Solar Transformation for Haitian Education

Most of you are probably aware of our team’s work to provide solar power and Internet connectivity to the EFACAP School in Lascahobas, but many of you may not know about the library that we set up there in August of last year. I’d like to take this opportunity to write about it, because it figures in to our plans for moving forward.

Before our deployment trip in August last year, we had partnered with a 3^rd grade teacher, Fabrice Urrizalqui, at the French-American International School (FAIS) in San Francisco. Fabrice led a book drive at FAIS, and we brought three suitcases full of these books with us to Haiti. When we arrived at the school, we found an empty room with beautiful wooden shelving, just waiting for books. We also discovered dust-covered boxes and boxes of books donated from the EU that had never been unpacked.

Our team set about unpacking the books, while Fabrice led the week-long effort to organize, sort, and catalog the books, which were in French and Creole. He also led a meeting with teachers and the school’s administration to explain the cataloging system so that they’d be able to more effectively utilize it. The school’s administration was extremely grateful for our team’s efforts, and we all believed that the “old” technology of actual books provided the perfect complement to the “new” technology of solar power to be able to charge the laptops that the school had received.

However, after two subsequent visits, the library still had not opened. This remained a frustrating puzzle for our team until the headmaster, Mr. Saintil, explained that the library would not open until there was a librarian, and the hopes for getting a librarian remained slim-to-none, given the Ministry of Education’s lack of financial support for this. (The existence of a library in a public primary school in Haiti is nothing if not a rarity!)

This is where our plan for moving forward comes in: we hope to not only modernize the EFACAP’s library with digital technology (powered by the solar system already in place) but also to apply for funding to hire a librarian for the school. Please stay tuned for our next report for further details!

In February 2012, three members of the IIT Empowering Haiti team made a brief trip to Haiti and to the EFACAP school. The purpose of our trip was threefold: to install some additional (important!) equipment that had not arrived in time for our December trip, to re-wire the system from the fuse-box to the tables, and finally, to check in and see how things are going at the EFACAP school! I’m happy to report that the solar powering system and Internet connection were working just fine at the time of our visit.

The “Mate3 Hub” that we installed will enable us to monitor the solar system remotely—over the Internet. It will show us how much power the system is receiving and discharging every day. Kevin McElhinney, a grad student at CU Boulder who has traveled with our team twice now, is taking the lead on that project, and is already receiving data from the solar system in Lascahobas. We also installed a new-and-improved connector/fuse box that allows each table/charging station to have a separate wiring connection and fuse. Yours truly was very surprised to discover my abilities to assist in re-wiring the system and we actually got it right on the first try! With the help of our rainbow of electrical tape, we color-coded all the wires and connections this time, too.

We also had the opportunity for a long conversation with Mr. Saintil, the EFACAP school’s headmaster. We inquired how the teachers were coming along in their use of the laptops and Internet in the classrooms, as we were very aware that the one-day training session we held in December on these topics was far from sufficient. We were very happy to learn that there are two teachers at the school who have an affinity for computers and using the Internet—which we had noted during the training session—who are taking the initiative and time to train the other teachers individually on how to use the Internet in their teaching. We are so are glad to hear of this ongoing training taking place! There was also a group of men assembled outside Mr. Saintil’s office, and he explained that they were there to work on the water system for the school—that very day! The school was going to host visitors coming to town for the Carnival, staying in the EFACAP dorms, and they knew the water/pumping system needed to be fixed once and for all—great news!

Finally, the contract for a two-year Internet subscription with Voila telecom was officially signed. The service had actually started in December, but we had the opportunity for the official signing ceremony in February.

Thank you for your continued support of our work!