ACT Alliance

By Thomas Ekelund

In the midst of frustration, recovery in Haiti is becoming evident. One of the most visible signs is the work of ACT member Finn Church Aid, which has just opened an innovative school building designed to withstand the worst nature can throw at it.

The new school at Saint Matthieu, a small village an hour’s drive west of Port-au-Prince, is built from earthquake rubble and uses technology that will protect students from earthquakes and hurricanes. It is a school of the highest quality: excellence that has won the school praise from the Haitian government and prompted the Finnish government to promise further funding.

The massive January 2010 earthquake that shook the Haitian peninsula tore down almost 65 per cent of all schools in the area. It was a hard blow for a school system already on its knees. FCA was quick to start designing and building a new school. It was not about to take the easy road: the rebuild had to create as small a carbon footprint as possible, be safe for students and good to the environment.

Nagela Napoleon is one of the parents who put in hours of backbreaking work to build the school in a cash-for-work programme. Parents were consulted all the way - from the point the first drawings where made until the moment the building was opened.

Dressed in her light green choir suit on the school’s opening day, Napoleon can barely suppress a broad smile. “I am very proud of it. It’s beautiful and it means a lot to us. My kids will go to this school, as I have helped rebuild it. We own our school.”

Earthquake and hurricane-proofed
The school - seven classrooms for 350 students - looks pretty normal. But once inside, the opposite is apparent. The walls are made of stone and rubble gathered from buildings wrecked by the earthquake. Bio latrines provide gas to fuel the kitchen stoves. Solar panels supply electricity for lighting and computers.

In a hurricane, pressure will be distributed evenly across the building ensuring nothing is destroyed. “And in an earthquake with extreme seismic activity you need to make sure that the building has certain breaking points so the walls and roof do not fall in to the building. We need to calculate forces from every angle,” Sari Kaipainen, FCA reconstruction manager in Haiti, says.

Reverend Piere Jean Phanord, Saint Matthieu director, has been waiting a year and a half for this day. “Suddenly, in the beginning of 2010 we had a destroyed school and no money. Of course I was very excited to learn about the plans Finn Church Aid had. Excitement was my first impression when I saw it ready.”

Political support
Haiti’s deputy minister of education, Jean Danton Léger, says the Haitian school system is really flapping its wings. “It is in need of many things, not the least, proper management.” FCA’s plans to build 10 new earthquake and hurricane resistant schools each year for the next five years would make a huge difference for Haiti, he said.

Only half the Haitian adult population is literate, a sign of the major deficiencies in Haiti's education system. The poor standard of government schools results in almost all pupils and students looking elsewhere to study in church-run or private schools. Even these have a shortage of qualified teachers.

On opening day, further political support for school-building came from Finnish government representative René Söderman who pledged that the Finnish government would keep supporting FCA in Haiti. With the Lutheran World Federation, FCA has helped 25,000 students back to school. More help is to come.

More safe, environmental schools
In the same area, Bonberger School is being rebuilt. Already, the ditch is more than 1.5m deep, being excavated by manpower alone. With 10 other men in orange helmets, Cedesa Masson is preparing ground for four new classrooms. Like Saint Matthieu, it will be environmentally friendly, sustainable and able to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes.

“This school is a sign of development for me and for the community,” Masson says. “It makes a big difference in my life to have a work and to be able to feed my family.”

Masson has two children and a wife and tries to get by growing vegetables. Around 35 people can work at the school site for cash. Masson´s dream is to help build a new high school in the area.

School director Thelusma Alies has dreams of his own. “This is a rural area and we feel so proud to have a school like this in our neighbourhood. In this historic moment, it is hard not to wish for a high school and a medical centre. Like you probably have at home,” he says.