Haitians Supporting Themselves

Gabrielle Aurel

Gabrielle Aurel is director and founder of Sonje Ayiti Organization (SAO) a nonprofit organisation founded in 2004 in Atlanta, Georgia with the mission of Helping Haitians Help Themselves, through education, economic development, and health promotion. SAO began working in the North and Northeast of Haiti in 2007. 

Scholars believe that access to education is a critical pathway out of poverty, with schools as strategic locations for the development of ties to the community. It is with this philosophy that SAO implements its vision of a transformed and improved Haiti. To do this, we focus on the most vulnerable. The journey began in 2010 when 12 orphans from earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince made their way to relatives in the remote community of Cima on the outskirts of Limonade. The families welcomed the children; however, there was no school in Cima, and they could not afford to send them (or their own children) to school in Limonade which is several kilometers away.


SAO recruited local leaders and began the daunting task of bringing hope to the children in despair. In the quest to create hope for these children, we were compelled to reengineer our education program. We realized that it was not sufficient to solely sponsor youth from rural families pursuing university and technical degrees. SAO decided to start from the bottom up and began working to create access to education by providing a quality curriculum to children in the village of Cima. The dream that began with thirty children 10 years ago has grown to 325 students in preschool through to 9th grade.



Political disturbances and the Covid pandemic caused difficulties and upheaval, but did not keep us from teaching and learning. Classroom teaching was reduced, and motorcycles were used to make trips to the students to deliver and pick up homework packets weekly until the students were able to return to the building. 

During the past year, SAO implemented several new projects including Positive Periods that taught girls how to make reusable sanitary protection and learn about sexual health, enabling them to regularly attend school. The program took place over the summer and trained over 200 girls, across 15 schools and communities who have been busy cascading this training to their peers. There was also Business Training to better prepare students to set goals, manage funds, and improve livelihoods in an uncertain future job market and limited opportunities. 


Despite the recent challenges in Haiti at the moment we have been able to progress with our Positive Periods workshops, thanks to a truly amazing team there, undaunted by the current events.


Stelandie Jean-François, started the session introducing the materials they will be using and the patterns that they will use to create their own reusable pads. Her students have no experience sewing so they will be learning this skill also. They are very excited to be getting hands on experience making period pads that will help them live a fuller life, and come to school every day.


The school nurses delivered the training modules covering sexual health educational sessions. This ensures that girls and young women know more about menstruation and female sexual health. This supports them to better manage and understand their menstrual health and wellbeing.


In the initial workshops, staff are trained how to deliver the program in their respective schools. This way the knowledge is cascaded through to the wider community.


We would like to offer our heartfelt appreciation and thanks to the team in Haiti who have been able to go ahead with the workshop, despite the current challenges.


Most schools in Haiti are privately run and tuition fees constitute a barrier for many families. SAO has managed, through sponsorships, to waive tuition fees, provide one hot meal daily, health insurance, teaching supplies, books, extracurricular activities, and on-going training to staff. We strive to create an environment conducive to learning to ensure that rural Cima School of Hope students have the same opportunities as students in urban and/or metropolitan areas.


Education in Haiti should be standardized so that students from all walks of life can benefit from the educational system. Cima School of Hope’s enrollment rates have significantly increased over the years, and many parents feel a sense of pride and security, knowing that education is key to success. They value that their children will not be left behind because they were born in a rural area where education is a luxury. Cima School of Hope is a ray of hope for the future generations of its community. 



First published in Engage 23.

BY GABRIELLE AUREL • May 4, 2022

36 Bicycles. Countless Futures in The Gambia.

By Ann Beatty • May 20, 2026
How a simple act of practical solidarity is transforming the journey to school in The Gambia’s Central River Region North Policies have been written. Schools have been built. Yet for many children in The Gambia’s Central River Region North, access to education is still measured in kilometres, not opportunity. 

Education for Hope in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous Times

By Laura Griffin • May 13, 2026
‘In a single hour vast tracts of shaded woodland became a jumble of torn trees and upturned soil, exposed to the glare of the summer sun. Such land-clearing events are rare, but forests exhibit remarkable resilience in the face of disaster. I’m told that the Chinese character for ‘catastrophe’ is the same as that which represents the word ‘opportunity’. And, the blowdown, while catastrophic, presented opportunities for many species.’ (Wall Kimmerer, 2003: 89). In the context of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world (Stein, 2021) what kinds of education for hope might support children’s and young people’s critical engagement in local and global issues? In the spirit of exploring the possibilities of hope further, this short article focuses on the area of global citizenship and sustainabilityrelated education. It will briefly open by sharing commonalities across pedagogical approaches that take up the concept and act of hope more critically, and close by offering reflective questions for educators, with suggestions for further reading. Perhaps it is a kind of hope that is grounded in the present, in future reimagining(s), in ethical solidarity, and an acknowledgement of our deep entanglement with the living metabolism of planet earth 1 our singular home (UNESCO, 2021); a hope that engages with complex root causes and lived realities of multiple overlapping crises in critically reflexive and contextually relevant ways. As McCloskey notes, ‘Hope can fire our collective imagination and critical consciousness as a mainspring to activism and intervention in the world.’ (2025: 3). Commonalities across critical pedagogical approaches to hope include: Acknowledging the context of a ‘seamless single story of progress, development and human evolution’ (Andreotti, V.D.O., 2021b Relating to social and ecological justice and the wellbeing of people and planet Using participatory, action-orientated and inquiry-based learning processes Exploring diverse worldviews and perspectives Practising grounding in the present with opening up possibilities for change (relational, embodied, response-able 2 ) Experiencing ‘struggle’ in different forms (dialogical, selfreflexive, open-ended) Engaging individual and collective agency, action and activism Looking for lifelong and life-wide learning and unlearning. 1 See ‘Co-sensing with Radical Tenderness’, in Machado de Oliveira Andreotti. 2021a 2 See ‘Crossing Borders’ in 2 Depth Education “Depth Education and the Possibility of GCE Otherwise, 2021b. Source: Andreotti, V. 2021a & 2021b., Atif, A. (2025)., Bourn, D. 2021., Bryan. A. and Mochizuki,Y., 2024., Giroux, H.A. 2025., Meade, E. 2025. Whilst engaging in the concept and act of hope more critically reflect upon: What kinds of education for hope might you explore further and why? How might you provide generative spaces for engaging in diverse worldviews and perspectives? In what ways can you facilitate individual and collective agency? How might you support learners’ practice grounding in the present in order to relate differently? In what ways can you support learners in navigating complex root causes and lived realities of local and global issues? As Chief Ninawa Hini Kui affirms, ‘The future depends much less on the images we project ahead than on our capacity to repair relations and build relationships differently in the present.’ (Andreotti et al, 2023: 73. An invitation for further reading: Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future . d’Abreu, C., Belgeonne, C., Bourn, D. and Hatley, J. (2025) ‘Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future’. DERC Research Paper 24. London: UCL Institute of Education. Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism. Machado de Oliveira Andreotti, V. (2021a) ‘Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism’ , London: Penguin Random House. Development Education and Hope . McCloskey, S. (2025). (ed) ‘Development Education and Hope’. ‘Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review’ , Vol. 41, Autumn. Centre for Global Education, Belfast. Link to and download the full reference list here

I heard it said today by a friend that “You learn a language best when you use it to speak and write about things that are important to you. ”

By Susan Piper • May 6, 2026
This summed up to me about why I volunteer for the Hands Up Project. HUP is a charity trust which, through its network of volunteers, connects children around the world with young people in Palestine. By means of online interaction, drama and storytelling activities, it enables the use of creativity and selfexpression to promote mutual understanding, personal growth, and the development of English language skills. I joined HUP in 2020 during COVID. After going to Palestine in 2017, I wanted to get more involved in working with Palestinian children in schools. HUP gave me the opportunity to link up with schools in the West Bank and Gaza. Every week I’d tell them stories from all over the world, then we’d discuss it, play games and I’d get them to retell it. Sometimes we would work from their coursebook English for Palestine’ in mutual team teaching sessions with their teacher. The simple act of telling a story became much more than entertainment. It became connection, healing, and a bridge to the world beyond their immediate reality to help them improve their language skills, and to give them a platform to speak about their lives in a language that connects them to people everywhere. I loved it, every week, seeing their smiling faces on the screen and building long lasting friendships with their teachers. I even went to Gaza in 2023 and met some of the kids I’d only seen on Zoom. It was a beautiful experience and something I will never forget. As hostilities escalated, I lost contact with everyone. I thought about where the kids were and what had happened to them. As I watched schools being bombed, universities flattened, and people killed in their thousands, I thought about where the kids I’d met were and what was happening to them. I kept in contact with many of the teachers I knew and heard daily news of displacement, destruction, hunger and bombing. Recently, I’ve started to link up again with children in Gaza, and it feels wonderful to be back helping them learn after being denied an education for over two years. Connecting with children in Palestine is more than just words. When a child in Palestine confidently tells their story to someone on the other side of the world, bridges are built, empathy grows, and the world gains a fuller picture of childhood in contexts far from peace and privilege. My work with these children is rooted in the belief that education and voice are inseparable. Through storytelling and English language learning, I witness children not just learning new vocabulary, but reclaiming their narratives, believing in their potential, and finding human connection in a world they perceive has abandoned them. And more than anything, this work reminds us all that children — everywhere — deserve to learn, to speak, and to be heard. Links to HUP information, books and resources: The Hands Up Project BY SUSAN PIPER Susan Piper is currently an ESOL teacher in Oldham, Greater Manchester and has worked in education for over 30 years. She is also a volunteer for the Hands Up Project and is the International Solidarity Officer and President of her NEU district. She believes in quality education for all and aims to make her lessons creative and inclusive so that effective language learning can take place.