Focus on Policy: Life and Literacy in Haiti: A Conversation with Jocelyne Trouillot

A year after the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January 2010, Lehman and Logan have a virtual conversation with Jocelyne Trouillot, author and publisher of Haitian Creole children’s books, founder of the Haiti section of the International Board on Books for Young People, and head of the Université Caraïbe in Port-au-Prince. They discuss the effects of the widespread destruction and Trouillot’s involvement in rebuilding her university and the Haitian education system, her work with traumatized children and colleagues, the workshops she developed for promoting new writers of children’s books, and her own writing. Anne Pellowski and Gail Bush, who have helped to lead these workshops in Haiti, also describe their experiences. Trouillot provides background for the status of language and literacy in the Haitian context.