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By Tequila Minsky, Heritagekonpa Magazine

Michele Pierre-Louis of FOKAL, Haiti's Educational and Cultural Foundation, Wins Traiblazer Award For Making a Difference.

Michele Pierre-Louis receives award for her tireless work on behalf of the people of Haiti

Michele Pierre-Louis, executive director of FOKAL, an independent educational and cultural organization based in Haiti, has been named Trailblazer honoree for 2007 by Dialogue on Diversity. FOKAL is an acronym for Fondasyon Konesans Ak Libete (Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty). Dialogue on Diversity is a seventeen-year-old Washington-based organization that targets women of diverse ethnic and cultural communities. Annually, the organization recognizes women of great entrepreneurial and international achievement.

Born in the southern Haitian city of Jeremie, Ms. Pierre-Louis lives in Port-au-Prince and has worked most of her life for the poor, the inadequately- or non-educated, and the urban and rural dispossessed of Haiti. As the FOKAL founding director, she has guided and shaped the organization through the past eleven tumultuous years in Haiti.

FOKAL pursues goals of developing the country and building foundations for democracy by nurturing thinking and supporting educational and cultural projects. Developing pre-schools and promoting a pre-school curriculum, supporting thirty-five community libraries nationwide, and sustaining numerous cultural activities are among the programs FOKAL has supported since it began in 1995. FOKAL's target groups are: children, youth, women and peasants. The Open Society Institute and other international and local organizations support the organization.

While creating a web of libraries throughout the country, Ms. Pierre-Louis realized that the populations that used the libraries needed not only books and a community center, but also access to water. When a community has access to water, the people are able to live as human beings. They can spend their time building community life instead of spending hours collecting water. Potable water too is necessary for a healthy population. Hence, FOKAL started working toward bringing water to different communities.

One completed pilot project is near Petit Goave, about one hour south of Port-au-Prince; another is near Dini about an hour north. To ensure maintenance of the systems, members of the community are trained to monitor and repair them and are equipped with parts. The Dini project also includes land irrigation.

A goal of FOKAL's water system projects is to have the people work together to benefit the greater community. Community ownership, involvement and responsibility of the project are community-building necessities and even when a water project is seemingly completed, FOKAL continues to be involved in this process.

Although George Soros who funds the Open Society Institute does not believe in financing large capital projects, constructing buildings, Ms. Pierre-Louis convinced him that infrastructure was so minimal in Haiti that it was impossible to move into an existing building in Port-au-Prince and transform it into a library, offices, and an auditorium, the growing needs of the organization. Through her vision and persuasion, a new three-story structure was completed in 2003 on Rue Christophe near downtown Port-au-Prince to house the multi-faceted programs of FOKAL.

An architectural presence in the color of orange, the new headquarters is a visual and functional respite amidst the surrounding crumbling streets. On the second floor is the Monique Calixte Library, the largest but not least of 35 community libraries that FOKAL supports. Children, youth and adults fill the tables and added chairs and through the library�s collection of books and periodicals are transported in a light infused reading room beyond their confines

On the first floor, a small state-of-the-art auditorium provides a setting for visitors to engage with plays, poetry readings, dance and music performances, and film screenings and to participate in educational seminars. A hall-atrium gallery exhibits artwork. The building�s entrance plaza serves as a venue for sculpture exhibitions. The three-story cultural nexus may be, in fact, the newest building for public use in Haiti.

Through the leadership of Ms. Pierre-Louis, FOKAL has maintained a stellar reputation as an organization that truly serves the people of Haiti and while the headquarters may be FOKAL�s anchor, do not be misled, programming reaches far and wide throughout the country. In a country of such need, Ms. Pierre-Louis sums up the value of FOKAL�s programming, �We offer,� she reflects, �pockets of hope.� For more information on FOKAL: Friends of FOKAL - What is Fokal?

H.E. Raymond Joseph, the Ambassador of Haiti, will present the Trailblazer Award to Ms. Pierre-Louis at the September 28th award ceremony in Washington DC at the Hall of the Americas, Organization of American States, Seventeenth Street and Constitution Avenues.

Among notables appearing for the occasion is Janet Murguia, President of the National Council of La Raza. The event is open to the public and registration for the Awards can be made by Internet at Entrepreneurial Excellence and International Awards powered by RegOnline.

Dialogue on Diversity seeks to exchange experience and ideas between its diverse women members. Among its many missions, its goal is to bring women through entrepreneurship and education into fullness of their economic potential, which can be the key to their empowerment in the civic and social realms as well. The Entrepreneurial Excellence Awards' ceremony tops off the year's cycle of programs.

Award recipients come from disciplines as diverse as current government officials, professors, women who have contributed in great measure to the U.N or innovators in the world of business.

Among those who have received the Trailblazer Award in years past are: Rep. Hilda Solis of California, Hon. Carol Robles-Roman, Deputy Mayor for Legal Affairs, NYC, and Representative Nydia Velazquez from Brooklyn/Queens. Michele Pierre-Louis is the first recipient of the Trailblazer Award who is living and working in a foreign country.