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Peter-Hesse-foundation
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Peter-Hesse-Foundation
VALUES + VISION
+ Dr. Rupert Sheldrake
Personal pledges to protect the environment
This year, to mark world environment day, the Peter Hesse Foundation invited leaders from the community in Liancourt to a seminar on the environment. We asked the leaders to pledge their personal support to protect the environment. We also asked each person to say what part they could play by changing a habit such as refraining from doing something harmful, or doing something positive for the environment. Individual pledges ranged from composting food leftovers; not using styrofoam boxes for food take-aways, starting a small backyard vegetable garden, using reusable drinking bottles. Since most of the leaders are heads of churches and heads of schools, they also promised to spread the message of environmental stewardship and the role of Individuals in Protecting the Environment, to their students and congregations.
It has been a difficult few days in Haiti with the violent demonstrations, looting, burning vehicles and barricades in the streets. It brought the country to a standstill. Everyone had to stay at home or wherever they were caught when the mayhem started.
„To me“, Carol Guy-James Barratt, writes, „violent acts seem senseless in an already struggling country. At times like this, I have to hold on to old beliefs to stay on track. I went back to my Montessori books and read about her philosophy on Education for Peace Montessori believed that in order to bring about a world of peace and tolerance, where war and violence is an absurdity.“
It is important to have the type of education where children can learn to be peaceful, and would grow up to be adults capable of positively reconstructing society.
With determination our Fondation-Peter-Hesse will continue to promote the opening of more schools and train teachers to teach in those schools.
There will be 5 new schools opening in September, and 28 new teachers are about to graduate – a small contribution towards peace.
You will now have the hands-on opportunities to apply your training to real-life
situations in your classrooms. Now you will take on the rewarding task and
responsibility of teaching Haiti’s next generation of children. The Peter Hesse
Foundation is looking forward to accompanying you in your journey as teachers.
As is our custom, our Foundation will help qualifying graduates with furniture and
Montessori materials to open their own schools, and we will continue our support in the form of technical visits, as well as yearly in-service training. This year we are supporting 5 new schools.
Graduation cerenomie in the Fondation-Peter-Hesse in Liancourt, Haiti,
on Sunday, 22 July 2018
This year the subject of our in-service training was using the Montessori materials to teach advanced Math. Volunteer, retired Montessori teacher, Patricia Gwin conducted the training which lasted from 23rd July to 3rd August. Mrs. Gwin started sharing her expertise on teaching advanced Montessori Math on her first trip to Haiti in the summer of 2015.
This is her third trip to Haiti, to continue the series of seminars on Math.
As usual, teachers came from schools in different parts of Haiti and were glad to see each other and exchange news and experiences.
Thanks for all your enquires and prayers. We are shaken up but fine. Fortunately for us none of our partner schools or teacher training center are in the areas which were affected, so although we felt the shake, we did not have any damage. There were 11 fatalities and 135 injured in the North. Thank God! Nothing like 2010 when over 220,000 died. So we are thankful! Our hearts go out to the families who suffered losses. Every life lost is a tragedy.
Yesterday, 3 November, I went to our partner school in Guilloux. Les Cayes. The school reopened in October, after a long period of construction to rebuild after it was destroyed by Hurricane Matthew.
We had lots of challenges to rebuild.
Some building materials such as floor tiles were not available in the area, and the local tradesmen did not know how to install them. So we opted to bring craftsmen from outside the zone to install the floor tiles. The same applied for the electrical installation. There is no electricity in the entire area, but we wired the school to allow us to install solar energy later. Sand for building was taken from the river, so when it rained, we could not get sand. During the rainy season the poor dirt roads made access challenging and slowed down the work. There is no running water so we had to bring in barrels of water to mix cement. But the work is finally finished and the builders did a great job, and we are progressively putting the Montessori materials on the shelves as the children reach each stage.
The rock throwing, tire burning, shooting and roadblocks have subsided. After spending almost two weeks in the house, I was happy to be able go to help one of the schools in Tabarre set up their new classroom. Nice way to spend an afternoon. The Peter-Hesse-Foundation trained the teacher and will soon deliver Montessori classroom materials to the school. The children will now be able to move from their cramped temporary space into this new classroom.
I hope that the future for the children of Haiti will not include black smoke from burning tires, gun shots and fear of leaving their house. Violence cannot resolve profound underlying political, social and economic problems, and certainly cannot sustain peace.
Despite the challenges in Haiti this year, our work of training teachers and helping them to open schools continues. Currently we are training a new promotion of 35 student teachers. Their training will be completed in July 2019.
As well as Montessori training, the student teachers have the opportunity to experience environmentally friendly practices in our green training center, which is an example of green living which can imitate when they open their own schools.
In October 2018, twenty-eight students passed their exams to become Montessori teachers, and almost all of them are now employed as teachers in schools which the Foundation helped to set-up over the years, or in the five new schools that we helped to start-up this year.
Throughout 2018, the Peter Hesse Foundation continued its work of training Montessori teachers, providing scholarships to individuals who will work as teachers for at-risk children in poor communities, and assisting qualifying graduates with furniture and didactical materials to open their own schools.
The Foundation also providing continued support to partner schools in the form of technical visits, in-service training, and special seminars for teachers.
In July 2018, twenty-eight students passed their exams to become Montessori teachers, and almost all of them are now employed as teachers in schools which the Foundation helped to set-up over the years.
We are currently training a new promotion of 35 student teachers. Their training will be completed in July 2019.
We are also pleased to announce that five new Montessori schools were inaugurated in October 2018. Four of those schools were provided with Montessori materials and furniture by the Foundation. One school also received funding for a school building, as well as furniture and materials. This school had been destroyed by Hurricane Matthew.
We also conducted in-service training at the Foundation’s training center in Liancourt. Teachers from 17 Montessori schools from across Haiti attended the seminar and shared lively discussions of their own classroom experiences.
To mark World Environment Day, we invited leaders from the community in Liancourt to a seminar on the environment. Since most of the leaders are heads of churches and heads of schools, they promised to spread the message of environmental stewardship and the role of individuals in protecting the environment to their students and congregations.
Peter-Hesse-Foundation, Düsseldorf
in Bürogemeinschaft mit
W. P. Schmitz-Stiftungen
Volmerswerther Str. 86
D-40221 Düsseldorf
Tel: +49 (0)211-39-83-770
E-Mail: p.hesse@solidarity.org