Haiti: Reconstructing and renewing from below

Silvana Gontijo *

With a population of 9.8 million – almost half of whom are illiterate and over three quarters toiling below the poverty line – Haiti’s human tragedy seemed almost complete. With the earthquake of 12 January 2010 and its destructive force more than 30 times the atomic bomb of Hiroshima, the drama took a dramatic turn for the worse.

The monumental challenge of reconstructing a country devastated by natural forces and centuries of misery and misguided public investment is in some ways similar to the task confronting post-war Europe in the middle of the 20th Century.

Imagining a programme of public education directly analogous to the one in Brazil would be to ignore the lack of capacities of the Haitian state to guarantee even the minimum rights of its citizens. But that does not mean Haiti can’t learn some lessons from its neighbours.

So what are the resources at the disposal of Haiti to reknit its social tissue?
How can citizens be encouraged to access education when the only law in place is that of the strongest? What are the prospects for survivors of this catastrophe?
What can united and mobilise them to take on new challenges beyond the great one of surviving each day?
 
Haiti’s ability to renew itself will be founded on its particular historical identity, language, ethics and religion. Moreover, any social contract will need to build on existing aspirations, values and principles and cannot be engineered by outsiders. The house of Haiti will be reconstructed by Haitians. 

Brazil nevertheless offers up some examples of a country that established an education and school model based on in some cases equally harsh realities and capacities. Crucially, the Brazilian approach emphasized urban space and community participation as the basis of educational reform.

Programmes such as the Neighbourhood School in Nova Iguacu (Rio de Janeiro), the Leaning Projects (in Sao Paolo) and the Child City (in Minas Gerais) could inspire educational initiatives in Port-au-Prince and the interior of the country.
It is only possible to design an efficient education policy on the basis of realistic diagnostics and mappings of capacities and potential, infrastructure and human resources. The above mentioned Brazilian programmes were based on the African adage that it takes all of a community to educate a single child.

Specifically, they anticipated moving beyond the school as the exclusive unit of teaching, and invoked teaching methodologies that drew on spaces between the school and the home as key learning environments. The use of culture and communicative means were also crucial pedagogical tools.

In Haiti, music – particularly ra ra and hip hop – are often used to inform programmes targeting at risk youth. The work undertaken by the NGO Viva Rio in Port-au-Prince are good examples of educational social technologies. Likewise, voodoo – the religion with the most followers in Haiti – is also critical to mobilising integrated/comprehensive educational forms. A wide range of technologies should also be harnessed for communicating education – not least radios and communal stations.

Haiti could start by looking within its borders in order to elaborate a model of education that is most appropriate. Even so, Brazilian experiences offer some hints of what is possible in complex situations. In the end, it will be a shared sense of purpose and solidarity amongst Haitians themselves that will be the most powerful tool in the reconstruction of the architecture of the country.

For more examples of Brazilian experiments in education see:

http://www.cpcd.org.br/principal/projetos/cc.html#

http://www.bairroescola.novaiguacu.rj.gov.br/cgi/cgilua.exe/sys/start.htm?tpl=home

http://www.cidadeescolaaprendiz.org.br/institucional/portugues/

* Silvana Gontijo is a writer, journalist and president of the NGO Planetapontocom, as well as a specialist in media education. (www.planetapontocom.org.br)