Educational Assessment in Haiti

The Pearson Foundation, Nokia, and the International Rescue Committee are conducting a three-week educational assessment in Haiti. Our plan is to offer an information and communications technology (ICT) educational programme in some of the most under-served schools. We’re really here just to listen and let people tell us what challenges they’re facing in education. And challenges they do have. It has been 18 months since the earthquake, and the level of destruction is almost too much to take in. I really can’t put it into words, but the photos tell the story.

Because we’re here to observe and ask questions, I won’t be outlining our programme details because we want to keep an open mind. So many organizations come to Haiti with pre-existing programmes that just don’t work here. Our goal is to localize any solution we work on with the Ministry of Education, so we’ll just shut up for the next two weeks and see how we can best help…where help is needed most.

I really thought I’d seen it all, but Haiti is a singular experience. The level of poverty is like nothing I’ve encountered. Cholera is again raging in the streets, and when you see how basic services are still problematic, it makes sense that disease is sure to follow. Just look at the photos of the women selling food on the streets right next to running rivulets of garbage and sewage. The roads are a mess and getting anywhere is an adventure in patience. But, just look at the faces of the students we visited yesterday. When you’ve lived your entire life in dire circumstances, it is just normal. The kids can laugh and smile because they don’t know any other life.

My colleagues Wendy and Jake from the International Rescue Committee and I are off for another round of meetings with key players in education here in Port au Prince (and beyond). Tomorrow we’ll jump in SUV and head out to the countryside. On a side note, I’m normally on my own for these types of assessments and it is great to have the power and expertise of the IRC behind me this time. I’ve learned so much from Wendy and Jake already. Additionally, the IRC puts a premium on employee safety. We aren’t allowed to take taxis. We can’t walk anywhere. We have to use an IRC driver. We are issued phones and laminated cards with emergency numbers. We have curfew (something I haven’t had since I was 16)!

More from the road. And, even though I’ve been plunked down in the middle of the kind of poverty one will see only once in a lifetime, many of the Haitians I’ve met so far give me hope.

-Erik Gregory