Updates

Chris Low, Matènwa Community School in Haiti, Cambridge Peace and Justice Award Recipient

Jun 4th, 2011

The 2011 Cambridge Peace and Justice Awards: Building Bridges, Creating Community
Sunday, June 12, 2011 • 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. • YWCA Cambridge

The Cambridge Peace Commission is excited to announce the recipients of this year’s Peace and Justice Awards – honoring an amazing set of individuals and groups for their contributions to peacemaking in our city – to be presented on Sunday, June 12, 2011 from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. at the YWCA Cambridge, 7 Temple Pl. in Central Square, Cambridge.

Individuals Awards:
• Holly Aldrich, Center for Homicide Bereavement
• Chris Low, Matènwa Community School in Haiti
• Eva Moseley, Massachusetts Peace Action
• Carolyn Turk, Cambridge Public Schools

To Be Awarded Posthumously:
• Sion Chambers, Margaret Fuller House

Group Award:
• Ms. Caitlin O’Donnell and the Students of First Grade Classroom 108, Fletcher Maynard Academy

In addition to the presentation of awards, the event includes an address by long-time community activist and professor Dr. Marian Darlington Hope, and live music performed by the World Jazz Ensemble of the Cambridge Rindge & Latin School.

This year’s theme is “Building Bridges, Creating Community.” We are honoring people of all ages who have worked for peace and social justice in a variety of ways and on a range of issues – from the very local to the global. All of the recipients have worked for peace and have built bridges between and among communities – people reaching across perceived divides of neighborhood, ethnicity, gender, race and class.

To help defray the costs of the event, the suggested donation is $10 for adults and $5 for children. To RSVP send an email to peace@cambridgema.gov or make checks payable to “Cambridge Peace Commission” and mail to: Cambridge Peace Commission, 51 Inman St., Cambridge, MA 02139.

Since 1995, the Cambridge Peace Commission has honored individuals and groups in Cambridge who have worked for peace and justice. Out of more than 25 nominations received this year, the Peace Commission selected five individuals and one group representing the breadth and depth of efforts for peace and justice in our city – from the local to the global – in families, schools, congregations, and neighborhoods.

For more information, contact Brian Corr at bcorr@cambridgema.gov or 617.349.4694.

May Update

by Joanne.

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Dear Friends of Matènwa,

It is always a pleasure to tell you about what has been happening at the center. For starters, the library construction is advancing. We have smoothed the cement walls and will be putting up the framing for the roof. The Mother Tongue Books project is going extremely well. All the students are very interested in reading during morning silent reading because they are reading their friends’ work. We also bought more Creole books from the Caribbean University in Haiti. They like these books because they are about children their own age and animals.

In the garden tomatoes and plantains are growing despite the drought we are experiencing in Lagonav. Thank you Jamie Rhoads for bringing us lots of seed to allow more of our families to start their vegetable gardens. Fifth graders are excited that they successfully grew and harvested some wheat? They plan to grow more of this.

We are spreading our model. Eighteen school teachers and directors from the AJPDG, an association of several communities on Lagonav, for a campus tour. They would like to copy our model that integrates agriculture with primary education.

Music teacher Fefe and his students are preparing songs for our Flag Day Celebration. The school band continues to play at our Thursday meetings. They love to play music.

Frieinds, that’s what we have to report. We hope you enjoyed it.

Millienne and Chris on behalf of MCLC

Michel DeGraff Testing Creole-language instruction among fourth graders on La Gonav

May 17th, 2011

by Joanne.

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MIT News 20110512 A champion of Creole

April 2011 Update

Apr 24th, 2011

by Joanne.

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Thank you for all your support. This month’s highlights are:

Staff Development: Two of our teachers went to Port Au Prince for the third session of a series of mathematic workshops using Cuisenaire Rods. They have already started to share the information with other teachers during our Friday staff development sessions. Staff development is given according to what the staff feel they need. Ezner, Chair of the Direction Committee, has recently given two sessions on the best way to give semester exams.

Visitors from Boston: Barbara Sampson and Chris Low from the Board of Friends of Matènwa came to do a site visit; Artist Saskia Van Vactor and writer, Kettly Mars, came and gave art classes to all our elementary students to augment their techniques for illustrating their Mother Tongue Books: Chris Hamilton and Helen Bakeman came to film to make promotional videos that we hope will bring us more needed funds and human resources. They followed Zaza Geffrard whose 5 children and she were all students or graduates of the school The school is open to accepting any parent who feels that he or she wants an elementary education.

Construction: Holland and his crew are finishing the walls of our new bookstore, bookmaking and seminar rooms.

For several years now we have talked about creating business with local funds in order to become more autonomous. We are now selling staple foods because we feel this is greatly needed in our community. We will use the profits to cover a few of our junior high teachers’ salaries.

‘Til next time!

The MCLC Direction Committee