Spoiler alert: Entrepreneurship coach, author, and Executive Director of the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship at Brown Danny Warshay!)

  • Read about these topics and more of the latest THP happenings in the June issue of Haitian Project News!

“Keep In Touch” to receive periodic updates on our students, activities at Louverture Cleary School, and progress on the LCS Network. Together, we can build a bright and enduring future for Haiti.

 

Shining On: Celebrating LCS's 27th Graduating Class!

Louverture Cleary School Class of 2022!

Last Friday, the Louverture Cleary School community celebrated the graduation of its 27th graduating class!

The Class of 2022 stands out for having supported one another and the school community during some of the most challenging times in the school’s history.

In addition to proving their leadership to their younger classmates in tough times, these young men and women held on to what made them shine as individuals and as a class.

Their talent for music was often showcased at school assemblies, celebrations, and Masses. Their spiritual devotion was clear as they led the school in daily and seasonal prayer activities. Their dedication to sports was unmatched, many of them having been regulars on their elementary school soccer teams since they were old enough to try out.

As LCS Economics Department Head Djim G. (LCS ’14), who taught their Economics capstone class, reflects:

The word that comes to mind when thinking about this Philo (U.S. 12th grade + 1) class is ‘resilience.' These students have an incredible ability to recover from tough blows. They came across multiple difficulties on their way to graduation, but they always managed to keep their eyes on their goals while helping the youngest be at their best, as all great leaders would do.

We are so proud our graduates! We know that they are taking with them the values, skills, and hopes for a just and prosperous future for their country that they learned at LCS, and we look forward to seeing the great things they will do!

A Selection of Quotes from the Class of 2022

After graduation, I would like to study legal and political sciences in one of the best universities in Haiti to become a good diplomat so that I can represent my country around the world. For Haiti, I hope there will be political stability. I hope we become this country where people will live without worries…. I hope Haiti will be a country radiating worldwide, as it has been in [past] time.

—Emmanual M.

 

In the future, I want to become a good businesswoman and influence others. I want to show to all ladies that they can trust their dreams and work for them. No matter their economic situation, they can achieve their goals and become independent women financially.

—Marie Seth G.

 

The best lesson that I learned [at LCS] is to accept other people and cooperate with them while you are trying to be a great example. I will take this with me after graduation. I hope for the future of Haiti to see a lot of great change. I would like to have more educated people and more conscious people so that we change Haiti in years coming.

—Pierre Friedman J.

 


My hope for Haiti is to see that everyone can see the beauty that I see in the country: its beautiful places, possibilities and traditions. Then I want the country to explore its potential … the natural and human potential.

—Troy A.

 

My plans after my graduation are to go to university, keep working hard to succeed. I will keep sharing what I have learned at LCS to the people of my zone [neighborhood]. One of my hopes for the future of Haiti is to see a change in Haiti, and to be part of that change by starting to be what I would like to see in my country. As Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” After…we will be able to put ourselves together and build a new Haiti.
—Gaïna D.

As always, YOU are the help we have to give.
Celebrate Louverture Cleary School's 27th graduating class by giving in their honor!

“Keep In Touch” to receive periodic updates on our students, activities at Louverture Cleary School, and progress on the LCS Network. Together, we can build a bright and enduring future for Haiti.

 

The Haitian Project's 2021 Annual Report is Here!

As you read it, we hope you are proud of what YOU have made possible and the work we did TOGETHER for Haiti.

Here are some of our favorite sections of the 2021 Annual Report, especially this quote from graduating Philo (U.S. 12th grade + 1) student Lookendy C.:

“Even if it was difficult to have a normal school year, it was important because students are the future of Haiti. Being at LCS was a sign that the objective to rebuild Haiti had not changed. We still have to work to make Haiti better.”

See Lookendy's quote, along with others from the LCS Class of 2021, on the back cover of the Annual Report.

And did you know...

Thanks to the Dulcich Center for Career Advancement, which administers one of the largest university scholarship programs in Haiti, 88 percent of LCS alumni go on to attend and graduate from university where less than three percent of the population holds a degree? Read more on THP's Success Stats on page 8.

Thanks again for your support last year. Please continue to stand with us as we push ahead with historic plans to increase access to education in Haiti through the Louverture Cleary Schools Network!

Design work on The Haitian Project's 2021 Annual Report donated by Dan Wykes.

“Keep In Touch” to receive periodic updates on our students, activities at Louverture Cleary School, and progress on the LCS Network. Together, we can build a bright and enduring future for Haiti.

 

Keeping Families Together

“In Haiti...there are few barriers to opening an orphanage, and fewer enforcement mechanisms for child welfare officials to hold accountable the people who operate them, leaving tens of thousands of kids caught in a sprawling system that annually draws more than $100 million from American and Canadian funders. The result...is a shadowy industry where kids routinely face abuse, exploitation, living standards that don’t meet state requirements, and sometimes death....”
— Karla Zabludovsky, Buzzfeed News, 2/7/22

We recently came across an extensive article on orphanages in Haiti, “Most Children in Haitian Orphanages Aren’t Orphans…”, which serves as a reminder of what The Haitian Project has always known: Orphanages in Haiti are very often a part of the problem, not the solution.

As a THP community member, you can be proud of the fact that THP is on the right side of this issue and helps keep children in Haiti out of orphanages and where they belong: with their families.

We last wrote about these efforts in 2019 when we chronicled the work of Christina Moynihan, a long-time family missionary and founder of the LCS outreach programs, who returned children from the school's neighborhood back to their families after they had been coerced into orphanages following the 2010 earthquake.

This experience eventually led to the creation of LCS’s Koukouy Sen Kle (Fireflies of St. Clare) Early Childhood Development Program.

It’s often easier, and more lucrative, to address the symptoms and not the causes of challenges in Haiti. But we will always be a community that values "upstream” solutions and keeping families together.

Because, after all, there is no place like home.

“Keep In Touch” to receive periodic updates on our students, activities at Louverture Cleary School, and progress on the LCS Network. Together, we can build a bright and enduring future for Haiti.

 

Radical Hope: An Easter Reflection

A special Easter reflection from THP Volunteer Betsy Bowman ('09-'10)

Mary Magdalene announces the good news to the terrified twelve Apostles as they hide from reality, huddled behind locked doors in a closed room on that first Easter morning.

All four Gospels name her by name as the one to whom the Risen Christ appears first. It is she whom Jesus calls by name. It is she who embodies the whole Church on earth in those first hours, on that first day: the Apostle to the Apostles.

Why Mary? Perhaps, because she’s the one who never gave up. She bore witness to Jesus’ passion and his violent crucifixion, and she kept vigil at his burial. Then she came back to the tomb on the third day ─ or maybe she had never left?

In the face of so much pain, terror, sadness, and violence, Mary’s faith did not fail. She knew ─ or she hoped ─ that Jesus’ promises were true.

In our times, we behold the fear and suffering of our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, and the hopelessness of our neighbors battling addiction, and the persistent chaos and violence surrounding our friends in Haiti. As we offer encouragement to have faith, and to not lose hope, and to trust in God, we may begin to worry that our words ring false, like platitudes. Do we actually believe all this resurrection stuff?

And yet ─ we do. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are an invitation to wild and radical hope. They are the blueprint for all of human history.

Meanwhile, Mary reminds us that we are called to action, not simply to elegant statements of belief. She invites us to join her on a path of accompaniment, of witness, of love, of showing up and never giving in to the fear and cynicism that surround us.

As we celebrate this Easter mystery of radical love, may we, like Mary Magdalene, embody unshakable faith and hope in the face of fear and suffering. May we, like her, commit ourselves to show up and act with love even when violence and chaos seems to swirl around us. And like her, may our faithfulness and hope bring us to experience the very real presence of Christ in our midst, so that we may have the courage to share with everyone we meet, “I have seen the Lord!”

“Keep In Touch” to receive periodic updates on our students, activities at Louverture Cleary School, and progress on the LCS Network. Together, we can build a bright and enduring future for Haiti.

 

The April Issue of Haitian Project News is Here

The April issue of Haitian Project News features the rigorous process that takes place each year to select those who will become Louverturians.

Read all about it...

Have you ever wondered how someone becomes a Louverturian? Louverture Cleary School is well known in Haiti for educating and forming excellent students, employees, leaders, and citizens. But did you know there is a rigorous multi-step process of exams, interviews, home visits, and orientation carried out by a team of seasoned LCS administration and staff that takes place each year to select those who will become Louverturians? Read all about it in the latest issue of Haitian Project News!

What else is new in this issue?

  • In the fall of 2021, Haiti’s Commission Nationale des Marchés Publics (National Public Procurement Commission) held a national essay contest for final year and graduating university students. When the top ten finalists were announced, not one, but TWO Louverture Cleary School alumni were among them!

  • Every year on Jan. 1st, Haitian Independence Day, Haitians everywhere celebrate with traditional pumpkin soup, or soup joumou. Some THP community members have shared their soup joumou recipes—find out where you can find them.

  • And more of the latest THP happenings—you are not going to want to miss the April issue of Haitian Project News!

“Keep In Touch” to receive periodic updates on our students, activities at Louverture Cleary School, and progress on the LCS Network. Together, we can build a bright and enduring future for Haiti.

 

Mèsi! Thank You to Everyone Who Was Able To Support THP Through 401Gives!

Mèsi, mèsi, mèsi!

To everyone who was able to support The Haitian Project through 401Gives, THANK YOU!

We raised a total of $25,390 from 140 donors, unlocking the $2,000 challenge gift and bringing our grand total to $27,390!

We are beyond grateful for the outpouring of support in honor of this giving event and our work expanding access to education and economic opportunity in Haiti. Please know that your generosity has a direct and immediate impact on our mission and is what makes the Louverture Cleary Schools Network possible.

From all of us at The Haitian Project, thank you, thank you, thank you!

“Keep In Touch” to receive periodic updates on our students, activities at Louverture Cleary School, and progress on the LCS Network. Together, we can build a bright and enduring future for Haiti.

 

Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Continues Haiti and Greece’s Legacy of Support

At a glance, it might seem like Haiti and Greece do not have much in common other than miles of beautiful coastline. What is little known to non-historians is that the two countries have a shared history.

On March 25, 2021, Greece celebrated the 200th anniversary of its independence from the Ottoman Empire, commemorating the date when the War for Greek Independence began. Less than a year later, another milestone occurred: January 15, 2022 marked 200 years since Haiti became the first country to officially recognize Greece as a sovereign nation.

At the time, Haiti itself had recently achieved independence from French rule in 1804, after a brutal 12-year war that was the only successful slave-led revolution in history.

Jean-Pierre Boyer, former President of Haiti

Eager to stand with its fellow nation in the fight for freedom, then Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer wrote the following in a letter to the prominent Greek scholar and political figure Adamantios Korais: “We, like the Hellenes, were for a long time subjected to a dishonorable slavery and finally, with our own chains, broke the head of tyranny... Convey to your co-patriots the warm wishes that the people of Haiti send on the behalf of your liberation."

Today, The Haitian Project is proud to be part of the legacy of support between Haiti and Greece through a partnership with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), one of the world’s leading private, international philanthropic organizations, supporting arts and culture, education, health and sports, and social welfare in Greece and around the world. In the spring of 2021, SNF awarded THP a significant two-year grant to help support Louverture Cleary School outside of Port-au-Prince and to increase THP’s capacity to build its second school—the Model Campus in the Diocese of Gonaïves, which will be replicated across Haiti to create the 10-school Louverture Cleary Schools Network.

SNF Program Officer Casey Russo shared, “For decades, The Haitian Project has shown an unwavering commitment to educational opportunity, regardless of students’ means. SNF is proud to partner with THP in its efforts to expand its reach, creating more opportunities for students to grow into citizen-leaders and increasing university access across the country.”

It is through the generosity of SNF and all supporters standing with THP during this difficult time in Haiti’s recent history that allows Louverture Cleary Schools to be a continued beacon of hope and opportunity in Haiti.

Photo Credit of Jean-Pierre Boyer: Pôlehistoire, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

“Keep In Touch” to receive periodic updates on our students, activities at Louverture Cleary School, and progress on the LCS Network. Together, we can build a bright and enduring future for Haiti.

 

LCS Network Featured in New Entrepreneurship Book

Just this week, Executive Director of the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship at Brown University Danny Warshay released his paradigm-shifting book See, Solve, Scale: How Anyone Can Turn an Unsolved Problem into a Breakthrough Success. Focusing on the entrepreneurial process, this book contains anecdotes about people and organizations that found a solution to a problem and scaled it in a sustainable way—including The Haitian Project and the Louverture Cleary Schools Network!

In the book, which CEO Today has called “One of the 10 Most Inspiring Business Books For 2022,” Danny tells the story of how he encouraged his Brown University classmate THP President Emeritus Deacon Patrick Moynihan to think big and develop a model to scale the proven solution of Louverture Cleary School (LCS) so that it would impact the entire country of Haiti.

Reflecting on the book, Deacon Moynihan remarked, "Danny's guidance literally lifted my eyes from the trench to the horizon. It made seeing the path to the big vision back to today as easy as doing a maze from end to start."

THP had long envisioned a future where there were enough LCS alumni in Haiti to fully transform the country’s economy and institutions from within. But Danny’s advice took this idea from merely a vision to a detailed plan of action: the Louverture Cleary Schools Network.

"I can't thank Danny enough for his advice and friendship over the past 35 years," commented Deacon Moynihan.

For more of this story and countless business insights from Danny, check out See, Solve, Scale!

“Keep In Touch” to receive periodic updates on our students, activities at Louverture Cleary School, and progress on the LCS Network. Together, we can build a bright and enduring future for Haiti.

 

Louverturians in the Lead!

In the fall of 2021, Haiti’s Commission Nationale des Marchés Publics (National Public Procurement Commission, or CNMP) held a national essay contest for final year and graduating university students. Entrants were invited to write three to five pages on the topic “Public procurement: an effective tool for the implementation of public policies.”

When the top ten finalists were announced in November, not one, but TWO Louverture Cleary School (LCS) alumni were among them: Jothsaïna P. (LCS '14) and Jacob K. (LCS '15)!

Jothsaïna went on to be among the final three competitors and, at a December ceremony commemorating the 17th anniversary of CNMP, was named the winner of the contest and the J.F.R. Marcello Prize.

Jothsaïna P. (center) at the awards ceremony for the Commission Nationale des Marchés Publics' national essay contest.

Jothsaïna, who attended law school in Haiti with help from a scholarship from LCS’s Dulcich Center for Career Advancement, was preparing her thesis on public contract law in her final year of her degree when she learned of the opportunity to use that knowledge in the contest. She reflected on her winning essay:

“The most important thing to make clear was transparency in contracts. The public administration has to put the information out to the public. What is the state doing, does it have a result, is it efficient? Money should be used to serve the general interest. Contracts need to be transparent.”

Additionally, Jothsaïna was recently awarded the Pauline Parris Scholarship that will send her to Trinity College in Ireland to pursue a master's degree in international peace studies. She plans to bring what she learns back to Haiti to support a brighter future for her country. Speaking to a Haitian news outlet about the award, Jothsaïna said:

“Currently there are many conflicts in Haiti, whether at the level of the gangs or the public authorities. In applying for this scholarship, I thought to myself that it could really help me in this area. It would allow me to analyze and understand the mechanisms of conflict management.”

Jothsaïna and Jacob are both excellent examples of how Louverturians continue to excel both professionally and when it comes to giving back to their community.

While studying law at Quisqueya University, Jothsaïna returned to LCS to teach Education Citoyenne (Citizenship) class. She also serves as a debate coach with the organization FOKAL—a way for her to give back to the same debate program she and her fellow students participated in while at LCS. Now working as a licensed lawyer, she and her colleagues support and encourage women to increase their participation in fields like politics and other social interests.

Jacob K. (left) volunteering at a free community clinic with other LCS alumni in the medical field.

For his part, Jacob earned a highly sought-after spot in the State University of Haiti’s medical school after graduating from LCS, then volunteered his time at free medical clinics with other LCS Alumni in the medical field for the community around LCS. He served as the junior staff medical assistant at LCS during his studies as well, assisting the school and local community as they weathered the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reflecting on the impact of LCS on his work and on Haiti, Jacob says,

“Rare are the institutions in the country that teach us to be good students but also engaged citizens. In addition to academic values, LCS ​​instills moral and patriotic values ​​in us. LCS is a valuable social actor whose mission is to rebuild Haiti.”

A Louverture Cleary education can indeed change a life. And, through that life, a thousand more.

Congratulations to Jothsaïna and Jacob, and to all our LCS alumni who continue to work hard to build a brighter, more transparent and just future for their country!

“Keep In Touch” to receive periodic updates on our students, activities at Louverture Cleary School, and progress on the LCS Network. Together, we can build a bright and enduring future for Haiti.