The response to the disaster

Save the Children had been present in Haiti since 1978 (Save the Children, 2010a). In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, the organisation participated in assessing schools and identifying areas for temporary learning spaces, alongside the Government and the main education actors coordinated by the Education Cluster. It provided classroom tents and supplies, and it also immediately engaged in training teachers in psychological support (Ibid.). The objectives of the organisation for the following months were to assist the Government to restore the education sector and to provide as many children as

possible with access to schooling, also bringing education to out-of-school children (Ibid.).

The main activities carried out by Save the Children after the earthquake in Haiti that are mentioned in the reports of the organisation (Save the Children 2010a; 2010b; 2010c; 2013) can be divided as follows:

A) Reconstruction of school buildings and provision of temporary schooling;

B) Training of teachers;

C) Promotion of community participation;

D) Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs;

E) Extension of pre-existing education programs to the earthquake affected areas.

A) RECONSTRUCTION OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS AND PROVISION OF TEMPORARY SCHOOLING

Save the Children‗s strategy was to enable children to pursue their education as quickly as possible after the earthquake, while protecting them from abuse and helping them to regain a sense of normalcy. By setting up temporary learning spaces the organisation contributed to provide a safe-learning environment for education during the emergency. Communities were provided with tents for classrooms, furniture and supplies so schools could reopen as quickly as possible; children were provided with school kits including backpacks, pens, pencils, notebooks, and books; teachers were provided with teachers‘ kits to ensure that they had basic materials for classroom activities (Save the Children, 2010a).

It has to be remembered that the large scale of destruction of schools in the affected areas was a result not only of the magnitude of the earthquake but also of the inadequacy of the construction techniques and absence of quality controls in school buildings. Save the Children, as many other organisations, focused its programming on rebuilding schools using safe construction techniques. Special construction techniques were adopted to make the schools better resistant to disasters, being anti-seismic and anti-hurricane. The first semi-permanent school

of this kind designed by Save the Children was in Léogâne, and it was used as a model for other facilities (Save the Children, 2010b). Also the provision of access to drinking water, and gender-segregated sanitation and hand-washing facilities in schools was crucial, especially after the cholera outbreak of October 2010 (Save the Children, 2013).

B)TRAINING OF TEACHERS

Save the Children contributed to the improvement of the quality of education by providing trainings to school directors and teachers in a variety of subjects including school and classroom management, curriculum training, psycho-social wellbeing and disaster risk reduction (Save the Children, 2010b; 2010c).

In Haiti, the average level of education of a primary school teacher was of just one year of secondary education (Save the Children, 2011a). For this reason, training was even more fundamental. First of all, teachers were provided with psychosocial support themselves, since they also experienced trauma (Save the Children, 2010b). Then, they were trained to provide psychosocial support to their students: they were taught how to recognize the psychosocial needs of children, such as anxiety, and how to help them cope with the emotional stress they had suffered. Teachers also learned positive classroom management practices, which contributed to the elimination of physical and humiliating punishments in the schools supported by Save the Children (Save the Children, 2010b; 2010c; 2011a).

Another crucial aspect of teacher training was that teachers also received training in disaster risk reduction to be prepared in the event of another earthquake and to be able to handle possible aftershocks (Save the Children, 2010b). Save the Children supported several schools to create school emergency plans and trained School Emergency Response Team members on first aid; also students were trained on disaster risk reduction. Moreover, teachers, parents and children were trained on hygiene promotion and cholera prevention, as part of the Emergency Education and Healthcare project (Save the Children, 2011a).

Save the Children (2013) reported that the centrepiece of the organisation‘s work was the Quality Education Initiative (QEI) at more than 200 schools. Thanks to the Quality Education Initiative, teachers and school directors were trained on the national school administration support and supervision manual and on the national curriculum; the initiative also focused on the formation of parent support groups (Save the Children Canada, n.d.a).

C)PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

One of Save the Children‘s main objectives was to increase community engagement with schools, and in particular parents‘ and students‘ involvement in school decision-making. The organisation carried out activities of awareness- raising among parents and caregivers on the importance of education and on the roles they should play in children‗s education. It also supported the creation of parent-teacher groups that represented a bridge between school and community (Save the Children, 2013).

To structure the engagement of parents and community members, Save the Children adapted a system called the Community Action Cycle (CAC): it aimed at creating school support groups composed of individuals in the community, mostly parents and caregivers, which identified specific problems and developed plans to address them (Save the Children Canada, n.d.b). Moreover, also children themselves were made participate in school decision-making. In fact, as part of the Quality Education Initiative, schools were required to establish student committees, composed of two representatives of students of every classroom. The components of the student committee participated in activities such as the organisation and implementation of community-led school improvement projects. In this way children could express their views on what activities would be best to improve their schools (A World At School, n.d.).

D)EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT (ECD) PROGRAMS

Since it has been showed that most children‘s development happens before the age of five (Save the Children, 2013), another of Save the Children‘s

objectives was to make access of young children to preschool possible also for poor families. With this aim in mind, the organisation launched and supported early childhood development (ECD) programs. These included the rehabilitation of early childhood development centres in Port-au-Prince, training of staff and helping parents to learn to stimulate their children‘s development at home (Save the Children, 2013). Save the Children also engaged with the International Development Bank and the Haitian Ministry of Education in an assessment of national needs related to early childhood development in order to develop a plan of action (Ibid.).

E) EXTENSION OF PRE-EXISTING EDUCATION PROGRAMS TO THE EARTHQUAKE-

AFFECTED AREAS

Two main Save the Children programs were expanded after the earthquake to reach more children, especially in the affected areas. The first one is ‗Lekti se lavni‘ (Reading is the Future), a literacy program in Creole that was already in place in Haiti‘s Central Plateau region. It was based on the principle that children learn more easily and quickly to read in their native language, and addressed language and literacy ability amongst early grade and primary school children. This program was extended to Port-au-Prince and other areas affected by the earthquake, with the aim of helping young children to improve their reading and writing skills and providing them with the basic skills they would need in their future education (Save the Children, 2010b). It also expanded its scope to include the development of a French literacy program and an out-of-school reading program, with the cooperation of parents and volunteers from the local community (A World At School, n.d.). Also other literacy projects were run with the same aim, that is to address problems connected with language barriers and to the lack of accessibility to school by many children, who were offered the possibility to catch up on the school they had missed (Save the Children, 2010b; 2013). For the implementation of such programs, as well as for running other activities such as libraries and summer reading camps, local community members were involved (Save the Children, 2014).

The other pre-existing program that was extended was ‗Healing and Education through Art‘ (HEART) that was already running in Jacmel. It was based on the fact that children usually respond well to the arts, and this is especially important in times of crises (Save the Children, 2010c). This program was built on this, and made students and teachers work with trained artists that introduced art to them in different ways; this is thought to help children to accept the experiences they had been through and cope creatively (Save the Children, 2010b).

It is worth noting that, if we look at the different reports Save the Children has made on the Haitian emergency (Save the Children, 2010a; 2010b; 2010c; 2011a; 2013; 2014; 2015), the education sector emerges as the one where the organisation spent more during the whole period from 2010 to 2014. This shows that education was accorded a great importance in the agenda of Save the Children in Haiti.