Transformational Travel
To build greater understanding across the global economic divide, Beyond Borders organizes reflective journeys to Haiti for small groups from churches, colleges, and community organizations. Beyond Borders creates opportunities for authentic dialogue between these visitors and their Haitian hosts. Groups generally come to Haiti for one to two weeks. At least three days are spent in a rural Haitian community where participants divide into small groups, each with a translator, and stay in the homes of local Haitian families. The experience is often life-changing for participants, which is why we call this Transformational Travel.
>> Click here to learn more.

The Apprenticeship in Shared Living
Too often, we who are privileged attempt to serve those who suffer injustice from a position of power, safety, and even with a feeling of moral superiority. Christ came into the world and served by laying aside power and taking on the limits and frailties of human flesh. Beyond Borders seeks in the incarnation of Christ its model for ministry and service. Through the Apprenticeship in Shared Living program, Beyond Borders places volunteers in Haitian communities for one to two years to live in simple solidarity with the poor, learning from them and sharing their life with them.
>> Click here to learn more.

Basic Education for Children
Only half of Haiti's school-aged children attend school. There are few public schools, and tuition for private schools is often too expensive for poorer Haitian families. Consequently, millions of Haiti's children grow up illiterate and remain trapped in a cycle of grinding poverty. Beyond Borders supports over 50 literacy centers for children, providing some of Haiti's poorest children with literacy skills and a basic education. Most of the children in these centers have been forced to live apart from their families and work without pay as domestic servants in the homes of others. Often, the literacy center provides the only nurture and support these children receive. You can support an entire literacy center through the Partnership of Hope.
>> Click here to learn more.

Adult Literacy Training
Roughly three quarters of Haiti's adult population is functionally illiterate. Many adults never had the chance to attend school. Others may have attended school for only a few years or attended a school where teachers were untrained. Through the Partnership of Hope and the Literacy Scholarship Fund, Beyond Borders supports 30 literacy centers for adults, covering the cost of classroom materials, teacher training and salaries, supervision, and logistical support for each center. Participants in this program learn to read at a basic level in their first year. In the second year of the program, participants begin applying their new skills to the demands of daily life and work to improve their comprehension and composition. About 80 percent of the participants are women. You can support an entire adult literacy center through the Partnership of Hope or provide one adult with the gift of literacy through the Literacy Scholarship Fund.
>> Click here to read a visitor's account of a visit to one of the adult literacy centers.

Circles of Change The traditional approach to leadership in Haiti to be very domineering and dictatorial, which stifles creativity and motivation and often fuels conflict. Having a position of power is often taken as a license to talk and not listen, to tell and not ask, to demand and not serve. Circles of Change promotes the spread of Reflection Circles and Open Space as a means of advancing a more participatory approach to leadership. John Engle and Fremy Cesar co-coordinator this program. Click here to learn more about Circles of Change.

Living Words This new Beyond Borders program introduces an ancient participatory spiritual practice called lectio divina to Haiti's Christian community. Not only does this practice equip lay people to nurture themselves directly through reflection on Scripture and prayer, it also encourages the same kind of progressive change in Haitian churches and among church leaders that Beyond Borders supports in Haitian classrooms and among Haitian teachers. This effort is also helping break down the class and denominational divisions that plague the church and encouraging greater participation from church members who have traditionally been excluded and marginalized. The ultimate aim is to give everyone in the church greater access to the wisdom and riches of the Scriptures regardless of their position, economic standing, or educational level. Kent Annan coordinates the Living Words program.

Campaign Against Child Slavery
Roughly 300,000 or about 1 in 10 Haitian children live apart from their families in unpaid domestic servitude. These children who are most often girls are often horribly exploited and abused. Few attend school, get any medical care, or receive the love and nurture that all children need. During adolescence, most are turned out into the streets and are left to fend for themselves with no marketable skills. Beyond Borders is supporting a Haitian campaign that aims to bring an end the exploitation of Haitian children who live in servitude.
>> Click here to learn more.

Teacher Training & Education Reform
Few teachers in Haiti have graduated from high school, and fewer yet have had any specialized teacher training. Most teach the way they were taught. With threats of beatings and humiliation, they force their students to memorize and recite long texts in a language neither the students nor the teachers can speak. Far from being liberated by this kind of schooling, students learn to accept domination and to abdicate their responsibility to question, think, and speak for themselves. The mind-numbing busy work does little to prepare students to face Haiti's harsh economic reality. By training teachers, Beyond Borders is equipping agents of change who have tremendous influence in their communities. Each teacher touches hundreds and even thousands of lives during his or her career. Most teachers in Haiti long for more training and eagerly embrace more liberating and productive pedagogical methods, such as Reflection Circles and CLE. You can help by supporting a local Teacher Development Cooperative or by helping us publish and distribute new training materials and textbooks. Please contact us for more information.

Partnerships & Associates
Some organizations measure their growth by looking at increases in the size of budgets and the number of staff members. In Beyond Borders’ ten years of existence, we have resisted the urge to grow in size to allow ourselves to grow instead in effectiveness. Beyond Borders has grown some in size over the ten years of our existence, we have sought to focus on growing in effectiveness. Our willingness to remain relatively small as an international organization has allowed us to focus on this growth. By working collaboratively with other organizations we have been able to expand our reach synergistically. And through our associate staff, we are able to build on the pioneering spirit of social entrepreneurs without having to expand our own budget.
>> Click here to learn more about our partnerships and associate staff.

Philosophy of Our Work

When funding projects in Haiti, Beyond Borders and our sister organization in Haiti, Fondasyon Limyè Lavi, are guided by principles laid out in a document we call Principles of Engagement.

Beyond Borders staff members engage in their work out of devotion to Christ and are committed to living simply as a demonstration of the abundance of God's love and their kinship with people who struggle for survival in places like Haiti. While living among the people, speaking their language, participating in their work, and striving to live close to their economic level, our staff members have discovered the great wealth of many of their Haitian friends who, though poor materially, are rich in generosity, resourcefulness, and love.