OLPC Haiti/Background

OLPC's work in Haiti

Deployments: In a partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank, 13,700 XOs have been purchased for students and teachers in 60 Haitian schools. This number includes 10,000 laptops from the Give One Get One program. Hundreds more have been deployed in smaller pilots by independent NGOs. Following the earthquake in January 2010, almost 3,000 used XOs have been donated by individuals around the world through the OLPC for Haiti project.

Waveplace: Waveplace is a non-profit organization that raises money to purchase XOs for Caribbean children, creates training materials that teach digital media skills, and inspires teachers to use computers in new ways. From February to September of 2008, Waveplace donated 23 XOs to students from the Mercy & Sharing John Branchizio School in Port au Prince, Haiti. Waveplace also provides XO and Etoys training. Following the January 2010 earthquake, Waveplace returned to Haiti in March to organize a two week workshop at Matènwa Community Learning Center for 20 trainee mentors and 26 children. The workshop aimed to train mentors who can each train an additional twenty mentors to lead eight Waveplace pilot projects using XO laptops and Squeak Etoys. OLPC also re-donated 200 laptops being used by 40 mentors and 160 children in Haiti. Check out the Waveplace Haiti blog entries and their OLPC wiki page

Other Education Development Initiatives

NGOs

Haiti Partners: Haiti Partners is a non-profit organization working to help Haitians change Haiti through education for students, teachers, leaders, and disciples. Through the organization's Students Program, Haiti Partners is working to educate 1,000 students in seven partner schools with a set of goals. The organization is working to improve facilities, provide educational materials, train teachers in participatory education methods, and provide training and seed capital for school staff and the local community to create social enterprises. Haiti Partners does not provides 100% of the funding for its schools, but identifies and supports education groups with teacher and leadership training, materials, construction dn repair work, and social enterprise training and financial support. By partnering with successful education initiatives, Haitian Partners aims to create a sustainable and replicable model to ensure that in all Haitian children have access to quality education.

In addition to the Students Program, the organization also has a Teacher's Program to train 300 teachers. The program supports individual teacher trainers through the six month "Circle of Change" training program, pays for books and videos, and provides seminars and workshops for trainers and participants.

Partners in Health: Partners in Health is a Boston-based NGO dedicated to providing a "preferential option for the poor." Located in Cange, Haiti, Zanmi Lasante is PIH’s oldest and largest project that has grown into a socialmedical complex. PIH now has an additional eight sites throughout Haiti. Through its community-based model, the organization hires local people as community health workers to monitor the needs of the community and to deliver health care to people with chronic diseases such as TB and HIV/AIDS. Today, ZL ranks as one of the largest nongovernmental health care providers in Haiti – serving a catchment area of 1.2 million across the Central Plateau and the Lower Artibonite. ZL employs over 4,000 people, almost all of them Haitians, including doctors, nurses and community health workers. PIH created a "Stand By Haiti Campaign" to raise funds and recruit medical personnel following the January 12th, 2010 earthquake.

Inter-Agency Partnerships

A Haiti Fit For Children: In March of 2010, six international aid organizations met at UNICEF's headquarters to discuss ways to make children the focus of rebuilding Haiti in the aftermath of the 12 January earthquake. The six agencies included Save the Children, SOS Children's Villages International, Plan International, World Vision International, Oxfam and UNICEF.

Other Resources

Haiti Education Resources

• Wikipedia Page on Education in Haiti
• Interesting article from the Council on Foreign Relations

OLPC in Haiti

• OLPC Haiti wiki page
• OLPC Haiti website (still under construction)
• OLPC for Haiti allows people to donate their unused XOs to displaced children in Haiti.
• OLPC News articles about Haiti
• Feedback from the Haitian XO Deployment