>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
[ no audio ]   >> Hello, good afternoon.
My name is Georgette Dorn.
And I'm the chief of the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress,
which includes the Caribbean.
And I'm glad to tell you that Haiti has always been part
of the Hispanic Division, when it was -- since it was formed in 1939,
because Haiti was the first independent country
of Latin America.
So "Hispanic" is an overall term, like Coca-Cola, and we try not
to change it, even though we now include the multilingual Caribbean,
and Haiti was the first non-Spanish [Inaudible] country
which was covered by the Hispanic Division.
It is my great pleasure to introduce Dr. Joan Higbee, who until April 1
of this year was the French Caribbean specialist
of the Hispanic Division.
Sad to say that she retired on April 1,
but she continues her wonderful work as a special consultant
on Caribbean affairs, French and English Caribbean affairs
to the Hispanic Division.
So I now introduce you to Joan Higbee.
>> Thank you, Dr. Dorn.
When I returned to the Hispanic Division of the Library
of Congress I returned to my second home.
Retirement is good, but I will always have a deep love
for that division and for the Library of Congress.
I am delighted to have had the opportunity to welcome a [Inaudible]
to the Library of Congress.
It was shortly after I became the English
and French Caribbean specialist in the Hispanic Division
that I met Fequiere Vilsaint and learned
from him the compelling story behind the creation
of his publishing house.
It began with Mr. Vilsaint personal engagement in improving the life
of a Creole-speaking child in an English language classroom.
I have watched the impressive development of a Educa Vision
since that first conversation.   What has impressed me the most
with this growing enterprise is it has retained the spirit and value
of service with which it began; service to others.
It has an uncompromising vision of the importance of Haitian culture,
and it has retained a publishing culture of reverence for life.
At book fairs and conventions over the years, it has been my privilege
to talk with and learn from today's speakers.
Fequiere Vilsaint, Maude Heurtelou, and Carol R. Hollander.
Vilsaint was born in Port-au-Prince,
and was reared there and in Cape Haitian.
After high school, he migrated to Montreal where he studied biology
at Concorda University, receiving a bachelor's of science degree.
He continued his studies at university Laval
in Quebec City and at Tufts University.
He was on the staff of the University
of South Florida's medical school in the department of biochemistry
and molecular biology when he became involved in educational issues
that led to his founding of Educa Vision.
His previous activities included renewable energy research
at McGill University,
and aquaculture infrastructure evaluation; Fish, shrimp, algae.
In Haiti and the Caribbean, Mr. Vilsaint is the author
of fourteen dictionaries and many articles and academic journals.
He speaks English, French, Haitian, Creole, and Spanish.
He has reading knowledge of German and Portuguese.
Maude Heurtelou is a novelist and story teller.
Her two Haitian Creole novels, the Lafami Bonplezi
and Sezisman have both been translated into English
and published by Educa Vision.
She is the author of 25 children's books,
some of which have been translated into English or French or both.
Mrs. Heurtelou earned a master's degree
in nutrition and public health.
She has worked in Haiti, Guatemala, Canada, and the United States.
In recognition of her extensive volunteer work in Haiti in the area
of education, public health, and life improvement,
Mrs. Heurtelou has received through the Florida Association
For Voluntary Actions awards
from governor Lawton Childs and Governor Jeb Bush.
She has developed audio-visual and printed educational materials
for agencies that include the Center For Disease Control
and the University of South Florida.
As a resident of south Florida, she is currently involved
in family prime time reading and story telling in local libraries.
Carol R. Hollander was born and grew up in Baltimore, Maryland.
She received a BA with honors from Marlboro college,
and an MA from Godard College, both in Vermont.
With a background in scholarly book publishing, she joined Educa Vision
in 2004 to develop the imprint Caribbean studies press,
thereby expanding Educa Vision's publishing program
into the wider field of Caribbean studies.
Thank you for being here, and welcome to what is going
>> Thank you very much.
Thank you, Dr. Dorn, thank you Dr. Higbee.
Thank you all for coming.   I'm very pleased to see you.
I'm touched that you made the move to come.
Thank you very much for your generosity to invite me
We are very proud to be invited, all five of us.
This invitation signals to us that we need to continue to focus
with disciplines on the element that have value for us.
On the element of our mission at Educa Vision.
Our mission was defined in 1991.
As a matter of fact, this year is our twenty years of existence.
We at that time set two important elements to take seriously.
One, to develop and to augment the [Inaudible] of educational material
that exists in Haitian Creole, one, the second is to contribute
in collaboration with many people to the education of Haitians regardless
of where they are; in Haiti, urban, rural, outside of Haiti,
in the United States, in Canada, Bahamas,
Dominican Republic, anywhere they are.
But this service we wanted to be available for all of them,
regardless of their economical status;
whether they can pay or not pay.
We would like to be able to contribute to their experience
and make it feasible and reasonable easy, I should say,
but reasonably accessible for them to get access
to education, access to reading.
And one of the elements that we find is very important is
that in communication with us, in collaboration with us,
if we can convey English children the love for reading,
the passion for reading independently, we think that will be
in a good direction, and I thank you very much for recognizing our effort
and inviting us to tell this story.
We do a lot of material on Haitian Creole, and we get a lot
of different questions that -- from the starting point,
I need to say that we are not driven by language activity.
We are not driven by changing things in terms
of what language should go before or after.
We're not -- that's not our purpose.
We are interested in each -- access to education in whatever language
that these children bring.
In the case of Haiti, in the case of New York, or in the case of Florida,
a lot of the Haitians come with a linguistic asset,
and we want to touch on that,
to facilitate their learning, their education, their development
on also helping them solving problems
that they encounter in daily life.
Whether they're in rural Haiti or urban Haiti or outside of Haiti.
Twenty-one years ago I was a bio chemist, actually, micro biologist
at the bio chemistry department at USF, and that day,
as they had done several years before, they invite me to go
to a high school to speak to students
about doing African American history month.
They wanted me to go to the classroom
and tell the students what --
explain to the students what does a molecular biologist do,
in order to encourage them also to look at this field
as an opportunity, and above all they wanted them to see people
who could tell them about their experience, their reality,
their discipline, or any other element
so that the kids would be encouraged themselves to focus on the study,
to evaluate what they're studying, and also start thinking of things
that they could do or a field that they could embrace for the future.
In one particular case in that year there was a young boy
at the last row of the class with whom I was not able to make contact.
I didn't know why, but it couldn't pass.
So other kids was all kind of question, I answer,
I animate the relationship, but this fellow didn't pay attention to me,
didn't want to hear what I say, so I thought.
And then when I tried to engage him he ignored me completely.
So at the end of the class I tell the teacher, well,
I tried to contact this fellow there,
and I think he's -- I was not successful.
And she said don't worry about him, he's a Haitian, he just came,
he doesn't understand the language.
So just -- it's nothing important for now, don't worry about it.
So we all went on and do what we had to do.
Then I was faced with five problems, which I thought then.
And among the different solutions that came to me was I'm trying
to make a long story short,
I decided to help this young fellow understand English
and also then I thought that maybe many different other students
in the same circumstances, set of circumstances,
I wanted to see whether I could, you know, on a part-time basis,
whether I get some time off to help.
But the one strategy that I took among other option that I had
in front of me was to speak with a teacher and see what the --
what are the themes for the --
that would be presented in class the next day,
the next week, or two weeks.
So I kind of plan ahead by laying down the key words
that he needs to stand their meaning.
How these words are connected to the general curriculum for the class,
and also how these words are connected, these terms are connected
to the exam he needed to take at the end of the year.
So I kind of plan my strategy, and I meet once a week
with either the teacher or the young student and prepare a glossary,
an explanation of things.
Say, if you want geography, I'll take the key words,
why they're important, where they fit in the whole scheme
of finding a place on the planet, see?
So at the end of the school year
which is probably three months later, okay,
we [Inaudible] you know, by end
of May I had a pretty interesting [Inaudible] of word, their meaning,
with some [Inaudible] to explain concepts to this young fellow.
There was one teacher there in that school,
she for some reason get excited with that, she invited me
to a conference, teachers conference, ELL conference.
Then the ELL -- no, there was another word for it.
But anyway, so they invited me to that conference and she used me
as a vignette to explain the elements of volunteerism,
and also how the kid -- I mean, the boy and other kids
in the school benefitted from the copies that I created.
And the teachers all wanted a copy of my glossaries, which I, you know,
gave wholeheartedly, I was very glad my glossary was used
in the classroom, et cetera.
But to make this story longer -- shorter -- is that I --
I somehow get beyond the student I was helping to look
at the picture, broader picture.
And in preparing my glossary I have a few problems.
And those problems I had to find solutions for them.
The solutions -- the problems were, for example,
if I'm explaining a concept in Creole with a vocabulary
in Creole I need to do it right, you know, syntactically
or graphically, et cetera.
But the tools that were available for me, they were there,
they're interesting, but for the student they were not accessible.
For example, a dictionary would come in two parts, $100 each, about $200,
it's not -- it was clunky for a school to buy for a student.
So I started [Inaudible] my glossary.
And then there were issues of syntax that had to address.
And the biggest problem with that [Inaudible] very often was issues
of expanding vocabulary, especially in science.
So I kind of -- as I walk along
that road I find several people interested in the same thing.
In other words, what I found, and I'm going to repeat that,
[Inaudible] that I kind of saw in front of me at this time was
that all the solutions we're looking for, material for the students
to learn, glossaries, English, Haitian, Creole,
there were no multilingual edition, there were no Websters, if you want.
And so I speak with people in linguists, in Canada,
linguists in Haiti, I spoke with a wonderful fellow, gentleman,
in the University of Indiana who had done a lot
of [Inaudible] in Haitian Creole.
I spoke with people at Kansas University, and I realized
that there is a solution.   A lot of solutions.
There's a river of solutions that salt in water, diluted in water,
or sugar diluted in water, there's a little solution.
But there's the crystals.
There was no dictionary that we could take off the shelf
and tell the student, this is what you're going to use for the exam.
There was no mono lingual glossary [Inaudible] good way
of finding the meaning of our words, say.
So we decided to create the first accessible English-Haitian-Creole
dictionary for the student to use.
To do that, I decided that I'm going to take one year leave of absence
from my work, from the university.   I took one year leave of absence.
I gather the glossary,
and we published the first English-Haitian-Creole,
our first, anyway.
Then in order to do that, a year without a salary, my wife had me.
I -- I [Inaudible] not be possible if she didn't take me.
So for a year I set up the organization,
we defined our mission, we define objective, we establish relationship
with people, we activate a community of people in Canada and elsewhere,
we exchange, I send them my draft, they look at it,
and we develop that dictionary.
And basically after that we realize there was no site,
we wanted to [Inaudible] have nothing.
So we kind of [Inaudible] along again.
We create an English-Haitian-Creole science dictionary.
And then on and on.
Every time we find a problem or we try
to find a solution it becomes the beginning of a new problem.
So, would you know, we kind of keep going, keep going, and keep going.
[ Background noise ]   >> We took a very simple approach.
I [Inaudible] last one, I sit down, look at the problem,
know the [Inaudible] I need to learn and I develop material in a way
that the student could very quickly understand, you know,
with illustrations and so on and so forth.
But we did something a little bit different also.
We want him or her to find in the library where they're going,
school library, to find their life present.
Linguistically or images or visuals that tell about themself too,
so they can learn about the world
but now also find their experience validated in it.
So we do bilingual wall dictionaries, we do medical,
we do science, we do all.
By the time we get to twelve dictionaries I couldn't believe it.
They are all specialized, all specialized
to give the kids what they need.   We do pictorial dictionaries,
we do mathematical dictionaries with illustrations.
So every time we find that there is something
that can help the kids get faster, get content, get concept,
we develop it, keep going, keep going.
People tell us we're crazy, it's not sustainable, it's not going --
but we're still doing it,
still thinking it's sustainable after twenty years.
So later on I will tell you our plans for the future, too.
But the gist here of it is
that we find ourselves part of a big community.
That community have different people in it.
You have people in academia, people that [Inaudible] in Boston,
we have Indiana, University of Illinois, you have University
of Quebec, Montreal, you have people in [Inaudible] linguistic,
and above all with this family kind of crystallize what we're doing.
We are inspiring what they're doing, they're inspiring what we're doing.
And I identify five people that make it feasible.
The first group is my family, really.
They really give me the support.
And I should say Maude is with me day or night when I have a concern,
when I have a concept, when I have a problem,
when I need to develop something and I don't have the resource
to [Inaudible] the resource could be money, the resource could be time.
She is always there, she is always engaging to it,
she is good at emergencies.
For example, if a machine is working and we have -- it --
[Inaudible] exam is coming in two weeks and my machine is broken,
I don't know how I will make it, she will run around
and make a solution, find a solution.
We also have a lot of colleagues around different schools,
and some of them are volunteer, some of them,
you know, [Inaudible] in Haiti.
If we send them a letter or now an e-mail they always respond
and give us suggestions.
And so much so that we at Educa Vision we develop protocols
and procedures on how to come up with a new word in the language,
especially in science and, you know, and we bounce it
around with all these people, and they always give us feed back.
Another group of people that makes Educa Vision what it is are
the critics.
These are a group of passionate people, like, sitting around,
and every time you publish something and make comments on it.
It could be positive, it could be negative,
it could be useful, it could be useless.
It's always there, and it always inspire us.
And we use what is good and we leave what is not.
And we are passionate about it, because they have a passion.
And you know how critics criticize well when things come up.
So we use that resource, it's for us a valuable resource
to develop what we're doing.
Another group of people is -- are the teachers and their students.
We have teachers who call us and say we need this, you don't have it.
So we take what we can, the suggestion, and basically to work
around what they need in the classroom
for the student to succeed.
We also have teachers that give us a lot of emotion.
Sometime we need emotion to [Inaudible].
I remember I teacher in some [Inaudible] in Boston,
at the end of several school years, at least five school years,
at the end of every year she send us 15, 20 letters from students
who have read Lafami Bonplezi, who have played theater using sketches
from the book, the student part of their experience
of getting feedback would write to us and make comments.
Discuss what they learned, what they liked, what they dislike.
Some even make suggestion on how the book of the future --
what issue we should add in the future.
This also is a very interesting part of that community,
these are the teachers and the students.
A fifth group of people in the community in the life
of Educa Vision, the employees.
These are very interesting bunch of people.
From -- we've had Indians, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Brazilians,
Americans, I forgot Americans -- African Americans,
high school students, we have a lot of --
in the twenty years we have seen a lot of people working with us,
making this happen, through either from typing to marketing
to distribution, to cleaning the place.
It's a bunch.
If you get a chance to go to Florida,
I know you go to Haiti sometime, guys,
and if you have time come visit us.   You will see it's a community.
You will see.   Things are not terribly formal.
It flows sympathetically.   And it's interesting to see that.
The sixth group is a group of customers.
Over time, our customer change a lot.
We say we do educational material that [Inaudible] students,
we have a broad area of customers from the CDC,
who is doing elephantiasis [Assumed spelling] education in Uganda,
to the government of Taiwan who order books for diplomats.
We have Americans who want to learn Creole, we want --
you name it, we are humbled and surprised all the time.
But that doesn't make it a big company.
It make it a company that speak with a lot of people and we are proud
of that kind of collaboration with the customer.
We have inside the United States and in Haiti the core
of our customers are in the United States and Haiti.
But we have sent books to South Africa, to Indonesia,
and I think probably there are diplomats from many countries
in the world who are going to read it, for one reason or another,
would find us on the web and order books from us.
And we get letters from people in Africa also,
also reading Lafami Bonplezi.
So today we have books, we have CD, we have different media.
We have -- we deliver on CD, on DVD, on book, on chart, on audio.
And I wanted to give you a little show of what we have.
To make it simple, we have 859 titles in twenty years.
It's a lot.
Maybe it's more than it is, because some of them, the same book exists
in three format, Haitian, Creole, bilingual English and Creole,
and in English by itself.   So it's a lot, but it comes in --
it's one book that have three different representations,
We have bilingual, mono lingual, now we are going into digital,
and this I will tell you a little bit later.
[ Background noise ]   >> So let me show you our catalog.
This is the main catalog.
You will see that in the education section you have different levels.
In fiction, we have novel, poetry, short stories.
We got multimedia, we've got health, religion, culture, dictionaries.
A lot of dictionaries.   For example, the [Inaudible].
So we got pictorial dictionaries.
For example, English and French, English and Spanish,
we've I got a lot of dictionaries.   This is our main dictionaries.
This dictionary is used for exam in Massachusetts,
And these are pictorial.
We also have some English-French that is used for the exams too.
Because some of the Haitian student prefer
to have French dictionaries as opposed to Creole.
Most of them want Creole but some want French
because they are good vocabulary in French, and they've been to schools
where they are learning French,
and we provide them material they can use for exam.
And this is a lingo, mathematics,
English Creole mathematic dictionary.
We've got social studies, phrase book, Portuguese.
So we do have a lot of dictionaries.
This is an English medical dictionary.
I could tell you a little vignette for the English medical dictionary.
After the earthquake in Haiti we immediately, the first week
of the earthquake, we received calls, e-mail communications
from many places of the United States where MDs, doctors want to go
to Haiti, but don't know the language and they wanted
that dictionary, English Creole medical dictionary.
So because it was an emergency and because they're needed right away,
and because we didn't want them to pay for it,
we were sending them next day, every day, to California, to New York, to,
you know, and after, you know, a few days with spent so much money
with FedEx we feel exhausted.
So what we did, immediately I call a program we work for,
done some work [Inaudible] and ask them
to create an application for iPhone.
In a couple of days we created the app.
We launch it on iPhone, and within three weeks it's been downloaded
3,000 times.   In three weeks.
From several countries of the world.   It was really something interesting
and fascinating is happening very quick on the Internet, and as a --
and we get doctors writing from, to us, from Haiti, sending e-mail,
telling you know, it was useful because at least it helped them
with vocabulary, key words to ask questions.
Because the medical dictionary don't have things like illustrations
and also have phrases that depending
on the context, that you could ask some.
And the phrases are there in English and in Creole.
So -- and we also have the science dictionary for students to learn
or to have access to have vocabulary.
Especially if they knew the concept already,
but don't know the vocabulary in English.
So to -- so we also have -- the -- oops.
Quickly see the web site with all the elements we have for K to 12.
We also have two imprints.
With times, we developed two imprints.
One is on the Caribbean, the Haiti side of the Caribbean.
So we create an imprint that addresses the issues or the needs
or the concern of development
of editorial issues regarding the Caribbean.
And Caribbean was the publisher for [Inaudible] in a little bit.
We also have Ed Brazil, we have collaboration with Brazilians
to develop materials for the Brazilians in the United States.
The second set we have, this one is quite interesting,
that's part that we will be going -- looking in the future.
I will give you a little glimpse now.
It's interactive ebooks.
You'll see we have about 100 books that a teacher
or a parent could activate on line and help the student to read
in Creole or in English to acquire vocabulary in English or in Creole,
depending on the context.
For example, this one is book [Inaudible] elite,
and you could in a classroom activate it.
So the student could read.   [ Foreign dialog ]
>> So that the teacher would accompany the student
in the classroom with reading, the word being read is activated,
so the student could make the connection, help literacy.
You could do it in Creole, you could do it in English.
And --   [ Foreign dialog ]
>> We stop with this show here.
Just wanted to show you -- tell you a little bit how we're seeing
the future.
All the K to 12 program we have, for the last few years we get a lot
of communication with people from different culture asking us
to mentor, to assist, and to help developing something similar
for their community.   We started by doing the Brazil.
But now we changed strategies.
Instead of developing it ourself we mentor somebody in their community.
For example, we are working now with a women in Guatemala, from Guatemala
in West Palm Beach County.
She wants to develop material not necessarily in Spanish,
but in the language that the -- a lot of people from [Inaudible] area
in Guatemala, they speak a language called Catacal [Phonetic]
or Q'anjobal, and we are helping them with resources, strategies,
and approaches to develop education materials for --
bilingual educational material for the student
from those areas in Guatemala.   And also she hopes material --
if you do it in Catacal or Q'anjobal could be used in Guatemala also.
So our experience, we -- at first our mission was
to help the Haitian student regardless of where he is.
But we added to collaborate with other people to help students,
regardless their set of circumstances, to help them learn.
And to access resources and to build,
depending on the choice that we make in life.
At this point I'm going to stop, and I will invite Maude to speak,
give you more picture and less words.
Thank you.   >> Okay, thank you for coming.
This is a very important time for me.
And it's good to share it with you,
because it's twenty years of my life.
But I'm not the most important person here, but twenty years
of Fequiere's life since he started here,
and I feel honored to be witness.
So I am going to use the voice of witness,
somebody who has been very close,
has seen Educa Vision coming from dream to reality.
Well, as he said he was a bio chemist as USF,
and probably a very lonely job, you know?
A lot of bottles, not too many people around.
But talking a lot about DNA and about molecular biology.
Very scientific stuff, very important, of course.
And at that time, you know, the team, the [Inaudible] University
of South Florida, very involved in research and discovery,
and it was very exciting.
I thought he was very happy and content,
not only because he was doing what he enjoys doing,
but also because afterwards he was helping students,
high school, middle school.
We are living in the east coast of Florida, and they were just starting
to see -- west coast I meant, I'm sorry --
west coast of Florida at the time, Tampa and Saint Petersburg.
And this area was just seeing a new group of Haitian families
and kids coming almost every week.
And these kids were coming with no understanding of English,
and teachers were at [Inaudible] with that,
they were missing the connection with these students
and these families, because sometimes they would send a message,
you know, give information for the kids to take home
and they would not have any answer.
So they could not tell if it was negligence or lack of understanding.
So in a way, Fequiere, myself,
and many of the Haitians [Inaudible] were supporting
and helping the system to understand what was happening.
So where I think he is either for formal education
to understand the detailed life around them,
and know casually [Inaudible] so assist [Inaudible] explaining
to them, you know, well, you don't speak Creole,
but this is a [Inaudible] I know what your culture is,
et cetera, et cetera.
Well, this was very fulfilling, but I think he was not very satisfied,
so he did a lot of thinking and planning, well,
something is not working.
Too many kids were falling in the crack, and too many calls
to [Inaudible] people calling us, [Inaudible]
and I know the system tried to get use from the Red Cross,
calling people from the Red Cross,
people would answer questions, help through the phone.
But they really needed some presence,
they really needed something more than a casual call to officials,
who sometimes could, sometimes could not respond.
Well, he did his thinking and planning,
and what was to happen happened, determination and vision,
he said good-bye to his career and started with some good luck,
no guarantees, because well,
people will tell you oh, that's so beautiful.
But with hope everything will turn out great.
Well, as you said, you went home and had somebody to help you study
and everything, and start to complete the first dictionary
that he told you about, the B-000 [Assumed spelling],
the Creole English, English-Creole dictionary.
And continued some bilingual materials,
because once we were writing we realized there were more need
and more need and more need.
It give us -- well, we had to start, you know, making shelves
to book these books that were coming,
so that's our garage then, you know?
And there's a night, I don't know when we start using the --
the hammer, but he did the shelves, more shelves, and you know,
have to keep focused day and night to get more shelves
because we were going to start publishing books,
we have to find a place to put them.
And of course I continue my career in public health, as I said,
we realized very soon that Educa Vision was becoming a valuable
resource for students, teachers, parents,
institutions, and communities.
He had to work up, of course, very early in the wee hours with a cup
of coffee in his hand, 4 o'clock in the morning, to drive and go
to places where they were having conferences, and telling now
to start showing the first books
that came the first two, three years.
Educa Vision was born.
Of course, it was no longer a matter of being
at the university talking about chemistry.
You had to fill boxes, carry them to UPS or to FedEx.
But we were happy that Educa Vision had books in libraries.
We realized at that point we were not only helping one student,
The kids now start having bilingual materials.
Some of them were Haitian Creole.
You can see their face, now they stand what was
in the book preparing them to read in English.
And this was happening not only in Florida,
but also in New York, elsewhere.
We were sending books and different materials for students.
Then we realized we have to create interest for the books.
So we start providing story telling.
Visiting libraries, media centers, and telling the kids what was coming
in the new books so they got more excited.
We encouraged writing contest.
Now we told you about that book, write something about it.
We encourage art contest,
[Inaudible] Haitian [Inaudible] helping the kids get a connection
with their roots.
Some of them now were living in the United States,
with identity crisis, who am I?   Is it okay to be Haitian?
Should I forget I am Haitian, should I be American instead?
So we're trying to help the kids [Inaudible] generations.
I took in the schools what you call [Inaudible] belief in the --
in the United States they call it --
I don't remember that game, how you call it.
But you have to collect, you know, just leave something up
and you collect something, grab something -- jacks, okay.
So we have the Haitian version of jacks.
We show it to the kids, well,
in Haiti we didn't have jacks, but this is what we had.
Telling them stories about what their mom, their dad,
and their grandparents may have lived in Haiti, seeing themself
in Creole to let them know about Haitian songs, Haitian dance,
and that was a way of really to [Inaudible] reading, learning,
and be excited about Haitian Creole,
Haitians [Inaudible] Haitian culture.
We also crossed the line to go to -- to other cultures.
Because in many schools, you know, not only do you find Haitian kids,
Hispanic, and American, and Brazilian.
So we wanted kids from other countries to know also
about the country of Haiti, to let them know about the books.
By then we were not only writing books in Creole, but also books
on Haiti in English, in French, and Haitian Creole.
Okay, we sit in the schools with kids, tell them about Haiti,
about culture, about the Haitians friends, you know,
why they have an accent, why their name is different.
We really wanted the kids to realize
that being Haitian has something unique about it,
whereas at the same time it's a universal experience,
we're not that far from each other.
Cultures, really, you just have to push the [Inaudible]
and you already crossed the other culture.
Then we became a support for the teachers,
providing them material they can use for students.
In turn, they invite us to come to the classroom.
In this particular picture, it was in Boston many, many, many,
many years ago, this teacher invited me,
for me to see how Haitian students were using our books.
There was a boy who decided to play the role of Antoinette,
one of my female character in one of my books.
I was kind of surprised a boy decided to play the role of a lady.
When he stood, [Inaudible] acting,
not only he read the part Antoinette was supposed to say,
but when he walked across the classroom with some gestures
that were not mentioned in the book, I was amazed.
Like, wait a minute, where did he get that?
The book doesn't say that Antoinette walked that way.
And when I ask him that question he say, Madame,
[Inaudible] she has to walk that way.
What I am trying to say here is he understood the story so well,
he got connected culturally so much with the book
that he put his own addition to it.
Now we end up helping me to describe the character that I invented.
He was also in that classroom that the boy asked me what I'm going
to do with Jen, Jen is one of the secondary characters
of my book, Lafami Bonplezi.
I never thought of bringing back Jen until that boy asked me,
what are you going to do with him?
And I said, you know, I haven't thought about it.
Do you have an idea?   He said, well, I don't have an idea.
But I can tell you, like Jen I am a [Inaudible] you know the word,
he's a son born outside of the marriage.
So he identified with this character, and he said,
and I'm living with my step mom.
Every day she said nothing good will come out of me.
And I would like for you to tell me what's your plan with Jen.
So in other words, this boy is in a dead end.
He is looking for a role model.
Now we realize as authors and as publishers of Educa Vision,
we are not only publishing books, but we are also contributing
to shape lives of children.
And I never, never forget this [Inaudible] because I went to learn,
I went -- I went, excuse me, because the teacher wanted me
to meet the kids, for the kids to know there are Haitian authors too.
Haitians are not only people who have problem, have this, have that.
They are Haitians who have a regular, quote unquote, life.
And end up seeing a lot of lesson learned, learning a lot
from the students because they shape my future books.
We went to public libraries to promote family reading,
because the books can be on the shelves.
If the parents are not motivated to read, if the kids want to read,
the parents don't, a lot of them don't even give space in the house
where they can have their books, read, we not go too far.
We went and [Inaudible] the parents to read to their kids,
if they don't speak English listen to the kids reading
and ask the kids what it is about.
[Inaudible] that book is an interest from the parents, especially those
who have limited education, to read as well.
And to know about our books.
We also went to the schools where they have [Inaudible] program,
which are after school program for parents
who teach them better parenting skills, including reading.
This brought us to the next step.
Educa Vision also is a resource for organizations,
institutions doing research.
In this particular picture you see a meeting where we meet
with University of South Florida College of Public Health team,
because they were using our expertise for data collection
and to shape project, research project that they had
on the Haitian community in Florida.
And we provide training to their staff.
Also we got involved in the CDC.
Well, it was a meeting, some [Inaudible]
in [Inaudible] near Oregon,
for specifically the [Inaudible] program.
We provide [Inaudible] service, I lived in Oregon for about two months
to understand the problem, you know,
there to create soap opera for education.
Because we believe in educating while entertaining.
So not only in this particular project, not only we had a video,
we also had audio soap opera, and it also came with some --
and it was to my surprise when I went to Oregon
to find that the kids like rap.   So we had to do some rap music.
The adult like some type of more religious sounds music.
We created six to seven type of melodies
to convey the [Inaudible] message that we wanted to convey.
All that we did from Educa Vision office, going to Haiti, of course.
So we developed the material with this team, we did the training,
and assessment and evaluation of the project.
Of course, we took the opportunity to create team work
and do some socialization.
So we stay connected with the Haitian community in Haiti.
Educa Vision is support to Haitian authors.
Many of them publish with us and are published for the first time.
Some are well known publishers, like [Inaudible]
but we promote, buy, and sell her book.
They have authors, with [Inaudible] and also recognize this man,
what's the name again, [Inaudible] Fredrick [Inaudible] he's a pioneer
in writing Haitian Creole.
And of course we have American authors
like Titi Latimayor [Phonetic] and others.
So Educa Vision's work are focusing on Haiti,
on the Haitian culture and Haitian concerns.
But at this point we are open very much
into authors writing different books and Titi Latimayor has written books
about realities in Rhode Island,
and Educa Vision is the publisher of her two books.
Educa Vision has been from day one, since the beginning
of the twenty years, involved in the community, promoting literature,
promoting Haitian culture, promoting adult literacy, functional literacy,
and we -- even when broadcasting world wide, we're voice of America.
We went from a few title to more title, to many more titles,
and to many, many more titles.
It turned [Inaudible] from that point on you can see
that Educa is now reaching out everywhere where there is a need
to know about the Haitian culture, Haiti, or others who happen
to have subjects that may be relevant to let's say India,
but at the same time we [Inaudible] in Haiti.
So I don't think we are limiting ourselves for the same books
that we are [Inaudible] to Haiti.   We have been able to do this thanks
to teachers we meet during conferences, doing fairs,
exchanging addresses, some teachers have been very dynamic
in participating, publishing, criticizing.
We have welcomed their contribution.
We have also received support from [Inaudible],
some of them who masters the Creole language in terms of grammar
and everything, they have supported us.
At that point, I left and say good-bye to my current [Inaudible]
and start being on board full time.
But it's more than [Inaudible] we have motivated personnel,
people who have been working for us for ten years,
like [Inaudible] Jan [Phonetic],
and we have new college students working too, the music recording.
While we're doing this we are also prepared to expand the dream.
So it's always [Inaudible] to go somewhere, to go promote Educa.
This is one of the first building where Educa was.
Educa realized a diverse staff for material development and revision,
marketing and promotion, production and shipping,
public relations, and orders.   Educa kept in touch with Canada.
We went and visited, met [Inaudible] and particularly [Inaudible]is one
of the great scholars in the Haitian Creole.
He has reviewed and criticized some
of our books, and we appreciate that.
Montreal had [Inaudible] we also went on line and talked about --
we went, excuse me, on [Inaudible] and talk
about Educa Vision and our mission.   We also went to Haiti.
In Haiti we have been invited by the National Library.
They have invited us to display our books.
We have been very happy to see the response
of the people [Inaudible] call, who smile to see books in Creole,
books that have illustrations with faces that look like their face,
people felt that these books connect with them, and we are glad
to keep that connection alive.
We have connected with Haitian students to --
our books are being used in Haiti, in the countryside of Haiti,
in a place like Laignia [Phonetic] in Haiti.
In all the cities people send us pictures, teachers send us pictures
to show us they have used our materials.
In Haiti, we have developed connection with the teachers,
they come to attend our seminars, our training, we have also connected
with the media in Haiti where they work --
they wanted us to say on the radio
that in the United States [Inaudible] Creole, so we Haitian,
we have to buy [Inaudible] Creole.
We have talk shows about our books, and people respond very dynamically.
This give us the feeling that in the US, in Haiti and elsewhere,
Educa Vision was needed, is needed,
and what we are doing is of certain importance.
We have received awards from [Inaudible] in Canada,
we received award from the Haitian Studies Association,
and we have also received the support
of the minister of [Inaudible] of Haiti.
When I say support, they will come and shake our hands
when we come for displays.
We caught the attention of president,
like President Man [Phonetic], who looked at our books with interest
and came to us to say wow, you have grown
since the first two, three books.
Now you have five hundred, six hundred.
Also, the Haitian physicians also had shown support
by buying our books or reading our books,
and telling us they appreciate what we do.
But we keep focusing in our mission.   Look at it in Florida since 1991.
We do what we do, [Inaudible] working, working, preparing,
publishing, and getting books out.   This is our local now, where we are.
Our operating building is in Pompano Beach.
The purpose of showing you these slides is not
to show you a beautiful place where everything is in order.
We are always working hard with a lot of boxes around us,
and although we are open from 10 to 5, this is the official hours,
but the sales and marking department, translation
and recording, material development department answer
on -- we are always in motion.
And that's Educa, if you ever come to visit.
The only area that take a break, really, the orders
and shipping department follow more
or less regular basis schedule hours.
So books everywhere -- I just did that [Inaudible]
and if you see we have that, the second floor in our --
we add a second floor, that's the --
that's the music and multimedia section.
Educa today is not only do books, but we also do translation
and recording for some organizations.
We are now talking about Educa five, which is going digital,
[Inaudible] model, we're doing online training, and we are looking
to electronic books soon.
Educa appears bright, as you can see,
because of the dreams that continues.
But we know one thing, it was a man's dream that's became reality.
I'm going to thank you very much for your time, interest,
I [Inaudible] with pictures that was taken, most of them, a while ago.
With no intention to show them to you,
otherwise they would have been perfect.
But when came the time for me to talk
to you I realized there were no better way to support what I have
to say than to use those pictures
and to show you what a witness has seen.
Thank you.   [ Applause ]
>> My first association with the Educa Vision was
as the occasional English language consultant.
But as a veteran book editor I could not keep my hands off the
publications, whether I could read them or not.
And I was quickly draw into Haitian history and culture.
Fequiere, as you have heard, is an educator at heart,
and as I came to know, to learn about this remarkable
and maligned country I realized that the canon
of American history had somehow managed
to largely overlook our neighbor, Haiti, and its revolution
that resulted in the first black republic.
Indeed, the whole of Caribbean experience has been generally
treated as a stepchild of North American, south American, European,
or African history, regardless of the fact
that the region was really the first global economy,
with competing powers fighting over the riches
of the these small islands and territory.
More recently, however, there has been a shift
in historical perspective and the concept
of the Atlantic world encompassing Europe, North America,
and the west coast of Africa has gained currency,
and this approach really situates the Caribbean
at the center of this universe.
Improved research capabilities largely in the form
of data mining have enabled detailed accounting and examination
of the actual workings of the trade that was the engine
that drove the Atlantic world.
An example of these efforts is the Atlas
of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which was published by Yale in 2010,
but it is a singular achievement and contribution
to the historical record.
So the field of Caribbean studies has been revitalized
in part by this focus.
But more important, the field is reinvigorated by the presence
of the substantial Caribbean diasporal,
particularly in the US and Canada.
Indeed, the diasporal is at heart of Educa Vision itself.
So it seemed entirely fitting for Educa to expand
from Haitian educational materials and Creole into this larger field,
as well as into the English language, thus situating Haiti
and Haitian Americans in the context of the greater Caribbean.
The first book published
by Caribbean studies press fittingly Was Revolutionary Freedoms.
A history of survival, strength, and imagination in Haiti,
which is an edited collection of essays by scholars and writers
to accompany the historical paintings
of renowned Haitian-American artist Ulrich Jean Pierre that are included
in the book, this book had its Genesis in New Orleans,
and about half of the contributors lived in and worked
at various academic and cultural institutions in that city.
Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans
and disrupted our production schedule, as the artists
and various contributors scrambled to evacuate.
Ulrich's studio was destroyed by the flooding, along with some
of his paintings, including some in this book.
We were well into production at the time, but our communication
for months was more about who was where,
and what had been lost than page proofs.
A pan-Caribbean focus was one of the founding tenents of the press,
and so we have looked to publish resources with this perspective,
even as the Caribbean itself struggles
with the concept of a unified Caribbean.
The efforts of Karacom to shape the French, English,
and Spanish-speaking nations into a Caribbean community
and single-market economy are evidence of the reluctance
of relatively new independent states to relinquish some of their autonomy
Developing an atlas of the Caribbean was a priority
from the inception of the press.
There were high school atlases and beautiful oversized books
of Caribbean scenery, but an authoritative reference
on Caribbean geography seemed lacking.
With persistence and luck we found a team of field geographers
at the University of Indiana Indianapolis,
with Caribbean experience, who were as interested
in the project as we were.
They relentlessly and successfully pursued grant opportunities within
and outside of their university to fund further field work
and to purchase remote sensing images.
It was exciting to see the team off
at the Miami Airport for this field work.
The result was Caribbean Landscapes, an interpretive atlas,
which identifies geographic features that are common to the islands
of the Caribbean without losing the distinct iveness
of individual places.
In this, it differs from a traditional island by island survey,
but this reference may help to shake a new view of the Caribbean
Another book with a pan-Caribbean focus is Field Work Identities
in the Caribbean.
In which a variety of young anthropologists reflect very frankly
about their often confusing experiences of conducting field work
in six Caribbean nations.
Combined, the essays reflect the complexity of Caribbean identity.
However, in some cases our pan-Caribbean focus is evidenced
by the variety of cultures and issues addressed.
For example, the little-known saga of Japanese immigrants
to the Dominican Republic is detailed in immigration
and politics in the Caribbean.
This immigration scheme was part of president Rafael Trujillo's plan
to whiten the Dominican republic.
The scheme appealed to a post-war Japan that was desperate
to find room for the Japanese nationals being repatriated
after the loss of the Japanese territories.
Similarly, music of the Indian diasporal
in Trinidad closely documents the importance
of the traditional ceremonies and music in maintaining identity
in this south Asian diasporal, as well as how the traditions evolved.
Here we have a diasporal from south Asia to the Caribbean
as the British empire was desperate for agricultural labor
after the abolition of slavery on the island,
as there was a severe drought in India,
the prospect of indentured labor appealed to many poor farmers.
The press has ventured into an examination
of contemporary literature in the Dominican Republic
with Divergent Dictions, an expanded version of the original
which was published in Spanish and then was translated with the support
of a grant from the University of Toronto.
The Divergent Dictions in this case is the literature reflecting the
black experience in the Dominican Republic, which was excluded
from the literary cannon by the same logic
Any concept of the Caribbean would be incomplete
without a consideration
of the substantial Caribbean diasporal in the US.
Two recent books of ours concentrate on very different aspects
of the experiences of these immigrants.
Social networks and the mental health
of Haitian immigrants is the first book
to provide empirical information about the social structures
that these immigrants form, and it should prove invaluable
to service providers working with them.
The researchers conducted careful, longitudinal studies
to parse the important aspects of immigrant Haitian society.
Voodoo Brooklyn, Five Ceremonies with Mambo Marie Carmel,
documents a different sort of experience,
which is voodoo ceremonies as practiced
in a Brooklyn apartment house basement by members
of the Haitian diasporal in New York.
This work of photo-journalism brings the religion closer
to the uninitiated than any other work on the subject I have seen,
an opinion that is shared
by prominent voodoo scholars and practitioners.
In conclusion, forthcoming books from the press continue
to include more aspects of Caribbean culture, such as the soon
to be published Cuba, The Struggle For Consumption,
as well as the world wide reach of the Caribbean
in the book globalizing Rasta, film, literature, music, and religion.
Thank you.   [ Applause ]
>> I am going to speak with you now about what we envision
in the future, what is in the pipeline, and how we envision it.
But before I do that I bring one of the students --
I say that we have a lot of students that come when they are
in high school, they come, they learn skills, they do work,
they sometimes do things you don't expect a high school student to do,
like publish a book that does pretty good.
And some of the students who have worked for us part-time,
high school students, have graduated out of school.
Some of them went to college, graduated in college,
and some of them even after graduating college came to work
with Educa, you know, in short term
or part-time as a consultant with us.
Today I have the pleasure to bring one of them.
She was a high school student until about three days ago, she graduated.
And now she's getting ready for college.
I would like her as a student to tell a bit of the history.
>> Distinguished [Inaudible] for the last two years I had the opportunity
to work at Educa Vision during the summer.
Other students like me worked at Educa before,
some graduated college and moved on.
Some keep looking forward to come back the following summer.
Working alternative Educa is an excellent experience for me.
I got the -- I got a job that also gives me the --
gives me plenty of opportunity to learn either new [Inaudible]
or new ways to see and appreciate books.
Just to realize all the energy it may take for one another to write
or manage [Inaudible] all the expertise it takes the staff
at Educa to turn ink and paper into a form
of a book make me wonder how much energy it may take to market it,
and finally to some -- and to --
it may take to market it and finally place it in the hand of a customer.
As for me, I am sure that what I learned
at Educa will have an ever-lasting impact on me and will influence
by choice of book, so [Inaudible] limited [Inaudible].
Thank you for listening to me.   [ Applause ]
>> Tatiana is a very disciplined student,
she came to the United States -- she comes --
used to come in summer to work, but she come to the United States to go
to high school here after the earthquake in Haiti.
And she does pretty well, she graduated with -- with honors.
She does very well.   Where are we heading?
We would like to put a lot of effort in the education in Haiti,
the landscape education in Haiti.
We want to continue that as much as we can, to make material available
in Haiti and to make it available not only
in urban area but also in rural area.
We in September 1, 2011, we were going to inaugurate on line class
for the first grade fundamental.
The whole content, Haitian [Inaudible] content will be on line
for teachers to display in their classroom if they have access,
to get back to -- to get lesson plan, they can print them.
The whole first year content activities assessment,
and they will be there, and we're doing it in collaboration
with several teachers in Haiti and in Miami [Inaudible] a teacher
from Miami [Inaudible] in Palm Beach County.
So [Inaudible] if we do that,
even though the computer [Inaudible] is limited in Haiti we decided
to do it anyway, because it will come some day.
In doing so, realize a lot of thing,
every time you bring a problem it's the beginning --
when you bring a solution it's the beginning of a new problem.
In doing this, for example, the first year [Inaudible] in Haiti,
we realized that the pre-schooling environment
in Haiti is not very well structured.
There are a lot of the schools
where the program is not necessarily standardized
and there is not necessarily --
I mean, there is a curriculum for the equivalent of K 12, pre-school,
there is no, you know, national guidelines.
So we decided also to work in that area.
So in the pre-school, this is what we've done.
And we are excited about it, and I'm not the right person to talk
about it, because I am not an exciting person.
But this is what we've done.
We work with people in education and we identified 24 skills
that a child should develop in order to get ready
for the first year of [Inaudible].
These 24 skills are classified into four domains.
Emotional, collaboration, work together,
being in comfort in the classroom.
The second is physical skills like gross motor skill, fine motor skill,
how to hold your pen, write a text, draw something, you know,
all the -- use the scissors.
And then your fourth is prewriting, prereading skills
like understanding the sound of the letters,
how they make words, et cetera.
And the fourth one, I know you're going to think
of the fifth one, but I will not say it.
The fourth one is mathematic reasoning.
So in these four domains we identified 24 skills,
six each, of the four domains.
And for each skills we have a booklet with activities, a guide,
for either the teacher in the pre-schooling environment
or the private school could use with the children, they're all in Creole.
And what is more exciting, even though I don't say it excitingly,
is that for all skills, all the 24 skills, we identified 24 toys.
And each toy will validate or encourage or develop
or stimulate one particular skill.   This program we're putting together,
we'll inaugurate it probably one month before school opens.
Now we're working on the toys.
The skills are developed, they continually develop.
We went to Haiti about a couple of months, that is Educa Vision
and another company in Maryland.
Michigan, I got the wrong M. In Michigan,
called multiple [Inaudible] we're developing this together.
We went to Haiti to do our training, and that was my first visit
in Haiti after the earthquake.
I went there with a lot of attitude, you know, worries,
how it's going to happen.   How am I going to feel, going
to see all these big building collapse and all that.
When I get there I -- we had 72 teachers participating
in the conference.
They bring me -- I was there to give them encouragement to make --
to give them encouragement, they gave me more than I brought to them.
The passion they put in education, in educating the children,
their commitment that they have to see the kids through.
And also the motivation that they have to learn what we need to see,
to collaborate, to exchange with, to develop material themself
in the classroom, we bring somebody to teach them how to show them,
for example, how they can make material with what they have.
In other words, stones, leaves, plant, all that kind of stuff,
they are so passionate about it that it brings us energy.
As they say in this song, it brings wind beneath our wings.
Is that right?   So this is where we're going.
And as we bring solutions -- the different solution,
we also develop new problem.
We realize that the classroom has no library, so we have --
we design a portable library that has 100 books for every grade.
One simple books, one simple book, let me see if I can get the --
one simple books, 100 books for the -- for the --
what the teacher need in the classroom.
As we go also, we notice that we could have --
we could have a [Inaudible] library.
So we are working now to develop a physical library
of educational materials connected to all Haiti.
So we say that in September 1 we will have the first grade on line.
Additionally, we'll have another broader area,
it's a digital library, will have all the material we have,
all different levels, reference material [Inaudible] [Inaudible]
materials, social science material, [Inaudible] on Haiti
that authors want to collaborate or contribute.
We have that digital library for the teachers to either as a reference
for themselves or for them to go and learn to do, you know,
all the students to do their homework.
Let -- so the digital library, which is where it's going
to [Inaudible] the portal, actually the dictionaries, and okay --
so the -- I showed you earlier the read-along things the kids do
in the classroom or in the home
with the teachers, they can do it for them.
I would also mention that we're working with moodle.
Moodle, I don't know if you're familiar with it,
is a learning system manager.   Learning management system.
Where you put the whole program, a class, for example,
we're going to use it mostly for teacher 's training.
For example, you could organize a training for six weeks,
first week, second week, third week.
Or by thing, a teacher comes in there,
and in their own time asynchronously, they can come
and take a training on, you know, multiple intelligence
or any other concept we find interesting,
or corporal punishment, how long is that?
The teacher is independently go there,
learn a skill that would inform their education
and hopefully help the student learn better, to perform better.
Not only on a small scale, but a wider scale that we have now.
We hope that children as many as possible in Haiti and as many
as possible here in the United States -- also in Haiti --
have opportunities to learn, have opportunities to learn functionally,
Regardless where they live, in urban or rural.
Regardless what neighborhood they live in, in the urban section.
Regardless if they're in the Bahamas, the United States,
We -- in [Inaudible] in particular, we hope that this will happen soon,
and there is an effort, either social, financial,
and analytical effort to conceive
and implement an educational system that is sustainable.
And I know the word sustainable doesn't necessarily apply
to education.
But we have to put some element of sustainability to the system.
It doesn't mean necessarily that they shouldn't have to pay,
it means that we need to put some critical and analytical element
in developing a school system that will guarantee some kind
of sustainability or long term capabilities.
We want to collaborate with everybody.
Everybody.
Religious group, institutional, NGO, government, to make this happen.
The prize for me is very simple, and I have my brain, my mind,
and my eye on your prize;
the education of the children regardless of where they are.
Thank you.   [ Applause ]
[ Background noise ]   >> I wish to thank the speakers
for an absolutely wonderful presentation,
as always it has been inspiring to listen to you speak,
I have watched you develop your dream, I congratulate you,
and I am so very, very happy that we have been able to document this,
because you are making such an important contribution
to the children of today and the adults of tomorrow.
And now I would like to invite the speakers to sit at the table here
in the front and to take questions from the audience.
>> Thank you for this presentation, my name is Catalina and I work
at the Hispanic Division.
My question is after the earthquake what other involvement did Educa
Vision have, a part of the medical dictionary?
>> The earthquake changed my life.
We -- what -- we did four different things , and at first they were kind
of not organized because of the emergency, evaluate of it.
First we provide materials, electronically and book form
to the MDs going to Haiti.
Second we sent [Inaudible] especially board books.
We have very sturdy board books for children that we send to camps,
and especially medical camps where there were some people reading
for the kids waiting, or having a lot of suffering.
So there were volunteer, many people contacted us
and asked us to send books.
So -- to read for the -- in the tents.
We sent some, we didn't send all of them, all that everybody asked,
but we select some books for reading in the -- in the tents environment.
Third thing we did also is that we sent materials to some NGO's
who had special program for children in -- with emotional distress.
So some of them give us the deals, we print for them, and we send it
to professionals who were gathering around
and meeting family, meeting parents.   So we sent this.
So medical, reading material, stress psychological support material,
and the fourth things we did, I don't remember that.
But I know we did -- we did something else.
And we also some radio station call us and ask us to put them in contact
with people, put them in contact with people
and they would give especially what to do, hygiene --
oh yeah, this is the fourth.
The fourth is that when the cholera infection started developing people
-- many people from [Inaudible] asked us to develop brochure on how
to wash hands, how to -- you know, very concrete specific visuals just
to display around for people to look at and react to.
Those are the four things that we did.
I know specifically, as you say [Inaudible].
Yes, you had a question, right?
>> Yeah, my name is Juan [Assumed spelling]
and I was born in Haiti too.
And one thing I learned, like, when I moved to the states,
when people talking about doing something for hey,
it's always in [Inaudible] plans.
And I know in Haiti they have, like, ten departments now.
If you add all the populations
from the other nine departments you've got way more people
than the west.
So how are you planning on getting this to the villages,
like north east, south west, how are you planning on getting
out to people who live in that area will be -- will have access for?
>> Well, you are right, there is a lot
of concentration in Port-au-Prince.
Everybody is doing something in Port-au-Prince.
We -- there are things -- there are things that need to be done.
One of them is that the government should also make an effort
to decentralize.
In other words, create some offices out of Port-au-Prince.
That is not -- it's not my domain, but I will say my domain,
but they need to be little support and functional support
to facilitate the decentralization of Port-au-Prince.
Number One, also to give access to education, to resources,
to Internet, to -- to communication capabilities outside
of Port-au-Prince and rural area.
We are fortunate at Educa Vision that many of our customers --
I didn't talk much about our customers,
our customers are teachers, students, school system, NGO's,
but a lot of church in the United States do activities in Haiti.
And many of them, and I will say the one that I developed communication,
sometimes invite us to go to their site to do teachers training
or to speak with the students, they are outside of Haiti --
sorry, outside of Port-au-Prince.
For example, Maude went to teacher training in [Inaudible],
this group here, you have activities in [Inaudible] as a volunteer
to do some work, and the reason they're for --
especially, believe it or not, from --
people from outside of Haiti going to Haiti, like the Haitian diasporal
or the church organization here, some of the NGO's,
I know a little bit of [Inaudible] Port-au-Prince, I forgot about it.
But some of the engineers go to rural areas too.
And you are right, most of the resources is concentrated in Haiti.
But I've got good news for you,
and I hope it is good news that is do-able.
A lot of people are thinking and now doing effort to go outside
of Port-au-Prince and do -- and provide opportunity for learning,
for communication, for training, for learning a trade.
And the vignette I could give you is that a went personally
to [Inaudible] as volunteer.
And Maude went two years ago sent -- about a lot of books to outside of
and now we're in our activities for September there is a school
in Hershe [Phonetic] who wants to volunteer and do a pilot project
with our digital project, to have first grade on line.
So there is some effort going on in there.
You are right, and everybody talks about it,
but I hope that the tendency now to go out of Port-au-Prince,
especially after the earthquake, will continue.
And that will build the capacities on [Inaudible].
>> I would also add that normally we have been going
to Jacques [Phonetic] and in the country side of Jacques,
country side of Auncani [Phonetic], so that's for the south.
And part of [Inaudible] Bell [Assumed spelling],
everywhere that we have an opportunity to go,
because you cannot just pack and go like that.
So we have gone.   But also there are people,
organizations I will call them, multiple agent.
People who are also making these books,
making these resources going there, there are Haitian teachers
who are committed to going to Haiti on a regular basis,
or American who have projects in Haiti wherever there are some level,
can be minimal, of infrastructure and need it identified.
Books can go there.
I personally received years ago a bunch of letters, I mean a bunch
of letters from a group of American --
Haitian American who went to somewhere very far in the center,
by the [Inaudible] in Haiti.
They brought the book Lafami Bonplezi with them,
and although originally the idea was to read it to teachers
so teachers can use it, they end up also reading it at night
as story telling for the community.
People see and [Inaudible] and they will laugh
about the stories in this book.
The letters we received are letters from people who heard,
not necessarily from people who knew how to write.
They just listened, and [Inaudible] write that letter
for me to send to that author.
Interestingly, I received a different type of comments,
either because people spend a great summer,
because every night they read a couple of pages,
or also because they had questions.
In that particular book, Lafami Bonplezi, the family,
called [Inaudible] left Haiti one by one.
And the last one to stay was a teacher, a school teacher.
[Inaudible] studied Haiti.   Teachers send me a note saying why,
why did you leave the teachers behind?
You know, we teachers, we are not lucky.
In Haiti we make no money, and now everybody leaves us behind.
I had to write that to let them know why, is because [Inaudible] had
that social conscience, and continues want to leave just
because he wants a better life for himself.
But also he was doing something important in Haiti,
his time had not come yet.
And not everybody needs to leave Haiti.
So you know, there is that interaction.
Of course we need to do more.   We need to go further.
The day that we reach all the cordial points
of Haiti will be a great day.
We still have a lot to do, a lot of steps to make.
But we cannot do it alone.
And I think we are crossing the bridge,
[Inaudible] multiply our agents in organizations like yours
or all those religious, teachers, who are also interested to go there.
Because you cannot just go and throw out books, you know,
from a helicopter, you know, it will not necessarily be
that efficient as a relief team.
You need some level of infrastructure.
It can be portable library, which is wonderful.
We have one style that you can roll it around and take it
from a village to a village.
But definitely is good that you bring that up.
We need to do more, but we have been doing something.
>> You had a question?
>> My question is do you have English [Inaudible]
>> No, we don't.
We have some material to learn English, right?
Yeah. We have some material if -- we -- as we --
we never thought of developing it.
And now I see where you're going, and I see the value of doing it.
We -- when the student comes to the United States we try
to give them tools to succeed, but we know, we realize there are a lot
of materials already here.
What we did instead of developing complete system, we develop material
that support what is there already.   But your context is different.
>> Yes, if I understand right, the student comes here he learns English
because he's in an English environment.
I mean, I'm trying to teach English in a Creole environment.
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> -- and all our Creole English books, you know,
from K to 12 can be used, for that matter.
>> Do you have both languages in the book --
>> Both languages in the book, yes.
>> One book has Creole and English side by side?
>> Correct, yes.
>> We have -- almost all the K to 5 books.
Not the 6 to 12.
Almost all the K to 12 books, we have them in three formats.
One that is only in Creole and one that has both in the same book,
the English and the -- I brought some sample,
I don't know where I put them -- English and Creole on the same page
so that the teacher can use them.
>> Another question about the portable library.
Is there 100 books per grade or 100 books for all grades?
>> The way we organize it is we have a list from K to 2,
a list from 2 to 5, and a list that is 5 and 6.
What people do sometimes is they say give me K to 2,
or they say give me one library, but stretch it K to 12.
Stretch it 5.
So what they will end up having is 100 books
with the selections of different list.
>> Do you have a catalog or how would you --
how would I find out what books are in the library or what it would cost
to purchase a portable library?
>> On the web site there's a section that says download.
I could show it to you.   Www.educavision.com.
We have everything on the web site.   >> I don't have Internet.
>> I'll -- okay, okay.
All right, so I will send you a catalog.
>> That's what I need.   >> I can send you a catalog.
Actually, when I go -- I know we have been speaking with you before,
now that we have seen you it's a different thing.
You know what I mean?
So give me a ways, again, and I will send you my -- a catalog.
We will send you some sample of materials too
that you can use in your class.
>> -- Simon's address, you can send it to him.
>> Yes.   >> I had one more question.
The other question is on this catalog,
would have all your materials so I would know how to get them
if we want them for our school?   And prices or whatever --
>> Yes.   >> I would like to comment.
One of them, when you are inside working with the Haitian community,
if you identify a need and you wish there were a book available
on the subject, you may also want to contact us to tell us about it,
either because you want to publish that book or you would like for us
to find somebody interested to write.
Because there's nothing like being in the field an identifying needs.
Once you know that the book is needed then we are at our best
to connect and get that books written for you.
>> Yeah. I understand that [Inaudible] --
[ Background noise ]   [ Inaudible audience comment ]
>> -- and so as I found myself in a foreign culture
with a foreign language, it was a struggle
for me to learn the language.
But it was not long after I was there that I became aware
that these people had very few books to read.
And I think reading is so important in developing the mind
and another thing that has become impressed in my mind is the fact
that parents can't read stories to their children.
And there's something about parents reading stories to their children,
it helps them even before they go to school,
it helps them to develop an understanding of books, writing,
education, and understanding of other people's lives,
the problems -- the problems that other people face in their lives
and how they overcome those problems.
At the same time, an older gentleman with me told me,
he said I will sweep the floor, you write.
And that became -- that began an inspiration to me,
to do what I could to make some materials available
for these people.   So my work there began.
It's a Mennonite.
We began as a church group because of a migrant worker that came
to our community and wanted to become part of our church,
and now we have grown to having a school, not sure what the --
what was the enrollment in the past year.
All right, enrollment during the school was 57.
Then since the earthquake, there were other church groups
that we affiliate with and came to us and said you're established
in Haiti, we want you to take a step in helping with this rebuilding.
And so we have begun a rebuilding work in Coatafair [Phonetic],
which is in the southern part of Haiti.
So for myself, I have began a small print shop.
I have published two books that I have translated into Creole
for children because of the interest for providing something
for these children to read.
But most of the things that I have published is Bible study material
for use in our church, Sunday school literature,
as well as some other books for Bible study material.
One question that has come to me, and this is not necessarily
in relation to education
but something I think I see as I study the language.
I spend, since I have come home,
I spend a lot of time reading my Creole Bible, the Bible,
to keep myself current with the language.
I also read the book Sezisman, and I noticed a different style
in the writing between the Bible and the Sezisman.
How do you explain that difference?
Are both easily understood by the Haitian people?
My concern in my work is that what I'm doing is understandable
to the Haitian people, because I'm not naturally born Haitian.
>> I could -- theoretically, you have three questions,
but I could answer
without necessarily having the answers to my questions.
The Bible, Bible, was -- first of all, I must say that really,
especially in [Inaudible] there's a tremendous passion to learn to read
with the purpose of reading the Bible.
And the Bible has always been regardless of language,
a source for our motivation for literacy in Haiti.
I've seen it, as a kid I used to go to camp, you know, I have seen it.
There's a group in Switzerland or in Europe, I think it's Switzerland,
it's World Bible Society?
Who translated the Haitian Creole Bible, that was many years ago,
probably 25, 30 years ago.
Then the orthography was not as defined as it is, you know,
maybe 20 years ago, 15, 20 years ago.
So the version of the Bible you have may have been
with the orthography before there is that -- well, not a standardization,
but at least a clean and clear definition for the orthography
and some of the element of the syntax of Haitian Creole.
So if the Bible was, you know, 20 years ago,
[Inaudible] there is an issue of orthography.
Is that right?   Do you see [Inaudible] for example?
>> Yes, the current edition of the Bible I have is in the most new --
there is a new, and I have one of those that I use.
>> Okay, I know there is some --
there was to be a new edition of the Bible
with all the orthography issue resolved.
Let's assume that you have one of those.
Spelling should be pretty much the same except
for maybe three elements.
One is the apostrophe and one the hyphen.
Is that what you notice also?   >> Yeah.
>> Okay. Then it -- if it's --
if it's that, not orthography per se, the issue is stylistic.
One that -- both are correct.
Although I don't see them in front of mine,
I'm assuming that there is -- there is a tendency in writing style not
to use the hyphen unless you are, you know, you have a long word.
And also there's an issue of the -- the pronoun, the compliments,
and the -- what did I say was the other element?
People use apostrophe for the -- for pronoun, I'm losing my mind now --
so if that is the issue, apostrophe and hyphen, when to use them,
when not to use them, it's -- it's a stylistic issue.
At Educa Vision we selected to use a stylish approach
that is very simple.
We don't use the apostrophe with the hyphen.
So you won't see that [Inaudible] at all.
>> I would like to add two more things.
One Sezisman is also fiction.
So when you're writing fiction style it is different
than the Bible that's supposedly is reporting a fact.
So the figurative, all the [Inaudible] and other work
of creating a character and making [Inaudible] even some Creoles,
sometimes you will find for one or two particular characters
that they don't speak proper Creole.
Because that's part -- that's defined the character.
This particular character has to have a -- an attitude.
And although Haiti is small and all Haitians speak Creole,
I have to give you the news that some of us add a little bit
of spice here or spice there.
Some Haitians are pretty reluctant in speaking [Inaudible] Creole,
we have a Creole that is spiced with some French to a different degree.
And in the book when you are reading fiction,
if the character is supposed to represent somebody with some level
of sophistication or what wants to create an image,
you will see in the written words.
>> That explains it, because I had no trouble understanding the Bible.
I had trouble speaking [Inaudible] the people.
But then I read this book, and then my question is do I make it
clear [Inaudible].
>> Well, [Inaudible] did you read, excuse me, Lafami Bonplezi?
>> No, I don't have that book.
>> You don't have -- well, [Inaudible] advertising myself,
but I am going to suggest because these two novels are connected,
in the first one this is a family leaving Haiti, one by one,
and their interaction among themselves,
between the nuclear family still in Haiti and the members
who are leaving their home land.
So the interaction is basically between
and within the members of that family.
So it's more -- how [Inaudible] the second thought,
Sezisman is now the family reacting to the world,
including to the reality of Haiti and Haiti's politics.
So Sezisman is a little bit more difficult to maybe place in the --
in the mind of the author, if you have not read the Lafami Bonplezi.
Although they are connected.
One would make you laugh and probably be more entertaining.
The second one is more reflective.   [Inaudible] one over the other.
>> In terms of the question is
that because every character has their own singularity,
it will happen that one of them would speak --
would have a French way of saying things.
And that point would be lost a little bit, because it is not
so much about the Creole, it's about the character of what he represents
in that particular context.
>> And that's always my challenge too,
and I do have Haitian [Inaudible] that always [Inaudible]
and scrutinize it, and make sure that it's understandable.
So --
>> I just want to mention very briefly, there was a scholar
from England, really did a dissection of these two books.
And said things in a way that I really cannot say better,
showing how because there is a -- such we call an aspect of this book,
because there is some kind of -- not a critic, but really an analysis
of Haitian society with all the visible
and invisible stratifications,
and the characters really can get somebody lost
in the detail particularities of Haitian
because of the way they talk.
But some characters are authentic and speak the authentic Creole
that you would find in the Bible.
>> So then you would say that the Bible is a good standard
for a language that the people could understand throughout the country?
>> Yes.
>> If the orthographical issues that I said we had
in the first edition twenty or more years ago,
if these are solved, it's perfect.
>> Yes, I think it's a fairly new edition.
>> Thank you.
>> Hello, I'm Marie Rasine [Assumed spelling], Haitian,
and I live in Washington, D.C..
I would like to say congratulations for all the efforts
that you have made, and your persistence
with the project, really.
I am -- I would like to ask about the accessibility of the material
for people in the rural area and the cost, you know, for them.
If they are not supported by an organization, if they have to get
to the material available through their own means.
What arrangements are you able to do for them?
>> Yes, I am very delighted [Inaudible] to see you here,
I'm real proud you come, and consider it -- I'm happy to see you.
The books -- books are expensive.
What we do now is that we know that the people in the rural area,
even people in the urban area cannot buy our books.
They -- we deal and collaborate with priest, with Pastors, with NGO's,
and we help them with fund raising activities to find money
to buy books for the family, for the children, for the schools.
I have several scenarios.
We, for example, even the hospital [Inaudible] for example,
there are more in it, in health than education.
But they have a section where they collaborate with education
to get people to read for the kids.
And they hire readers in the community to read for the children
when the children are in the hospital.
Even now -- this, for example,
would have fund raising money to buy a book.
We help them with fund raising.
Sometimes we provide them with materials that --
in English for Americans who in turn give money, you know, for books.
We -- we give discount too, but we think it's very difficult
to deal with so many discounts.
We do that, but while we do more often is to help people who want
to do fund raising activities, help them,
provide them organizational support, even give them some books in English
from donors to generate revenues.
And these companies can in turn be used to buy books
for their libraries, for their schools, for the children,
for their family, or for the programs.
>> Thank you very much for your answer.
And also I want to say, you know, a good word for the effort
of using the electronic system.   And the technology.
It's also something that calls for a lot of thought
about how soon can we get the technology in the most remote areas
and have people, you know, use it.
But it is certainly something that Haiti needs to take advantage of,
because in the 21st century we have to go by leaps, you know,
and bounds in order to bridge the gap.
Because we are very far behind.
And you know, you led the way, and continue.
But make the means also possible, you know,
for people to -- thank you.   >> Thank you.
I'm glad you mentioned that.   We -- we all in a dilemma, actually,
a [Inaudible] if that's the right word,
we find that the computer technology or even -- well, that's a --
computer technology and Internet,
and [Inaudible] in Haiti is very low.
Especially in rural areas.
We know, for example, one laptop per child is a program
who will provide laptops to children in Haiti.
And I've been to Haiti recently after, you know, [Inaudible] I sit
down in a place where there were twelve kids with twelve one laptop,
you know, or [Inaudible] PC, playing with it.
It give me goose bump to see these kids, 7 to 13, girls or boys,
play with a computer and doing things.
I mean, after half an hour I saw what they were doing,
didn't matter what they did, but the fact that they have a computer,
they are using the keyboard, they can accessing it,
they are creating small coding routine and so on and so forth.
But the most difficult part of putting a computer in the hand
of children is that it's a terrible thing
when there is no content for a child to use.
And the technology needs to be also accompanied by the content.
So people of that international organization give the computer,
and you go there, no content.
So we say even the [Inaudible] is high, let's build it.
Because by the time we build it there will be more incentive
to put the computer in the hand of the children.
And also the children will have access to material
that will value their experience, because it's good to use material
that is developed to construct other citizens, but is good also
to have material that is --
developed to [Inaudible] own citizenry.
so we are [Inaudible] with that route.
But despite the fact that we're developing it,
we don't even have our [Inaudible] motto for it.
We still [Inaudible] but we cannot continue that way
because we need to be sustainable too.
So we're talking with, you know, NGO's, or people who know how
to do fund raising to see if they could collaborate with us,
to leave it -- continue to leave it free.
If not, then we will have to develop a model
to generate revenue so to make it do-able.
>> Well, how about the Haitian government?
And trying to see how -- there have been promises made.
So perhaps that's a plus.
>> Yeah, I think it's a good suggestion.
I will make a quick comment because we have been here for twenty years,
and I have met at least five ministry of educations,
three presidents, and -- so I have an idea of what will happen already.
>> Thank you very, very, very, very, much.
>> You're welcome.
I have to say, though, we have a very open door
with the minister of education.   Everything we do we let them know.
And sometimes they invite us to meetings.
Even though in terms of concrete suggestion
and crystallization, nothing happened yet.
But we keep that door open with them, I'm happy, I'm proud to do it.
>> Very, very good.
And also a special thanks to the Caribbean studies developer.
>> Good afternoon.
Hi, my name is Evelyn Bonham [Assumed spelling] and I --
well, I am now -- I follow in Dr. Rasine's foot step,
because she is a friend of my family,
so I kind of grew up, you know, with her.
And she is -- has been an inspiration.
So briefly, I am a retired lawyer, but now I am in education,
and she is [Inaudible] I don't know if she wants
to acknowledge it, but she's my mentor.
She's teaching me, I have informal conversations with her
where we discuss, you know, educational issues,
and you know, different issues.
Anyway, my question for you is that I am very sorry
that I haven't seen your catalog.
So I have no idea, really, what you do.
But what occurred to me while I was listening to all of this is that,
and correct me if I am wrong, you have products that Haiti needs.
So you're oriented toward Haiti.
But in Haiti, we have no, for many reasons, the resources to pay you
to continue production are kind of scarce, or generally inevitable.
Do you have a part of your production that is directed
to the educational system of the US, so you could be --
you would be in Florida selling to Haiti, Haiti [Inaudible]
but you could be selling here and with the expectation on the whole
that you would get easier financing right there.
Does it go both ways?
>> Yes. I am very happy to speak with you, Mrs. Bonham.
I have to guess -- when I was a kid my parents --
my father used to take me to a church, and there was a lady there,
beautiful lady, I wouldn't be surprised if she's not your mother,
because you look so much like her.
She -- like Mrs. Bonham, [Inaudible] yeah?
>> You got it.   >> Your mother?
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> I don't know which one, because it's -- a lot of them.
>> One of them looked like you.   It's incredible.
>> You may be an aunt?   >> Not my one.
>> We -- if we -- we have two elements of a business.
One that provide support material for Haitians
to live in the United States.
We have material in English about Haiti, like culture,
cuisine, art, in English.
And we have material for the classroom, language art,
content like mathematics, geography, for --
bilingual, English and [Inaudible] came from Haiti,
while they are learning English so they will have material,
content material to develop their cognitive skills while learning,
you know, developing linguistic skills in English.
So this part of the business really support the other part,
the [Inaudible] you have it right.   >> Okay. Thank you.
And I look forward to learning more and talking further
so we can see how we can cooperate.   >> Yes, I would like that.
>> My name is Karl, and I served in Haiti a number of years ago.
My question today is a request that comes from some
of our school teachers in our school in porta pay.
They are wondering if you or somehow we could find a copy of all
of the pictures of all the presidents of Haiti.
In our classrooms, in our schools here in the United States,
it's not unusual to see 8-and-a-half by 11 size posters
of all the presidents,
from president George Washington all the way up to President Obama today.
And some of our school teachers are wishing they could have a similar
display like that in their classrooms?
>> There are.   There are many, actually.
We don't publish one, but there are many.
I would be happy to send it, for one -- I would be happy to send you one.
But we have a book also that has --
it's called Leaders of Haiti, it's in English.
It has all the leaders of Haiti, from [Inaudible] --
>> That is a book that you produced?   >> Yes.
>> Okay.
>> We have that too, we have [Inaudible] updated yet,
but this is [Inaudible] updated.
But the chart an the poster that you talk about, I'll take your --
your communication, I'll send you one.
Because there are plenty.
I see them all the time in libraries, in Miami.
>> Okay. Well, if you could send
that information along To Brother Simon.
And perhaps if you could send several copies of your catalog
so that several of us get to see that, we would appreciate it.
>> I will do that.   >> Okay. Thank you.
>> You're welcome.   Okay, well, the plan has changed.
[ Laughter ]
>> I must say for her that she is -- she just finished first grade,
she did kindergarten last year, last year she was in --
she received the superintendent award for reading 100 books.
And this year also she's on the list,
several kids in her school who read 100 books.
So she got the second trophy.   She's collecting them.
Hopefully we'll get 12.   >> And this is so interesting,
what [Inaudible] is saying, and it's up here a lot.
But all it takes, really, is maybe one book every other day,
and it's amazing how reading books
and telling stories open minds to kids.
And we were on our way coming here Saturday, taking the plane
and somebody stop and ask how old is she, with some kind of interest
in the reason, really, was because she appeared to be pretty cognitive.
Usually she's not shy, but I don't know what happened,
today she's too impressed.
But you'd be surprised, her vocabulary and how much she knows
and how much she retains from these books,
and how much creativity comes from reading books.
So really, we know, with our own experience at home
that every book is a key to a new door.
And there is no limit.
The more you read the more you learn, I'm sure you know that.
>> I would like, you know, work in your activities
to share this cultural or reality to create a way of one,
at least one independent reader.
Somebody who love to read and read independently.
>> Is she reading in English and Creole?
>> Both. But now she's mostly reading in English.
But we read our books for her in Creole too.
>> And we do story-telling in Creole too.
For some reason she finds a lot of interest in the --
you see, now she's already laughing --
a lot of interest in the stories from Haiti.
I don't know because of the way I tell her the stories,
because I tell her the stories the way they were told to me,
with all the spice and all those unpredictabilities.
She likes the stories in Creole.
We are trying to keep her Creole up, and with new family members who came
to join us in Florida after the earthquake,
her French has improved too, because she's got kids
who speak both Creole and French.
So we are keeping the interest in all the languages.
>> I'm Karl, and I'm wondering about your first familiarity
with the English language.   You were born in Haiti, correct?
>> Yes.
>> So how did you first start learning English?
>> In high school, I don't remember elementary school,
but at least certainly in high school I had to take four languages.
>> Right.
>> I took Latin for three years, Greek for two years,
English for three years, and Spanish for one year.
>> Okay.
>> So by the time I went to -- after high school I travelled.
I went to Montreal, Canada.   My English grammar was pretty good.
It's -- the understanding and the speaking that I need to develop.
So by books and by classroom, I started Spanish, English.
And --
>> So you first started learning English as a high school student?
>> Yes. In Haiti.   And Spanish too.
>> Okay. That's interesting.
>> When I went to Montreal I went there to go to school
in French, college in French.
I went to Montreal because it's the closest French-speaking environment
that I have access to.
In other words, Montreal is accessible to my family.
So I went there.
But after by two years of what they call [Inaudible] I decided
to go to school in English.
I went to Concorda University in English,
and I was about to immediately get through.
Each though all these years I still, you know,
And I think more Maude, it's the same thing too.
>> Actually, my experience has been, I'll say worse.
Because I was really -- well, yours was better than mine, I should say.
Because I was definitely impressed -- too impressed by English.
I found -- I [Inaudible] Latin, I didn't do great.
I took some Spanish and some English.
But I just was not too comfortable with all the languages.
I don't know, I was maybe too scared, and you know sometimes
when you decide it's too hard, then it's hard.
So after high school I went to Central America without any Spanish,
we were just talking about that a little bit earlier.
And the first week was scary, the first month was worrisome,
and by the six month I just have to stand and do my presentation
like every college student.
So I got my [Inaudible] after school,
I get my [Inaudible] Spanish, I learned Spanish.
By the time I graduated four-and-a-half years later I was
very comfortable to the point that people ask me if I was
from either the Dominican Republic or Panama.
So that does mean pretty much the accent was taken care of as well.
Now, still no English, still scared of English until 1984,
when I came to this country probably -- 1983, that's when I decided well,
I can no longer avoid it, we are coming to live in this country,
I have to speak the language.   And I am a talker.
I like to talk.   My husband say it, it is true.
So I start working, got a position because I was comfortable in Spanish
in Massachusetts, and there were not too many Spanish-speaking people
in my field.
But I had to learn some English at night.
I took two months, after work I would go to school,
and after two months by doing my homework, paying attention,
the teacher say okay, I think I have no more room for you.
Yeah, I'm going to let you go and just practice.
And that was end of December.
By January, I realized that I had to practice, and I did.
Less than five years later, I wrote a piece in English
and not only was accepted, but I got paid for it.
So I realize language is --
is an instrument, you just have to play it.
And the more you practice the better you do.
And you having been in Haiti and learning
and participating in Creole, you know.
You surprise yourself every day.   Yeah, so --
>> Do you still know Spanish and Latin?
>> My Latin has decreased because I have not used it.
But I know it's still there,
because when I'm facing a word I don't know I look for the Latin root
and I will get pretty close to the real definition,
because I [Inaudible] as for Spanish, I know now people ask me
where did you learn Spanish [Inaudible] lost some of the accent,
however, it's still well alive, and I use it as often as I can.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you very much for your generosity with information,
with your time, your great warmth, your great commitment.
It was wonderful to have you here today.
>> Thank you very, very much.   >> Thank you for having us --
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.