For a video slide show of a school build, click here.
What was once a pilot project is now in full swing: Over the next six months, HODR’s Transitional School Program will construct ten school buildings for the community of Leogane. With two completed and a third nearing its finishing touches, HODR volunteers and project coordinators are happy to announce the project’s continued success!
Funding to build the first three schools was provided by donations to HODR, while the next five will be supported by the Join Together Society (JTS), a Seoul, South Korea-based NGO specializing in education, public health, and disaster relief. The last two, again, will be funded by HODR.
Volunteers work to assemble the framing of Transitional School #3
As building permanent schools in Haiti is extremely delayed due both to limited resources and government regulations, transitional schools — the kind of hardy, temporary structures HODR is building and planning — are vital to reconstructing Leogane. HODR has chosen ten earthquake-flattened primary school sites where school directors have managed to maintain operation, often in a tent or under a tree, with most teachers still working on a volunteer basis. With a sound structure, these directors can use any funding they receive in the coming school year through small fees from students’ families or foreign aid to the Haitian government to pay their teachers and buy necessary materials, rather than exhaust their resources on shelter.
Small improvements to the original shelter design HODR implemented in Sumatra, Indonesia make the whole process faster and more streamlined, from prefabbing the wood to adding ventilation strips. “By the time we get to number ten, we’ll have this amazing, instant school,” says Sinead Clear, project coordinator. And the design is, in many ways, more suited to its Haitian environment than any concrete-block “permanent” school buildings would be. “Even in the worst case senario — another strong earthquake — the worst that will happen is that the concrete wall will crack, and maybe bits will fall off,” says Clear. Because the schools are built with plaster masonry, however, rather than structural, “it’s not going to fall on anybody.” Each school features colorful murals, too, meticulously painted by HODR volunteers.
Procuring materials can be difficult, of course. “At the beginning, we didn’t have galvanized nails,” says Clear, “and we didn’t have tin, and there are still no screws anywhere in Leogane.” Most materials need to be sourced from the United States. Still, volunteers are resourceful, and manage to make do with what they have, each adding fresh ideas and expertise to the project as they arrive.
HODR volunteers train local teachers as part of the Disaster Risk Reduction program
The first two HODR-built schools, Insitution Frere Casimir and Institution Chretienne de Bellevue, are now finished and classes have officially launched. HODR held a Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) teacher training program inside the first school, Institution Frere Casimir. “I can only thank the HODR volunteers” for the school they’ve built, says the school’s director, Jasmin Casimir. “It’s excellent work. Excellent.”
The launch party of the second school, Institution Chretienne de Bellevue, featured music, dancing, and speeches — including shouted, impassioned gratitude from the school’s director — and was a resounding success. While the satellite project had its challenges, the eight memorable weeks that HODR volunteers lived in the community of Bellevue and worked side by side with Bellevue residents resulted in close-knit relationships that help spread the word of HODR’s work in Leogane.
The fourth school HODR builds will be right down the street from the volunteer base. “I think our greatest impact will be the school that we build on this street,” says Clear. “We’ve done a lot of rubble removal around here. We’re quite linked to the community that way.” But constructing a school just a seven-minute walk from the base, she says, will certainly enrich HODR’s connection with everyone in the area. “It’s going to be super exciting to get that started.”
To learn about the pilot phase of HODR’s Transitional Schools Program, click here.
Sara Bernard is a HODR volunteer writing on-location in Leogane, Haiti. Photos taken by HODR volunteers Harry Fellows and Sara Bernard.
Friends,