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universal literacy for haiti
universal literacy for haiti
Helping Young People Create New Worlds
and Partners' Power of Good
Lèkol Toupatou! (School Everywhere!)
for Universal Literacy in Haiti.
Feeding Education.
Educators in Music
JAMBAR helps SUFC and 18 other Partners in Music and Education.
Madame Franck Paul with
her 243-page textbook, Mon Livre Unique.
SUFC and Partners held a
Concert for Kidd Jordan in 2019.
Students at the Foyer Espoir Pour les Enfants (FEPE) and Ecole Foyer Espoir (EFE) school have delivered their second batch of Freedom Sandals. Almost all of the sandals have sold within less than one week in New Orleans!
Below, Monica Landry wears a Black and Silver pair.
Cole Williams wears a pair of Turquoise, Yellow, and Coral Pink.
Carmen Conner-Post wears a pair of Coral Pink.
Who We Are
Students, art, and community are SUFC's reason for being. The photos above are from our events and partners between 2014 to 2018.
Sticking Up For Children began in February 2013 with an idea given to Maryse Philippe Déjean and Don Paul by Cyril and Gaynielle Neville: Drumsticks could be turned into Drumsticks-as-Art and then sold to benefit students in Haiti and New Orleans and particularly benefit orphans at the Foyer Espoir Pour les Enfants (FEPE) orphanage in Port-au-Prince.
In 2014 SUFC provided its first cash grants, goods and services. We've since enabled nine youth-education Partners and sponsored 15 Music & Arts Days. We've helped to fund buses, classes, generators, theaters, and 3D-printers in Haiti and New Orleans.
Our Partners in Haiti have progressed since January 2010 in circumstancess and difficulties that are almost unimaginable.
The earthquake of January 12, 2010 devastated Port-au-Prince, a city of more than four millions, and killed tens of thousands in several neighborhoods.
Over the following 10 years our Partners in Port-au-Prince--College Canapé-Vert, the Foyer Espoir Pour les Enfants orphanage (FEPE), the Ecole Foyer Espoir school--and in Cayes Jacmel, Haiti have made astounding progress in building from rubble and in increasing their student-bodies.
College Canapé-Vert
College Canapé-Vert's new building of three tall stories opened for students in its basic structure five years after the 2010 earthquake. Madame Marie-Marthe Balin Franck Paul has led the College since 1974. Madame Paul is a former Mayor of Port-au-Prince (1986-1989) and Secretary of Education for Haiti. Her textbook in four langauges, Mon Livre Unique, is distributed across the nation each year. She's also author of the Madame Roget series of books for children.
Madame Paul is pictured above in a profile from Canal TV. Below, she stands between co-worker in Editions Canapé-Vert, Mme. Mireille Chéry Antoine , and, wearing sunglasses to Madame Paul's right, Mme. Marie-Jose Poux the founder of FEPE AND a former student of Mme. Paul's.
SUFC partners with CCV in a new part of the College, the Fondation Miche Balin Déjean for training in Music and Law, and in the project to bring universal literacy to Haiti through recordings of Lessons for first-year students and distribution through smobile phones and other digital media. As our drumbeats will sound at end of this Introduction, plaase see and hear 'School Everywhere!'
Graduates at College Canapé-Vert sing the College's anthem on June 17, 2018.
Ecole Foyer Espoir and Foyer Espoir Pour les Enfants
Youngest graduates at École Foyer Espoir (EFE) advance to their next level on June 16, 2018. The school that's companion to the Foyer Espoir Pour les Enfants (FEPE) orphanage in Port-au-Prince has grown from 140 to 258 students between 2014 and 2018 despite lacking electricity for months on end. SUFC helped to provided bus-transportation and generators for the school. In April 2019 orphan students at EFE, guided by Principal Jonathand Saintiné and master artisan Elysée Francois, began their production of the Freedom Sandals.
Students of EFE and FEPE at an early stage of their making Freedom Sandals, May of 2018.
Students produced Freedom Sandals in 2018 and 2019.
Supporters of SUFC
Row one: Cyril and Gaynielle Neville; Jennifer Maxwell; Kavanaugh Farr; Judge Calvin Johnson; Katrina Frey; Lisa Moresco and Gerry Agosta; Pretty Lights; Collins and Sheila and Jabari and Joyia Phillips.
Row two: Bonnie Raitt; Dr. John; Matt Gonzalez; Eric Ferrouillet; Sean Johnson; Dr. Nicolas Bazan with painting by Isabelle Jacopin; Angela King.
Hundreds of supporters have enabled Sticking Up For Children.
SUFC would not have begun without Cyril and Gaynielle Neville. SUFC especially moved forward with grants and programs from Jennifer Maxwell. We especially thank, too, our Board members Leslie Bertucci, Kavanaugh Farr, and Paul Siegel.
Musicians of New Orleans contibuted early: Stanton Moore, Alfred "Uganda" Roberts, Evan Christopher, Donald Harrison Jr., Johnny Vidacovich, Idris Muhammad, James Singleton, David Torkanowsky.
We had immediate support across the U.S.: Yasiin Bey (Mos Def), Pedrito Martinez, Steve Smith, and in Europe Sandra Nkaké and Jojo Mayer.
The D'Addario Foundation and Vic Firth drumsticks and Whole Foods Market gave to us.
David Amram, William Parker, Eric Drooker and BMike (Brandan Odums) donated art.
We've had recurring help from Ken and Melba Ferdinand, Bonnie Raitt, Cherice Harrsion Nelson, Rick Wilkof and Clare Walmsley, Lolis Eric Elie, Jim Van Dine, Karen Buck and Michael Harris, David Meggyesy, Louis and Lisa Keyes and Second Vine Wine, Karlos and Stephanie Knott and Bayou Teche Brewing, Paul Massa, Brock Hinzman and Eileen McGinnis, Anders Osborne and John Bukaty, Jonathan Richman, Don Paul's GALLOP bandmates Alex de Grassi and Hamid Drake and Kidd Jordan, and stellar volunteers Gaynell Dumas, Tasha Volovsek, and Arline Hines, along with educators Dr. Mary Allaire, Carol Bebelle, Leslie Cooper, Elizabath Fletcher, Eve Pell, Matthew Shilling.
Thanks and praises to all these and to many more!
Now please join us in the great, Haitian-unto-global project of
School Everywhere! The Team in Port-au-Prince is marching ahead with audio and video Lessons in French and Kréyol and--yes--English and Spanish for first-year students. Check their beauty
and resourcefulness out!
Our first readers are present too. John Sinclair and Blues Scholars
offer their track "We Just Change The Beat" with lyrics. Cole Williams
gives her rendering of "Wade In The Water." Maryse Philippe Déjean
reads William Blake's 'The Tyger'. I read Goethe's 'Found' as translated by Michael Hamburger.
What a boon for this COVID-19 year our Partners are creating!
Maryse Déjean and Don Paul
for Sticking Up For Children
August 1, 2020
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