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

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. 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. The organization has also outlined a list of goals for its partner schools.

The organization also has a Teacher's Program to train 300 teachers.

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