Interview with Haitian activist Rea Dol
Rea Dol is grassroots community organiser and founder of SOPUDEP school in Port-au-Prince. Shortly after the earthquake they had to abandon the school which was being used as a shelter due to the stench of dead bodies and sturtural damage which made the building unsafe.
For the school to continue it will have to relocate. A group of students and teachers are trying to design temporary classrooms on a new site which the school bought through donations last year.
Design for the new school

Here Rea speaks to Kathlene McGuinness of Ryerson University Toronto, about the aftermath of the earthquake and her hopes for the school in the future.
Interview
1. Could you take us through a normal day at SOPUDEP before the earthquake?
Rea: A normal day, all the children come to study at school, as usual, the children go to their classrooms, and when means allow, they receive a hot meal at school. The first group finishes at 1:00pm, and then in the afternoon we help street children to work hard to learn a trade skill. We work, following the pedagogical program of the National Education Ministry that they supply us with—that’s the one we use.
2. What is your vision for the new school? What would you like to see happen?
Rea: As we work with groups abroad, such as in California, with Seth (Donnelly) and the union members, we have been working to try to secure a (new) site (for the school), and we will communicate with Ryan (Sawatzky) as well. The former building, I had a 10-year contract, which is ending in 2012, and I have received many threats, so we were looking at the new school for SOPUDEP. Therefore, we were looking at the possibilities to have a new land and site for the school.
3. What materials are available to you on the ground right now?
Anything you can think of – not just normal building materials – pop
cans, cardboard boxes, etc.
Rea: We do not have available (heavy construction) materials…we can’t recuperate them. Some of the structures have been destroyed. The space where we worked with the small children was condemned after the earthquake, because it structurally cracked, and was damaged; therefore, neither children nor adults would be secure inside. The other building had some things break inside. There isn’t (heavy) material available at this point.
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