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Green building for a new teacher training center in Haiti

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, our children have been attending school in tents and shelters made from plastic sheeting and scrap materials. Unfortunately, our teachers could not continue their training since we do not have a suitable place for them to do so.

We are now working to relaunch the Foundation’s teacher training program, but we need help to do so. We want to build earthquake resistant and energy-saving buildings which are ecologically friendly. We will use simple methods to conserve water and minimize the center’s ecological footprint in the community. We hope to begin the water and sewage component for the new teacher training center by the end of July 2010.

The new center will train teachers to provide a safe environment where children can recover from their psychological trauma and help them develop skills for lifelong learning. This center will also expose teachers to practical environmentally friendly changes that they can pass on to their communities and to the next generation.

Our vision is to build permanent structures for the preschools that were destroyed and to extend the Montessori pre-school service to parts of Haiti where over a million refugees from Port-au-Prince have found improvised shelters and where children most urgently need help – and an environment to heal and learn.

Carol Guy-James Barratt – early in July 2010