By Laura Polynice, PLH Executive Assistant
One of Project Living Hope’s four pillars of work has always been job skills training. This has taken various forms over the years. In its first location, PLH organized courses in auto mechanics and artisan crafts. After moving to Camp Marie, we began English courses which grew to include specialized, advanced courses in medical English, translation, Bible, writing, and TEFL. PLH began to offer scholarships to young people from the community to study trades including welding, masonry, electricity, and auto mechanics. These trainees were then contracted by PLH to work on campus construction projects. We also organized workshops led by visiting teams. Workshops included coaching, parenting, and English. As gang activity and insecurity in Haiti increased, PLH could no longer bring in visiting teams, scholarship students could no longer travel to the trade schools, and the students and teachers could no longer travel to our campus regularly for English classes. We had to shift gears and find a new approach.
Virtual Courses
We set up Starlink Internet on our campus and began organizing virtual courses. We have had several individuals in Oregon who are experts in their field volunteer their time to teach these courses. Students come to the classroom on the PLH campus to join the class on Zoom, while others join from their home. These trainings have been on a variety of subjects aiming to help individuals succeed in their personal and professional lives. Topics have included:
Personal Finance (74)
Parenting (20)
Coaching (9)
Discipleship (41)
Chicken Raising (12)
Auto Mechanics (65)
Emergency Response (15)
Pastoral Ministry (60)
Solar Power (34)
All together, these virtual courses have trained 330 participants!
For each course, we prepare handouts with the English and Haitian Creole translation. The instructor teaches from Oregon, and our translator on staff interprets from his home in Port-au-Prince. The PLH classroom is outfitted with a projector, speaker, and conference camera, allowing everyone to see and hear each other. Students in the classroom and joining online are able to ask questions and join in the discussion. At the end of each course or workshop, students who have completed the course receive a certificate.
Youth Courses
In addition, PLH organizes classes for youth with 67 youth participating in artisan crafts and 105 participating in English. These courses provide young people with valuable skills, hope for their future, and purpose and belonging during this dark and difficult time when many young people are falling into a criminal life.
PLH will continue to offer virtual courses and we have several new courses already in development. We will continue to seek opportunities to send young people to other trade schools. In fact, we have two students starting a plumbing course next month. We will continue to offer youth courses on our campus and we hope to expand to new courses including culinary arts this year.
Building a Stronger Haiti
Haiti has faced decades of poverty and joblessness. Business and employment are key to breaking Haiti’s chains of dependency and building a stronger Haiti. PLH’s job skills training seeks to provide valuable training that will assist people in finding jobs and starting businesses. PLH is also working to create small businesses on our campus to generate income and create jobs. The challenges in Haiti have created innumerable roadblocks in these plans, but we are committed and we are working to make these businesses a success.
Join Us!
We are always looking to expand our job skills training and business creation efforts. If you have expertise in these areas and are interested in helping to develop or teach a virtual course or assist with our small business ventures, we would love to talk to you! Simply reply to this email to get connected!
Another way you can support these job skills and business efforts is to donate. Because of a generous donor, all one-time donations to Project Living Hope through March 31st (up to $20,000) will be doubled! Give today and make double the impact in Haiti!
Thank you for partnering with Project Living Hope in empowering Haitians to build a stronger Haiti!