Harvard January Term - Alternative Orphanage Designs + New Spaces for Haiti's Children

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Shelby Elizabeth Doyle

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Nov 5, 2010, 3:29:58 PM11/5/10
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Dear Shelter Cluster,
We are currently looking to partner with an organization on the ground in Haiti that would find our research useful and productive - particularly a group with a building project in the works. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated, we want to refine our research proposal to be as useful as possible.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Best,
Shelby Doyle (MArch 11)
Marika Shioiri-Clark (MArch 11)

Alternative Orphanage Designs + New Spaces for Haiti's Children Workshop
J-Term (January 3-14, 2011) Exact Time + Dates TBD
Harvard Graduate School of Design
The Harvard Graduate School of Design Social Agency Research Laboratory, in partnership with Professor Jacqueline Bhabha, invites you to participate in a (3-day?) workshop focusing on

The Social Agency Research Lab addresses challenges of social and economic development, disaster relief, and anticipatory planning and design. The Lab is a part of the Research Advancement Initiative, chaired by Professor Hashim Sarkis and was created with the goal of integrating professional education with the academic pursuits of the research university and addressing emerging topics of common interest, this year “A School for the Year 2030.”
Jacqueline  Bhaba is the Jeremiah Smith Jr lecturer in law at Harvard Law School, the Director of Research at the Franois Bagnoud Xavier Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard and the University Adviser on Human Rights Education to the Provost at Harvard University. She is also a lecturer on public policy at Harvard Kennedy School.
 
The January 2010 Hatian earthquake left 1.3 million Hatian's homeless, many of whom are children. Immediately following the earthquake the
 FXB Center produced an assessment of Hatian children's needs. These children face economic hardship, limited access to education, high rates of institutionalized care, large numbers of street children, and the Haiti-specific restavèk phenomenon. French for “to stay with,” restavèk was described to us as a derogatory term used to designate children who have been sent away from their home to work as domestic laborers in other households. 

The Alternative Orphanage Designs + New Spaces for Haiti's Children Workshop will examine new models of architecture and thought regarding the future of Haitian children. We will examine existing practices and propose multi-use strategies for community outreach, education and redevelopment. The goal is to produce a proposal and body of research that provide alternatives to traditional orphanages and foreign adoptions, particularly for children linked to extended family networks unable to care for them. This research will include a rethinking of spaces for children to include health, education, housing and security.


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