By Caitlin McHale | Project Overseer
The end of last year's school year was strong. Thanks to some donations from a local restaurant who represents an organization from the US, we were able to provide meals three times a week for the last three months. After the last day of school, we held a "ti magazen" which means little store in Haitian Creole. Volunteers set up donated items such as soaps, clothes, shoes, toys, school supplies, food, and hygiene items like a little store. Students were awarded with points calculated by their attendance and some other special initiatives like their participation in trash pick up. Entering in the order they arrived, they shopped at the store! We plan to do this at the end of each trimester, so in December, April, and June. If you would like to send items to contribute to the store, please e-mail Info@EsperanzaMeansHope.org.
Then, a week after the school year ended, began our English immersion summer camp! Boy was this summer a success! The volunteer coordinator Joanne created a video for each week of camp which can be viewed here: http://vimeo.com/user29596794
After summer camp, we held teacher training. We were blessed to have Martine Michel Toure, a Haitian American from New York with a masters in International Education, come participate in the training. She was able to reach the teachers on a deep level, and being Haitian, they really appreciated having a Haitian American instruct them.
On August 18th, we began the new school year. The first day of school was unlike anything we have seen since the school opened in 2006. Normally the first week of school there are very few students. They begin coming more regularly the second week, and then the third week is pretty consistent. That is just the way things are here. But this year, the first day of school was packed with both students and their parents. I had never seen so much concern from parents either. And this has not stopped. We are now a few months into the school year and each week we have several new registrations. We have had to invest quite a bit in more benches and tables as we did not have enough space.
On January 24th we will have to move into a new space which is yet to be determined. However, we do have a dream location. It is not for rent but for sale. We have rented 5 different buildings in the area for the school until now, and it is time to buy. In addition, the school having its own property is a requirement for accreditation that we are yet to meet. The dream building is a carpentry shop just down the street from where the school is currently. It has plenty of space and at $140,000, for what it is and the location it is in, it is actually a good price. We have done lots of research and it seems like the best thing around. So that is something we are working hard on!
Thank you always for your support!
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