Arts & Education

Geoffrey and Liam visited the national college des arts where they met “Camelot” who is one of the country’s foremost artists. In the earthquake, he lost his fingers while holding a young child he saved from the rubble. Unable to obtain immediate care, he went for ten days with severed fingers and no treatment. Due to resulting gangrene and infections, they had to be removed. Now, Camelot stares at a pile of blank canvasses unsure precisely how he will continue his artistic endeavors. The students at the national art institute are trained in music, traditional art, sculpture, painting and acting. This is the only institute of art learning in the country.

The art school sits across the street from the national college of nursing which still retains one third of the nations nursing students in it collapsed structure. They smell. The debris pile is so large that it is not going to be removed anytime soon. This scene repeats itself in different scales all over the city. The implications for the future of Haiti are dire. 2/3 of the nations nursing schools lost their entire 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th year of students. There is no remedy for this situation.

In all places in Haiti, the students are the intellectual backbone of the society. They are the people who think about, talk about and try to resolve the many problems that Haiti faces. They are the pillars of Haitian society. Thousands of schools were destroyed along with more than 250 000 other structures.

Deaths in the earthquake resulted from falling buildings. The larger the building, the heavier it is, the more people that died. Educational institutions are all of the largest buildings in Port Au Prince. It has been impossible to remove the remains.

Geoffrey and Liam were taken to see Theirry’s school which was thick with the smell of rotting students. Remains had not been removed as much of the rubble was unstable. Leg sockets sat in the sun Our folks were taken to see the Faculte de Sciences Humains where the met with the director to pass along offers of assistance from the University of Winnipeg. This school did not lose as many students however it did lose several faculty and the director told us that every single member of the faculty lost immediate family.