News 2024

During 2024 the Peter Hesse Foundation continued its support to schools in Abengourou, Ivory Coast, and Senegal, by upgrading didactical materials and providing Montessori Math and Language workbooks for children. These workbooks are used to reinforce the concrete Montessori materials, by introducing the abstract concepts. We also gave technical assistance through zoom, WhatsApp and email to those schools.

In Senegal 17 individuals graduated the Montessori teacher training course we conducted there during the academic year September 2023 to June 2024. The Foundation began training a new promotion of student teachers who would graduate in July 2025.

Haiti unfortunately remains in dire straits. The country is overrun by gangs who commit horrendous crimes against the population. Kidnapping for random, sexual assaults as well as murders and massacrers have driven people from their homes in the gang control areas. The UN reports that more than 743,000 have had to leave left their homes and take refuge in the countryside to flee the violence.

Besides some small amounts for food to some families, the Foundation was not able to do much for the schools in Haiti. However a few of the schools which are not in the major gang areas were able to function sporadically.

We are clinging to the fact that when things change schools will reopen. In the meantime we are developing materials to teach peace in the hope that the trauma of violence will be diminished. We already tried a new “silence game” using singing bowls for meditation. Children who need to calm down can use this to find peace within themselves before they rejoin other activities.

The Foundation will continue to support these schools and train new teachers to make quality education accessible to poor communities in these challenging places.