Category: News Our Montessori Projects

We at the Peter Hesse Foundation are holding our breath as we wait for news of teachers and children from all of the schools that we have helped to set-up in Haiti. We are mostly concerned about the schools in

Finally some good news! The student teachers and staff of the training center were saved. We were very worried about the students at the training center in Bois Vernat because the earthquake coincided with the time that they would have

During the first 2 weeks after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, saving lives and emergency help had absolute priority. Now funds for rescue and basic needs like water, food, shelter and medical care have been collected and help is –

In Haiti’s struggle to return to some normality and to heal the wounds caused by the earthquake, school is now considered a high priority. Children living in the streets and in provisional tent-settlements are traumatized and lost in this unprotected

First photo – below – from former Montessori teacher training centre in Port-au-Prince, destroyed in the earthquake and photo of trainers and teachers in front of the centre in 2004.  In the afternoon of 12 January, the centre was closed

It is incredible to imagine that in a few minutes you can become jobless and homeless. That you can loose friends and family members, that your life as you know it can change completely. In a few minutes all can

A Peter-Hesse-Foundation team and a TV-film crew travelled to Haiti to document what was destroyed, to support our local partners, 20 Montessori teachers, who were directly affected by the earthquake and to plan the reconstruction of the 4 project preschools

6 months after the first devastating earthquake in Haiti we continue working on an improved permanent solution to restart Montessori teacher training. The earthquake in January 2010 destroyed four of our Montessori schools and our Montessori teacher training center. Since then,

The first devastating earthquake in Haiti we continue working on an improved permanent solution to restart Montessori teacher training.

In makeshift classrooms made from plywood and plastic sheeting our teachers were able to finish the school year at the end of July 2010 in all project preschools destroyed by the January earthquake – here photos from Jacmel and Léogane,

Carol reports from Haiti:In preparation for the start of the new school year the Peter Hesse Foundation replaced most of the Montessori materials and furniture for the preschools that were damaged in the earthquake. Some of the schools are now

Our teachers in the Artibonite area held special sessions to teach the children and their parents how to protect themselves and prevent the spread of Cholera in their community. This included simple measures such as the proper way to wash

Remise de matériel Montessori à l’institutrice Tamar dans son école à Léogane pour faciliter le départ de la nouvelle année scolaire dans une situation improvisée.

65 per cent of all language materials and for other cultural subjects are made by the teachers themselves out of simple materials. On October 23, 27 and 29, Carol Barratt held a special workshop for teachers to re-create some of

The Foundation’s immediate goal after the devastating earthquake in Haiti which killed more than 230,000 and left over a million homeless was to help our teachers and children overcome this unexpected and frightening experience and continue their life with some

In spite of the financial, administrative and political hurdles, we are going to begin the rebuilding of our teacher training center that was destroyed in the earthquake. We do not yet have all the funds to complete the building, but

Students from the vocational school in Kempen, after seeing the devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti, knew they had to do something to help. “We do not have money but we can build” they said. They put their words

Carol reporting from Haiti – 27 April 2011

22 students began training to be teachers in Liancourt in July. The course is using one of the preschool buildings while the children are on summer break. Training will continue in the afternoons when the preschool reconvenes in September. We

The sanitary units are being prepared and the drilling of a water well is now firmly planned. The German volunteers, who had already prepared the ground for the houses of the training center in Liancourt in April, are in full

Students from the “Berufskolleg Kempen” vocational school in Germany made a second visit to Haiti in their continuing support to build a new teacher training center in the small town of Liancourt to replace the one that was destroyed in

Now almost all our accumulated funds are being used for building this vital part of our Haitian Montessori project. We hope to be able to restart our teacher-training in Liancourt as soon as additional funds will become available.

31 teachers benefit from the teacher training facilities since it was inaugurated in December 2012. The group consists of student-teachers who are pursuing the Diploma course, as well as a certificate course. Attending teachers came from: Gonaives, Leogane, Jacmel, Kenscoff,

On 7th December 2013 the Peter Hesse Foundation celebrated 30 years of helping to make a better life for Haiti’s less fortunate. This year, with the financial assistance of a small group of faithful friends and donators, we were able

The year 2013 started with a positive note as our new training centre finally opened for classes after 3 year of struggling to rebuild after the earthquake. With your help we accomplished the following in Haiti in 2013:– Completed 80% of

A short summary of the Montessori development since our first training year in 1986/87 – and a letter from a former preschool child, now a student in France – from the book VISION WORKS…, 2008, by Peter Hesse, pages 122

The Peter-Hesse-Foundation continues to implement programs to improve the quality of early childhood education for at risk children in Haiti by training teachers at our residential training center in Liancourt, Artibonite, by establishing preschools in different parts of Haiti for

Regionally and globally the learning- and teaching-process must be radically improved. Good quality Education for All is a universal human right. The human process of learning starts very early in life and must be child-centered. The children’s individualities and their creativity must be respected. This is costly –

The Centre Montessori d’Haiti marked World Environment by teaching children about gardening in small spaces. The information was presented to the children by the current student teachers who have themselves planted the gardens as a part of their internship. The

Our yearly in-service training started on the 20th July and took place over a period of two weeks during the school vacation. The training toook place at our residential training center in Liancourt. Thirty-eight teachers from twelve schools in respective

Twenty-seven student-teachers graduated the Montessori programme for the academic year 2014/2015. The graduation ceremony took place on the 11th July 2015. We are projecting that over 500 more children will benefit from a better quality of instruction from the newly

Left sides: center opening on 7 December 2012 / right sides: beginning 2015.

Each year the number of children who receive high quality education increases as we train more teachers and open more schools. Today I visited a school in Croix-des-Bouquets which was started by a teacher who graduated our training programme in

Mrs. Guadalupe Borbolla, paid a visit to the AMI Educateurs sans Frontières Montessori Project of the Peter-Hesse-Foundation in Haiti, to get first-hand impressions of the quality of Montessori education for both the teacher training program and the children’s houses. During

Students and teachers of the Montessori teacher-training centre in Liancourt, Haiti, were honoured by a visit from NASA astronaut Dr. Michael Barratt, Carol Guy-James Barratt’s brother in law, who shared his experiences as an Astronaut with them. In 2009 Dr. Barratt

Congratulations Graduates! Another promotion of Montessori teachers prepare themselves for the task of educating Haiti’s future generation. On Saturday 9th July students celebrated their passage from students to teachers. This means that many children will benefit from a quality education

The massive Hurricane Matthew severely battered the Southern region of Haiti, leaving thousands of people homeless and hundreds dead. The number of deaths is likely to rise as the flood water subsides and emergency workers are able to assess the

34 students enrolled in the teacher training course for the academic year 2016/17 which began in Mid October. The students will participate in both theoretical and practical activities which will allow them to qualify as Montessori pre-school teachers or Montessori

The Montessori school in Bereau Les Cayes, has been completely destroyed. All that is left is the front part of the entrance of the school. We are thankful that no one was injured or lost their lives. We have to

“Yesterday I went to our partner school in Bereau for a modest Christmas celebration. I was truly shocked to see the appalling conditions there. House after house without their roofs, broken trees and make-shift dwellings. What I felt saddest about

1- Institution du Bon Pasteur, in Lasserre-commune, Croix des Bouquets a new school which opened in October 2016. The school was opened by the Kernizan family, whose sons attended the Peter Hesse Foundation’s demonstration preschool 25 years ago, and are

A workshop for teachers to make reading materials for their classrooms was held on January 13th and 14th at the Foundation’s residential training in Liancourt. The workshop was attended by teachers who started new schools as well as teachers from

Students visited the Wynne Farm Nature Reserve in Kenscoff and saw firsthand, composting methods, vertical planting, and different planting techniques. They also saw alternative environmentally friendly buildings, one made from Bamboo, one from recycled styrofoam plates and one from earth

After a short board-meeting of the Peter-Hesse-Foundation deciding on future positions on the Foundation-board, we celebrated “life as a gift – and a challenge”, with 161 guests, mostly friends and supporters of our Foundation’s work to train Montessori preschool-teachers in Haiti: Successful 30 years of

Planting and caring for trees at the teacher training Center is paying off. We are already harvesting fruit and serving it in our student cafeteria, including mangoes, tropical cherries, bananas and carambola. We are also harvesting our own sugar apples,