Stories of tragedy, trust and transformation? A case study of education-centered community development in post-earthquake Haiti

Abstract

Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake of 2010 left approximately 200,000 people dead, 1.5 million homeless and most government buildings destroyed. Even pre-disaster, Haiti’s outcomes on the UN Human Development Index were among the lowest in the world, and since the quake the country has fallen into further decline. Today, most Haitians continue to lack basic services, struggle with daily survival, and confront daunting challenges in their change efforts. Many have called for reconstruction of society, and argue that local civil society organizations should lead the way in these efforts by valuing local knowledge, and building on small-scale community successes. This research investigates one community’s change efforts toward a new form of community development and potential pathway to transformation in Haiti. We aim to apply learning from this case to inform development practice and policy in Haiti and similar contexts.

The case study community, Bellevue-La-Montagne, is applying an education-centered community development approach which has placed construction of a new school and education at the heart of collaborative rebuilding efforts by local residents and organizations, primarily Haiti Partners. Education and participatory practices are embedded in all aspects of the community development, including: social entrepreneurship, healthcare, environmental stewardship, community agriculture, planning and construction. These efforts involve participation of people and organizations (local and international) in dialogical negotiations that aim to share power and build capabilities of local people, and to create, change, or preserve structures and institutions consistent with the interests of local people. Participatory and phronesis research methodologies reveal nuanced understandings of the community development and its meaning for local people. In spite of substantial progress in development projects, findings reveal tension points that potentially threaten long-term sustainability, such as: the highly fragile nature of state-society relations, lack of a sense of agency of local people despite strong levels of participation, and differences between outcomes for the community as a whole and individual households.

Moving from revealed community change in this case to a broader and deeper social transformation will require key ‘levers of transformation’, identified in this case as: 1) education; 2) place identity, networks, and research; 3) social entrepreneurship and social innovation; and 4) state-society trust and accountability. These levers can be activated through participatory and education-centered community development strategies that provide important roles for local people and civil society, and a nuanced role for international organizations which is sensitive to power dynamics. Such development strategies would give ‘voice’ to communities in their struggles for change. Strengthening, networking and scaling community level innovation that shows promise of transformation, such as the case of Bellevue-La-Montagne, would contribute to Haiti’s attempts to forge a new narrative, and to evolving international development planning policy and practice.