"Through education the Haitians will be able to make a better life for themselves. I know it's not the only answer. There's got to be economic development. There's got to be social justice improvement--all these things. But education is a cornerstone to how those pieces come together," said Steve Geurink with Worldwide Christian Schools.
WWCS has been involved in the development, writing and planning of a new curriculum for several years. They observed that thousands of students in small Christian schools had no unified curriculum and that the education was quite poor.
"Forty different organizations came together and decided to build a curriculum from scratch that would address their community, their culture. It's the Creole curriculum, and it would be something that would help education in that country in many ways," said Geurink.
The other forty organizations help provide for other needs that WWCS is not equipped to address, such as medical and food needs, so that by their combined strengths they'll be more fully equipped.
The ministry has been asked to build schools in Haiti as they do in other areas in the Caribbean. However, with this curriculum program, they are focusing on the production of the curriculum and providing training for the teachers who will use it. About 40,000 students and teacher will be exposed to this program this year alone--many for the first time.
"Because it's based on the Gospel and the Christian worldview, they look at their world and their country in a different way than they did before," Geurink said.
Geurink asks that Christians remain aware of both education and relief needs of Haitians and of ministries that are providing for those needs: "We truly need both in Haiti."
