Greg Palmer was part of a four member team that responded to a request from the Haitian Minister of Education’s Task Force on Education to visit the country that was devastated by the earthquake on January 12th of this year.  The U.S. based consortium has been discussing a long term, broad-based approach with three key elements that would assist the Haitian people recover from losses to their infrastructure, health care, and educational systems.  The news coverage has diminished, but the needs are just as great as the government works to rebuild an entire country.
 
In April, MAGPI was pleased to be asked to lead the team focused on education.  Heather Weisse Walsh and Greg Palmer met with individuals at the Internet2 Spring Member Meeting in Arlington, VA along with representatives from Haiti, the Caribbean Knowledge & Learning Network, AMPATH, and the Florida International University, to name a few.  Following this meeting the group began to formulate a document that laid out specific plans for a 20 + year initiative that would work collaboratively with the government, academic, health care, and business communities within Haiti.  Funding, in the amount of $100 Million has been set aside by the Inter-American Development Bank, pending an acceptable planning proposal, (August) and subsequent full proposal, (October). 
 
As the pre-proposal was being written, Greg discovered through the Penn Current that Dr. Sharon Ravitch of the Graduate School of Education was leaving for Haiti to assess the pre and post earthquake educational processes with a 4 member team from Penn, including 2 Haitian nationals.  Dr Ravitch’s work in Nicauragua on Leadership Development and teacher professional development made her group indispensable to this project.  A meeting was arranged and Dr. Ravitch, Heather, Greg and a grad student from GSE, Laura Colkett, met to discuss her impending trip and how her group would best be utilized.  MAGPI also introduced Dr. Ravitch to another partner Greg is working with, Fred Mednick from Teachers Without Borders.  It was decided that within the Educational focus, MAPGI would act as coordinator of the distribution of $20-25 Million and educational technologist, Dr. Ravitch would design professional development programs for teachers, and Fred Mednick’s organization would design curriculum and coordination of international distance learning resources.  A PowerPoint presentation was begun for possible delivery to Haitian officials on August 31st.
 
The date was unexpectedly moved up to August 5th because the Haitian President was meeting with the Minister of Education on the 6th and the Minister’s Task Force on Education was putting this project forward as the most likely solution to the country’s educational issues.  After hurriedly preparing the presentation, It was this proposal that was delivered last Thursday to the Minister of Education, Joel Desrosiers Jean Pierre, through his appointed task force committee.  As you can imagine, the details of this proposal are complicated and pending further work with both the public and private schools and universities, incomplete.  The concept, scope, and rough draft were well received by the task force, which will of course generate many more discussions.
 
Many of the relief efforts were donations by well meaning organizations from around the world.  But in so many cases, there was a lack of coordination and communication with the Haitian government or a well conceived plan for distribution.  This consortium has made the first step to affect real growth and new opportunities for Haiti, in collaboration with the public and private sectors of the community.