Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, was victim to a massive 7.0 Richter scale earthquake on January 12, 2010, and a second 6.0 earthquake on January 20th. Port-au-Prince, the epicenter of the quake, is a disaster. Hundreds of thousands are dead and many more have lost their homes and are suffering deep trauma. In large-scale emergencies and disaster situations, the first thoughts are naturally to provide food, water, shelter and health care for those affected. Education is usually not thought of as a priority, but education is in fact a critical life-saving and life-sustaining component of emergency relief.

Nukanti Foundation is committed to supporting efforts to rebuild and sustain quality education for Haiti’s children. As a response, we have launched the L’ekol se la vi (“School is Life” in Creole) project, a school development effort with three goals:

1. Build an earthquake proof school in Port-au-Prince.

2. Create a dynamic new curriculum based on human rights and global citizenship that will empower the school community to learn about and promote human rights-based development.

3. Link UK and US schools with the development of the new school to raise awareness about the lives and experiences of students in each other’s countries, to bring children from different countries and backgrounds together to work with and for each other, and to raise funds for school building efforts.


Human Rights-Based Approach to Education

In an interconnected and globalized twenty-first century, young people are being exposed to a diverse and changing world around them – a world in which poverty, inequality and other injustices are still highly prevalent. The principles of human rights can give schools around the world a shared language of equality, dignity, respect, non-discrimination and participation that is crucial to the goal of achieving a more peaceful and just global society. Pioneered by Amnesty International in 14 countries around the world, a “Human Rights Friendly” approach to education aims to promote a culture of human rights in schools by integrating human rights principles into key areas of school life, so that the values of equality, dignity, respect, non-discrimination and democratic participation anchor policies and processes within the school community. The approach aims to create an atmosphere in which all members of given community understand, value and protect human rights, and recognize and work to stop human rights violations at the community and individual level. It further envisions the creation of learning communities where young people and adults are active in the life of the school and work together in a spirit of cooperation and in the pursuit of knowledge.

The project will collaborate with Amnesty International UK and UNICEF UK, two organizations that have both launched comprehensive programs for working with school counterparts to build “human rights friendly” schools.