GEP's mission is to train teachers to educate a self-reliant citizenry, skilled for sustainable development in Haiti.
GEP’s Mission and Success:
GEP’s mission is to train teachers to educate a self-reliant citizenry, skilled for sustainable development. GEP works towards it mission by organizing teacher trainings and developing our lab school, Lekòl Vizyon Modèn, which means ‘Modern Vision School’ in English.
Vizyon Modèn, serves as a site for hands-on teacher training, as well as an example for all that GEP’s educational model can transform student outcomes and teacher capacity in Haiti. Evidence of the high standards of GEP’s model can be seen through our student’s success on Haiti’s national exams. In July 2013, after only 3 years of school at Vizyon Modèn, all 19 students who tested passed Haiti’s 6th grade exam!
GEP’s Model and Programs:
At GEP’s teacher training lab school, Vizyon Modèn, thirteen teachers collaborate in teams, develop their own curriculum and co-teach science, mathematics, social studies, Haitian Creole and art. French, Spanish and English are also taught as second languages. Teachers do not use corporal punishment, instead engaging students with ideas. At Vizyon Modèn, GEP provides free education and a meal daily to over one hundred 9-16 year olds, many of them orphans, or from families that could not afford to send their children to school.
What makes GEP different is an emphasis on the student being active, engaging in projects and discussing issues, instead of copying the teacher in the rote memorization style common in most Haitian schools. By teaching in Haitian Creole, the language that students already understand, students can engage more deeply in critical thinking and the scientific method while acquiring literacy skills that make learning other languages easier. GEP’s curriculum emphasizes science and math education for sustainability through hands-on project-based learning and interdisciplinary lessons.
Gep’s mission and model of education are essential to Haiti’s future. It’s estimated that 48% of Haitians are literate and only 25% of teachers in Haiti have received any teacher training. Additionally more than 50% of Haiti’s population is under the age of 18, and without a free public education system, half of school-aged children are not enrolled in school. Students who’s families can afford to send them to school are mostly without access to quality education, and are taught in French, a language most students don’t understand. Student are commonly made to memorize words and phrases without knowing their meanings and are can be beaten for failing to memorize, asking questions, or even speaking their mother tongue Haitian Creole. Many students have come into GEP’s program illiterate after several years in traditional Haitian schools.
At GEP’s school Vizyon Modèn things are different. Many of our teachers report experiencing a profound shift in their understanding of education by participating in GEP’s trainings. One teacher said, “here, you are supposed to look at students like they are smart and already know things.” Another teacher said he learned “to be a guide and not a master.” This approach has created student success and engagement. One student said she liked the school “because everything they say to you, they prove.” Another student said profoundly “We are a country that’s majority young people and we are without support… if we could have schools like this we could change our country.”
PLEASE HELP US CONTINUE TO MAKE THIS GREAT WORK HAPPEN!!!!
Contact GepHaiti@gmail.com for more information or call 718-314-0440.
To donate by check, make checks payable to "GEP Foundation" and mail them to:
c/o Marion Gillon
92 Devir St, Apt 110
Malden MA, 02148
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