Lead Haiti, under the direction of Rev. Jose Jean-Pierre, is No Forgotten Kids’ implementation partner in Haiti, where NFK is testing a model designed to create self-financing, community-owned schools. Académie Lead Haiti, near Milot in northern Haiti, serves 200 students across primary and secondary levels with a 100% Haitian staff. Parents volunteer alongside teachers. Solar energy powers part of the campus. This is a school built by its community from the start.
Frank Shooster, Founder, Sponsor, and Chief Strategist for No Forgotten Kids, authored A Blueprint: A Framework for Educational Autonomy, the model NFK is now implementing at Académie Lead Haiti. The framework integrates 78 evidence-based interventions into a single school system, designed to do something most education programs have never attempted: make the school self-financing.
The idea is specific, not theoretical. A school garden feeds students at lunch and sells surplus at market. A poultry program produces eggs for the campus and trains students in animal husbandry. A sewing workshop makes school uniforms and sells garments to the surrounding community. Solar panels power classrooms and generate income through a community charging kiosk. Each intervention reduces cost or generates revenue. Together, they transform the school from a permanent cost center into what the model calls an Economic Development Center, where education, energy, agriculture, and vocational training reinforce one another.
At full implementation, the model projects an all-in cost of $194 per child per year, against $342 in revenue generated by the school’s own activities, producing a $148 surplus that funds quality improvements and expansion. The dollar figures are Haiti-proven, the hardest operating environment on earth; the architecture is universal. The donor exits. The community keeps the school.
Edie Scott, M.Ed., was asked to lead No Forgotten Kids as Executive Director, bringing Peace Corps service as a Fisheries Extension Agent in Burundi, and 25 years in UX research and instructional design to the mission. “In Burundi, I helped farmers build tilapia ponds that fed their families and generated income,” Scott says. “That is the same principle behind A Blueprint. When a community owns a productive asset, it sustains itself.”
Haiti is the proving ground. But the model was designed to work anywhere traditional funding falls short of demand.
“We are not asking people to fund a school forever,” Scott says. “We are asking them to invest once in a school that will then finance itself. The world is our mission.”
