SUFC 2020 Review

The cornerstone: Students working on recording Lessons for 'School Everywhere!' at

College Canapé-Vert, September 2020.

Mon Livre Unique is the 243-page textbook for first-year students across Haiti, authored by Madame Marie-Marthe Balin Franck Paul, Principal at College Canapé-Vert and former Mayor of Port-au-Prince. The textbook's 25 Modules and Lessons in French, Haitian Kréyol, English and Spanish, are the Content for Audio and Video recordings that teachers, students, and technicians completed in November 2020. Their recordings, transferred to computers, phone and other mobile devices, open the prospect for Universal Literacy in Haiti.

 

In two words: 'SCHOOL EVERYWHERE!' Anyone can learn, anywhere that he or she can connect to the Lessons! And the model of 'School Everywhere! can be applied around the world! Thanks and praises to Madame Paul and her Team for their great breakthrough and their accomplishments in this year of COVID-19!

Core members of a great Team stand together, above. These were early days of recording for 'School Everywhere!--March 2020,. The Team was then entering Module 7 of the 25 Modules and Lessons in Mon Livre Unique. They had to discontinue for three months due to COVID-19. The Team resumed and expanded in the deep heat of July, Port-au-Prince. They've stayed steady to their finish five months later. Now, as Madame

Franck Paul says in her introduction on December 10, 'School Everywhere!' ('Lékol Toupatou!!' in Haitian Kréyol), learning can be available to anyone with a mobile phone

or other access to the Internet, across all 10 Departments of Haiti.

Other partners of Sticking Up For Children have excelled in Port-au-Prince this year.

The École Foyer Espoir (EFE) in the city's Delmas district advanced 258 students to their next year--dozens winning honors in November's national examinations--despite COVID-19 and shortages of food and outages of electricity.

Music and the Foyer Espoir Pour les Enfants (FEPE) orphanage are fundamental to Sticking Up For Children. Our founders, Cyril and Gaynielle Neville, brought Maryse and me SUFC's origins as an effort to particularly help the orphanage that Cyril and Gaynielle had benefited from Royalties of their song "Ayiti" afterthe January 12, 2010 earthquake in Port-au-Prince. Above, students of EFE and residents of FEPE--schoolmates all--play in the living-room of FEPE's indefatigable founder "Marie Jo" Poux, February 2020, with instruments donated through Hungry for Music, Leslie Cooper, Eddie Gale and Dennis Kyne.

Sticking Up For Children was able to do a few things in New Orleans prior to the

March lockdown of this City. We helped the City Council with declaring Proclamations

of Days for Tim Green in February and Germaine Bazzle in March. Germaine stands

above with the superlative drummer, bandleader and composer Herlin Riley and

Maryse, March 5, in the City Council Chambers. Germaine is now 87 and remains

a "perfect wonder"; she and a fine Trio were performing every Sunday night at the

Royal Sonesta Hotel before prohibitions restricted such live music. Germaine speaks about her decades in New Orleans and sings alongside recordings of her peers (Papa Celestin, Sidney Bechet, Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb, Carmen McCrae, Red Tyler,

Ellis Marsalis, many more) in three Hours of the 'Spiritual as Music' series.

Germaine Bazzle Day in the City of New Orleans, March 5, 2020.

Our fourth year of a Tim Green Day in the City of New Orleans, February 6, 2020.

Our Lagniappe for Learning began with contributions by John Sinclair, Cole

Williams, and Maryse Philippe Déjean as progress resumed on the recordings

for 'School Everywhere!' in Port-au-Prince, July into August 2020.

Here, excerpt from the Module 1 of Mon Livre Unique. For generations, Haitians

have learned from Madame Franck Paul's textbook. Now they can learn anywhere,

any time. See August 2020 in our tab for 'School Everywhere!'

Two of the students who are part of the recording of Modules and Lessons.

Alex de Grassi gave five tracks for the Lagniappe for

Learning. They can be heard on Bandcamp.

Our year of 2020 is dedicated to the work and memories of an artist and teacher

who made Sticking Up For Children a reality and possiblity in innumerable ways.

Jean-Hervé Franck Paul was and is a hero. See some of his history here.

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Jean-Hervé Franck Paul was and is also a superb musician. The clip below from --En Solo-- on Haiti's TelePacific network gives tastes of his abilties. He was destined to music. He left a career in Florida to stand with his mother, aunt, brother and dozens of other colleagues at College Canapé-Vert. He was invaluable after the January 12, 2010 earthquake. He taught Music, Philosophy and Spanish in 2020.

On Sunday night, March 15, five years to the day after his aunt Miche Balin Déjean

passed away, Jean-Hervé returned to the house and yard where he lived with his mother and brother Claude Hector. Six would-be kidnappers with pistols appeared

out of shadows. They told Jean-Hervé that he was going with them.

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"Where am I going with you?" he answered them.

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"You are going with us! Now!"

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Jean-Hervé shouted in Haitian Kréyol: "Vole! Vole!" Thief! Thief!

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He thus refused kidnapping and at the same time protected everyone of his household. He was shot twice in the head. The six with pistols fled. His mother

found Jean sprawled in their driveway.

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Still, Madame Franck Paul, her Team, College Canapé-Vert, and 'School Everywhere!'

have continued forward.

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Below, a student of trumpet, taught by Jean-Hervé, plays Haiti's National Anthem

during flag-raising on a Monday morning at the College, October 2020.

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We look forward to working with such glorious people as our partners in Port-au-

Prince and elsewhere are, this year and next year and many more years ahead.

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"School Everywhere!"