AMSAI: Kinder & Primary School

Dressed in crisp, orange-checkered uniforms with their names prominently embroidered on the front, the kindergarten children arrive at our 5 sites every morning by 8am.   At our home base, AMSAI is the kindergarten and primary school which has been in existence for the last several years.  Dada Gopal has done a beautiful job transforming the school into a more beautiful space, and we have a vibrant new pedagogical director, Ralph.  2011 is looking up!

Mary Ange is one of our trainers for the kindergarten program.  She used to be a teacher at the AMSAI school, but in the last 6 months she has been serving all of our kindergarten sites as a trainer to support the teachers by modeling lessons and conducting professional development trainings.  She also just gave birth to a precious little baby in May!

The children are active everyday with physical activities, but Fridays are special sports days for the kindergarten children.  They play relay race games, practice yoga, and toss balls. 

We had a wonderful week with the AMSAI children.  Marg, Emily and Sherry have been coming from the US to support the school over the last several years.  They facilitated beautiful lessons with each of the classes.

AMSAI is a warm, loving community school.  I love seeing our team members' children in classes.  It reminds me of Newtown Friends School and George School where everyone feels like one big family.  Dharma and I love our new neighbor family.  Kettlie and Jacque have 7 children and 3 of them go to AMSAI.  Every day I look for Sharina (4), Misterline (6) or Jakline (7) in their classes just to catch a peek of their beautiful smiles.

Children in 3rd grade painted their own illustrations to a book, and 5th graders created wheels about animals' life cycles. 

Upcoming Elections

The tension is palpable in the days leading up to the election. There are 19 official candidates running for president (even 1 woman). Sunday is voting day. Of the 4.7 million Haitians eligible to vote, I wonder how many will actually venture to the polls.

Anecdotal conversations with my team members, people in the camps and the neighborhood point to high level of distrust, anger, resentment toward all the candidates. I have been hard-pressed to find even one person who plans to vote on Sunday. Those who do plan to vote are endorsing Manigat, the only woman candidate, or Martelly, a former musician.

As one of my team members explained, "It's almost becoming a cultural norm to fear the days leading up to and days following the election." Our team leaders discussed and decided that our programs would be closed today and Monday due to potential violence and volatility at each of the camps due to political tensions. Each site coordinator would decide when to re-open based on the local situation.

In the last week, more and more streets are blocked for demonstrations. One of the leading candidate's deputies was shot. Gunfire is regularly heard at night in some areas of the city. One of our team leaders cautioned us to prepare for a lot of unrest next week as the results are being tabulated.

With the increasing rate of cholera cases, several candidates urged authorities to postpone elections, but the move was denied.

Cholera is a huge threat, and people are more aware of the potential severity of the disease over the next year. Some reports project that more than a 500,000 Haitians could contract cholera. Already some family members of my team who live in the provinces have contracted the disease and are barely hanging on. We are sending medicines and oral rehydration salts (ORS) as fast as we can.

We learned last weekend that cholera has reached the Artibonite communes of Sou Chod and Terre Neuve, where AMURT has had a variety of project over the last six years. These two communes are located in the northwest of Haiti. The two local clinics responsible for the whole area were swamped with patients and were distributing ORS and antibiotics, yet already several had died. The elderly and children are still the most vulnerable.

I would say I see a marked difference in our team's overall well being these last couple weeks. With all of the stresses, unknowns and challenges that everyone faces, people are really feeling stretched. I continue to be inspired by the strength and support among our team members. The team has grown steadily over the last 10 months, yet the love and respect for each other is unwavering.

Serendipitous meetings

It was wonderful to meet Tim and Adam last week who showed us the wonderful technology of XO laptops and the Waveplace software.

Laptops, and accessibility to technology in general, are so important to really be successful in this new, fast-paced, global millennium. We look forward to incorporating this program into our after-school enrichment program for children aged 7-12.

This morning we had a wonderful meeting with our kindergarten trainers in how to support our community teachers with the ever constant challenges of teaching in camp-conditions. We did another round of brainstorming about what the "ideal" kinder class should be like: what does it look like? what are the children doing? what is the teacher doing? what are the trainers doing?

Learning opportunities that foster self-guided discovery and exploration are what we are after! Tiny steps toward constructivist, student-centered pedagogy!

Check out www.waveplace.org and www.laptop.org
To see Tim's blog about his visit with us, go to:
http://waveplace.com/news/blog/archive/001019.jsp

School-aged children among most vulnerable to Cholera

The Ministry of Public Health declared that cholera has indeed spread to six departments (or regions) of Haiti, affecting over 11,000 people. More than 700 have died. The reports are showing that school aged children are most vulnerable, with a high mortality rate.

In response to the cholera outbreak, we have stepped up our prevention strategies: informative messaging with flyers and signs, community/family outreach, teacher-training, increased supply of cleaning materials & wash basins, acquisition of rehydration salts, etc.

Cholera & Tomas

After receiving many emails of concern, I am finally getting a chance to write. Fortunately, tropical storm Tomas caused much less damage to Port au Prince than was forecast. Areas outside of the capital did suffer from severe flooding, yet people were on alert and making preparations. Most residents in the camps chose not to evacuate even under extreme pressure from authorities and NGOs. Instead, camp residents felt a strong desire to withstand the weather as to not abandon their new homes.

Cholera is now becoming more of a concern as it has entered Port au Prince. Cases originating in the city, as opposed to the nearby countryside, are starting to pop up. Camp organizers, local community leaders and our childcare providers are learning informative messaging tactics and teaching prevention strategies. Almost daily, we receive text messages on our cellphones from NGOs to remind us to wash hands regularly and drink clean water. Tomorrow we will buy more cleaning materials for all of our sites, put up signs, and spread information to the families.