Matènwa Community School
In the heart of Lagonav, a small rural school began planting the seeds of inquiry—nurturing curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking that would eventually blossom into the Matènwa Lab School.
Matènwa: Where Learning Sounds Like Home
Think back to your own childhood classroom. Were you free to ask questions? To move, to wonder, to speak your mind?
On a mountain on Lagonav Island, 344 children are living that freedom every day. At the Matènwa Community School, lessons unfold in Haitian Creole—the language children dream in. They sit in circles, not rows, learning through dialogue, play, and discovery. Here, curiosity replaces fear. Respect replaces punishment.
In most Haitian schools, instruction happens in French—a language many children don’t understand. But in Matènwa, learning sounds like home. Through the Mother Tongue Books Program, students write and illustrate their own Creole storybooks—over 2,000 so far—giving voice to their imaginations and communities. Outside the classroom, students cultivate thriving school gardens, learning to grow food, care for the earth, and feed their families with pride.
Every lesson—whether in the classroom or garden—models equality. Boys and girls share every task and every opportunity equally, learning early that leadership has no gender.
The results are extraordinary: Matènwa students read up to three times better than their peers in French-speaking schools. Teachers from across Haiti come here to see what’s possible when education honors every child’s voice, dignity, and potential.
In Matènwa, education isn’t memorized—it’s lived.
