Edeyo | Help Them: Haiti Education Initiative

Edeyo’s Plan for Rebuilding: The New Edeyo School |

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2010 earthquake

The Edeyo School was completely destroyed in the earthquake of January 2010. Our goal is to turn catastrophe to opportunity by building a new high-quality, innovative, and sustainable community school for the children of Bel Air, who live in one of the most underprivileged parts of Haiti’s impoverished capital city.

Our New School Building: Our plan for a new building envisions 20 classrooms, administrative space, a library, a multipurpose room to be used as a cafeteria, a performance space and a community meeting space, a computer lab that after hours can serve as an Internet café, and a health clinic. We are working with volunteer architects to design a school that can function independently of city provided services, which are not available in Bel Air. Our new school will feature solar power, a biofuel generator, a water catchment and filtration system, and composting toilets. We also plan to build a garden on the premises, which will provide vegetables for the children’s lunch and a small poultry enclosure to provide eggs. These can simultaneously function as science teaching sites and provide jobs for a few Edeyo parents. Our school will cost approximately $1,000 per child for an estimated total of $300,000.

Advanced Curriculum: Edeyo aims to provide a first-rate, adequately resourced education to over 300 students. At the heart of our mission is the need to educate a new generation of Haitians who are proficient in multiple languages, including English; flexible and creative critical thinkers and problem solvers; internationally aware, while proud of their own heritage; adept in technology; successful in the intellectual and interpersonal skills necessary for future success; and committed to the continued regeneration of their community. Second, and more immediately, our students will also need to be equipped to pass the Haitian national exam, given after eight years of schooling.

Our Teachers: We currently employ 9 dedicated and hardworking Haitian teachers and 4 teachers’ aides. When we move into our new building, we plan to add partner teachers, ideally Haitian-Americans with U.S. training, so that we can transition to a U.S. type methodology and lower our student-to-teacher ratio.