Social entrepreneur Nedgine Paul immigrated from Haiti to the US at a young age. After graduating from Yale, she received her masters of education at Harvard University. She gained valuable experience working for the prominent charter school network known as Achievement First and then working for Dr. Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health in Haiti. Shortly after, Nedgine Paul started the nonprofit organization, Anseye Pou Ayiti (Teach for Haiti).
The NGO recruits and trains local Haitians and sends them out to teach in some of the toughest and most rural schools in Haiti. In a country where she must battle constant blackouts, natural disasters, and the fact that only 30% of children pass primary school, she is fighting against all the odds in her quest to create a new narrative for her home country.
Nedgine Paul is an Echoing Green Fellow and was recently named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for social entrepreneurship.

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Show Notes Nedgine Paul

  • “Growing up, I was the child who loved school. I was obsessed.”
  • Coming from Haiti, snow days were confusing for Nedgine Paul
  • Nedgine’s father was a school teacher before he became a priest
  • “It’s not enough to just take in knowledge. It’s about using it to do good.”
  • Nedgine worked at Achievement First Public Charter School Network for three years
  • “Zip code is not destiny.”
  • Social justice was important to Achievement First
  • Continuous improvement was important for the staff at Achievement First, a trait that Nedgine has taken to Haiti
  • People really asked for the HOW and the WHY at Achievement First
  • “Who are you as a leader and how do you show up?”
  • Nedgine Paul was active in the Haitian American community during her youth
  • “I want to create and contribute to a new narrative of our mighty nation.”
  • Her father is one of Nedgine’s north stars
  • The power of “one person’s quest” as a story
  • The organizational culture at Partners in Health is: doing whatever it takes, being local rooted and locally informed
  • PIH has maintained credibility and legitimacy for decades through authenticity
  • AT PIH it’s not about working for or with a community. It’s about being “of” the community. Nedgine hopes to bring that culture to Anseye Pou Ayiti
  • Staff members at Anseye Pou Ayiti spent years getting to know their communities in the beginning
  • PIH maintained their roots and knew how to improve from criticism
  • “Scale in global education has become about numbers and not about depth.”
  • “It’s not about scale in numbers but in depth.”
  • It took Nedgine and her team four years of planning before launching, talking to community members
  • Their approach was to be “slow and steady”
  • “As the Millennial generation, we want to rush to the next best thing, the next bright thing, the next thing that will go viral.”
  • It’s time to pause and listen, especially to our elders
  • “Why do we think that everything in Haiti’s educational system is broken?”
  • They asked for a assets instead of deficits in their communities
  • Before launching, Nedgine worked on Anseye Pou Ayiti part-time, during nights and weekends
  • Echoing Green’s fellowship and funding allowed Nedgine to pursue Anseye Pou Ayiti full time.
  • Nedgine Paul questioned herself a lot in the beginning
  • Nedgine Paul had a “brain-trust” of allies
  • “We have to be solvers AND learners at the same time.”
  • All the operational stuff was really difficult for Nedgine, coming in as an educator and not as a manager
  • Nedgine was told at Echoing Green that “Failure is okay in social entrepreneurship”
  • Many social entrepreneurs struggle with fundraising during year one
  • Anseye Pou Ayiti is part of the Teach for All network
  • Teach for All operates in 40 different countries now
  • Anseye Pou Ayiti is recruiting and training LOCAL teachers
  • Anseye Pou Ayiti went on a national recruitment campaign
  • Current teachers could apply at first, and now they make up a majority of the corps members
  • “The best is yet to come.”
  • Anseye Pou Ayiti has a mixed cohort approach
  • Corps members get leadership training and additional stipend (paid by Anseye Pou Ayiti) beyond their regular salaries (paid by the local schools)
  • Only 30% of children in Haiti are passing primary school
  • Her team was “lean and mean” in the beginning
  • Staying up late was critical
  • They did not want to be just “marginally different” than everything else
  • Anseye Pou Ayiti leverages partners that can provide specific teacher training workshops
  • Their training sessions are held in rural Haiti where logistics are “hairy” but it allows them to live their values
  • Past corps members come back to help with training
  • Blackouts are challenging
  • Not having a Staples in the area makes it hard to just go out and buy supplies when needed
  • Co-founder Ivanley Noisette and Nedgine are able to listen to and criticize each other
  • Nedgine’s students keep her ego in check
  • “The elders must be brought back into the conversation.”
  • Getting fellowships is a great fundraising strategy
  • In terms of fundraising, ask yourselves who would care about your cause
  • For Nedgine, giving gratitude is important
  • She asks herself, what went well today?
  • Funding was not going as well as Nedgine wanted it to recently, so she had to reach out for help
  • That moment of crises reminded her to be more humble, and to more willing to reach out for help
  • Nedgine gives thank to her professor, Dr. Lillian Guerra, who encouraged her to keep going
  • Nedgine is worried about the negative narrative of Haiti  
  • Nedgine loves hearing about the progress inside the classrooms of her fellows
  • Nedgine recommends books: Visions of Vocation and also anything written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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