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"It is … our duty as scientists to promote education, rational thinking and tolerance. We should also encourage our educated youth to become technological entrepreneurs. Those countries that nurture this knowhow will survive future financial and social crises. Let us advance science to create a better world for all."
Professor Dan Shechtman, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2011, and member of World ORT’s Academic Advisory Council in Israel.

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"I think education is the fundamental component to South Africa being able to become a successful nation. Education should not be based on race, class, gender or ethnicity and ORT has ensured that people from all walks of life are afforded an equal chance for a better tomorrow.”
Johnny Clegg, musician and anthropologist.

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"Throughout the world, ORT schools provide a modern educational environment in which young people learn to appreciate time-honoured general values as well as get connected to Jewish values. The cutting edge technological orientation brought in by ORT positions Jewish schools at a much higher level, thus providing them with an ability to attract the generation who may otherwise remain unaffiliated."
Natan Sharansky

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"I have had occasion before to remark on the fact that ORT's activity does not base itself upon 'charity' but upon self help. Both for the work of rebuilding human lives and the great task of building a new nation in Israel, the acquisition of skills assumes an enormous importance. I want to assure you of my greatest admiration for the cause in which you are so nobly engaged."
Albert Einstein

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"Your vocational training activities … represent a constructive activity on a people-to-people level which deserves approbation … You are engaged in a work of great humanitarian significance. Yours is the type of meaningful program which transmits skills and technical knowledge as an aid to the modernization of communities and to the improvement of living standards. It is thus in consonance with the main currents of our times."
President John F. Kennedy

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"…ORT has provided an education for life to Jews and others in vulnerable communities throughout the world. In so doing, it has exemplified one of Judaism's greatest values. We are the people who predicated our very existence as a people on education, on 'teaching... diligently to our children.' … The civilizations of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome have long since disappeared. Judaism still lives and flourishes and survives. ORT is testimony to that truth.”
Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth

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19 Jan 2012 15:02 Age: 118 days
Category: News Update, IC

ORT to open new vocational school in Haiti capital

As crowds of Haitians spilled out of church services last week marking the second anniversary of the earthquake which killed more than 300,000 of their compatriots, work was nearing completion on World ORT's new vocational school which, in a small but significant way, will be an answer to some of their prayers.   When it opens in the capital Port-au-Prince in the coming months, the school will fill a glaring gap in the country's reconstruction effort.   "Haiti is in desperate need of qualified manpower for the physical reconstruction of the country as well as for the rehabilitation of the crumbling economy," said the Head of World ORT's International Cooperation office in Geneva, Daniel Kahn.   "The vocational education system for Haiti's youth, weakened by years by a lack of funds and infrastructure, finally collapsed last year, unable to withstand the devastation of the earthquake. Ours will be the only vocational school in the capital."

Work is nearing completion on a school which will bring World ORT’s expertise in vocational education to those who need it most.

The new school is World ORT's second project in Haiti; its programme to train construction workers in earthquake-resistant building techniques is drawing to a close after benefiting more than double the original goal of 700 graduates, thanks to new partnerships with UNESCO, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Fondation de France.

"The fact that the programme has been duplicated in other parts of Haiti shows that we were right," Mr Kahn said. "We're now producing a handbook for builders on anti-seismic techniques in French and Creole and developing a media campaign to raise public awareness of the need to use these techniques – we've had instances of contractors complaining that our graduates insist on using the superior techniques they have learned with us."

Rebuilding the country has been a slow process not made easier by international aid donors delivering little more than half the $4.5 billion pledged in 2010-11. But Mr Kahn says there are signs of real progress now. Unicef, for example, reports that more than a quarter of the 4,000 schools destroyed or damaged in the earthquake have been repaired or rebuilt, benefitting tens of thousands of children.

But in a country where only 12 children finish 12th grade out of every 1,000 who start first grade, World ORT's school responds to the urgent need for an alternative to the traditional academic system, giving those who lack educational qualifications the means to secure a better future for themselves.

Funded by the Mexican Alliance for Haiti and the JDC, the school is part of a large, beautiful campus belonging to World ORT's local partner, Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos (NPH), and will initially offer places for 100 youths: nursing and telecoms courses for those who have completed 12th grade education and plumbing and carpentry for those who left full time education after the 9th grade.

Capacity will more than double by next year, with 250 students aged between 15 and 22, pursuing one-year diploma courses in building, electrician's and secretarial skills as well as those mentioned above.

"Many of the students will be referred to the school via NPH institutions, such as orphanages," Mr Kahn said. "In accordance with NPH and World ORT's mission in Haiti, priority will be given to those students from the neediest sectors of the population."

NPH and the Mexican Alliance have given World ORT carte blanche to define and implement the education and training and the result is the introduction to Haiti of a vocational model in which students alternate weekly between the classroom and the workplace.

"Not only is this a very good way to train workers the time spent in the workplace means that, on graduation, they have real experience in addition to their diploma – and that is a huge help when it comes to finding a job," Mr Kahn said.

The ORT vocational school in Rue des Rosiers, Paris, uses the system to great effect – more than 90 per cent of the young, disadvantaged people it trains graduate successfully and more than 80 per cent of them are employed by their host companies. It is helping to implement the system in Port-au-Prince and will also be available to train the new school's teachers. 

"Young people are the foundations upon which a nation stands and this new school is an opportunity to share our long and proven experience in educating for employment with the youth of Haiti," said Mr Kahn. "It will not only train them in the skills most needed by their country but it will be a reference to be duplicated around the country, like our anti-seismic building programme has been."

 

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