Nonprofit Organization Summits Education Launches to Transform Education Systems in Rural Haiti
Boston, NY, March 28, 2016 (Newswire.com) - Summits Education (www.summits.org) today announces the launch of their nonprofit organization dedicated to building education systems in rural Haiti. Haiti currently lacks a national education system and suffers from both the highest poverty rate and lowest literacy rate in the Western Hemisphere.
Summits Education is co-founded by Paul English, a Boston investor and entrepreneur and current CEO of the new travel startup, Lola (lolatravel.com). Paul is the original founder of Kayak.com which was sold to Priceline in 2013 for $2.1 billion. Paul is joined by co-founders Mike Chambers, a social entrepreneur, and Marie Flore Chipps, a Haitian native who has devoted her life to furthering education and social justice in Haiti.
The organization operates a network of 41 primary schools in Haiti’s poorest region, the Central Plateau. Prior to Summits, the network was under the management of Partners in Health in Haiti (pih.org) a recognized global health organization founded by Dr. Paul Farmer. Partners in Health will continue to work in collaboration with Summits as a hands-on partner both in Haiti and in Boston.
“Having been involved with healthcare in Haiti for a dozen years through Partners in Health, I decided in 2015 to cofound Summits to focus on improving education systems,” says Paul. “Much of healthcare work is reactionary curing sickness while work in education is the opposite building systems are integral to supporting teachers and students today and for decades ahead.”
Summits invests in the teachers and administrators in the primary network through intensive training, ongoing coaching, and competitive wages. Additionally, Summits works with partners including Partners in Health and The University of Notre Dame, to provide the additional interventions critical to student and teacher success including infrastructure, sanitation programs and school feeding programs.
“It's our collaborative impact model that sets us apart,” says Mike Chambers. “By working with community leaders, national and local governments and established partners, we’ll be able to ensure delivery and effectively track and measure the success of each intervention.”
Additionally, Summits is set to break ground on Summits Academy in 2016 in collaboration with Jim Ansara, founder of Shawmut Construction and Build Health International. Summits Academy will serve as a teacher training center and secondary school for high performing students in the Central Plateau. In addition to providing the teachers in the network with
intensive trainings, Summits Academy will provide students with a holistic and competitive education focused on entrepreneurship and social justice.
Summits Education launches with a new website, a nine week launch campaign called Teacher’s First, and ongoing content that will highlight, through compelling video and imagery, its initiatives in the Central Plateau. The Summits team works full time in both Boston and in Haiti, allowing the team to produce unique, timely content straight from the schools, teachers, and communities it supports.
Haiti is remembered in public memory by the devastating earthquake that struck the country in 2010. Haiti recently resurfaced in international news earlier this year due to precarious presidential elections that turned violent. Summits seeks to change the narrative by highlighting the many bright spots in the Caribbean country and focus on education and an investment in people.
About Summits Education: Summits Education builds education systems to transform the world's most impoverished communities and starts by investing in teachers. Summits operates a network of 41primary schools serving nearly 10,000 students. Summits provides curriculum support, fair and consistent teacher compensation, and ongoing training and development for the teachers and administrators in their network.
The Summits primary network grew out of the work of Partners In Health over the last 25 years. Recent partnerships include the Digicel Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, University of Quisqueya, and University of Notre Dame.
About the Teacher’s First campaign: The nine week launch campaign aims to raise $100,000 to fund innovative training programs and ongoing professional development for the 328 teachers and administrators who run the network of 41 primary schools operated by Summits. The top individual fundraiser will win a trip to Haiti with the Summits team.
The Opportunity: In Haiti, the vast majority of teachers lack basic teaching qualifications. Haitian students suffer from rote-style instruction which fails to develop the critical thinking and problem solving skills necessary to becoming competitive community and economic change makers. Haitian educators, having grown up in similar systems, do not have access to the training that would allow them to transform their students’ learning experience.
Press Contact
Mary Hurd
Director of Communications, Summits Education
[email protected]| 6175453327
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Tags: education, haiti, nonprofit