The Alphabet School – A Literacy School for Adult Education

Five years ago, we first wrote about the “education triangle”, and we updated the original post in 2022 when we opened The Barefoot School. Speaking from experience, Mrs. tVM and I spent countless hours at the kitchen table helping our children with their schoolwork and encouraging them to complete it.   I say with 100% certainty …

The Children Are in School

Despite the gunfire and gang violence, we managed to complete semester testing at the Barefoot School in Cité Soleil in February.  I received the report cards for 149 students this week.  Regardless of performance, THESE CHILDREN ARE IN SCHOOL and are trying.  That is MOST important:  THEY ARE IN SCHOOL, which is a major accomplishment …

Water, Children, and Angels

Water is essential for life on Earth as we know it. Yet how many times do we curse it as it overwhelms us with devastating floods… how many times do we raise our fists to the heavens as rain refuses to fall on the hard, sun-parched land? In America, we take so much for granted, …

Humbled by a Homeless Child

In Haiti, most children have a single set of clothes.  IF a child attends school, a uniform is a requirement.  Because the Barefoot School is open to everyone, we do not strictly enforce that requirement. As we prepared for the school year last summer, Justin’s budget included $4,500 for ‘uniform cloth.’  I was resistant to …

Toilet

Our Barefoot School has not had a functional toilet since we moved in last summer. Hygiene is as important as food and knowledge, particularly in an environment like Cité Soleil which has been experiencing a cholera outbreak in recent months. We have many things to focus on at our Barefoot School.  Justin and Benoit wisely …

I Had the Blues

According to a recent report on Haiti from the World Bank – November 2022 – Haiti remains the poorest country in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region and among the poorest countries in the world. In 2021, Haiti had a GNI [gross national income] per capita of US$1,420, the lowest in the LAC …

No Distractions

We are back in school.  Nothing has changed in Cité Soleil.  With no functional government in Haiti – the last 10 remaining senators in Haiti’s parliament officially left office on Wednesday – the country is left without a single democratically elected government official.  Meanwhile, the gangs continue to vie for power.  Gunfire erupted yesterday and …

The Children Need Your Help

After a brutal summer characterized by unparalleled gang violence and delays mandated by the Haitian Ministry of Education, we opened the doors to the Barefoot School in Cité Soleil, Haiti last week.  This will be our second scholastic year.  Our relationship with the Guepard Boxing Club of Cité Soleil [GBCCS] which operates the school goes …

Season Change

We faced many challenges on many fronts this summer that affected our work on our Haiti agriculture project in Arizona.  The reasons are unimportant. The fact is, after planting 2,400 linear feet by the end of May with Armenian cucumbers to okra to squash to melons, and everything in between, we realized zero harvest excluding …