GC-DWC Awarded $2.06 Million Grant from Porticus to Expand Safe & Inclusive Schools Initiative Across Haiti’s Grand North

Building on TML 1.0, “TML 2.0: Each One, Teach One” shifts operational leadership to national Catholic education partners and expands Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) to reach 65,000 students across three departments.
 

August 2026—The University of Notre Dame’s Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child (GC-DWC) has received a $2.06 million award from Porticus to support Tout Moun Ladan 2.0 (TML 2.0): Each One, Teach One. Running from August 2026 through December 2028, the project will sustainably strengthen Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) across the entire Grand North region of Haiti. 

The initiative, titled Tout Moun Ladan (Haitian Creole for “Everyone Is In It”), builds on the whole-school, whole-diocese approach implemented in the North Department from 2024 to 2026. The program is expanding child-centered SEL practices from 82 schools in the North to 275 Catholic primary schools across the North, Northeast, and Northwest Departments.

Addressing Cascading Crises Through Systems-Level Change

Haitian schoolchildren face a cascading series of acute-on-chronic crises. Young children live in a general context of poverty, where families struggle to meet basic needs in an environment punctuated by both natural hazards (hurricanes, excessive rain, and earthquakes) and man-made crises. Since 2021, armed violence has displaced record numbers of people nationwide, reaching 1.4 million by 2026. This has overwhelmed communities in the Grand North as they absorb internally displaced persons (IDPs) fleeing violence in the capital.

Nationwide, over 1,600 schools closed due to violence in the 2024-2025 cycle. Catholic schools that remain open in the Grand North provide a lifeline to thousands of children and families who need safe havens that promote the SEL skills necessary to navigate their lived reality. 

To address this, TML 2.0 employs an “each one, teach one” approach, in which each system-level actor in the Haitian Catholic education ecosystem is paired with their counterpart in a neighboring diocese. Arch/Bishops, Directors, and lead coaches in the Regional Office of Catholic Schools (BDE), parish priests, school directors, and master teachers will each serve as mentors and leaders to embed child-centered practices in schools and communities.

“As communities across the Grand North absorb thousands of displaced children and families fleeing violence, ensuring our schools are safe, nurturing sanctuaries is more urgent than ever,” shared Kate Schuenke-Lucien, GC-DWC director for Haiti and senior associate director for strategic planning. “Through TML 2.0, we are deeply embedding child-centered Social and Emotional Learning practices across the entire regional system, empowering local Haitian education leaders to mentor one another and drive lasting, institutional change from within.”

Sustainable Local Leadership

The single greatest lever of sustainable change to improve SEL outcomes in Haiti is the Haitian Catholic education ecosystem, which serves roughly 20% of Haitian students. TMl 2.0 brings a marked shift in leadership, with the GC-DWC administering and supporting the work with the goal of fully transferring the implementation, management, technical, and research capacity to partners within that ecosystem:

• National Office of Catholic Education (CEEC): The CEEC will assume direct financial and operational management of on-the-ground project execution, leading regional execution, coaching feedback loops, teacher professional development, and refresher training. 
• University of Notre Dame, Haiti (UNDH-Hinche): Located in the adjacent Central Plateau, UNDH-Hinche (led by Rector Fr. Herald Jean) will embed dedicated professional staff to lead technical education support for SEL programming, as well as research, monitoring, evaluation, and data management.
• Diocesan Leadership: Monseigneur Saturne, Archbishop of Cap-Haitien, alongside Bishops in the Northeast and Northwest, will design and lead regional Diocesan-wide Leadership Summits and oversee administrative SEL policy adoption across all three departments.
   

Evidence-Driven Learning and Continuous Improvement

Supporting this transition to local leadership is a robust Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) framework, in which dedicated GC-DWC MEL staff oversee the design, implementation, and analysis of MEL activities in close partnership with CEEC and BDE staff. Grounded in systems-level change, the MEL approach focuses on qualitative data collection and tracking signals of change across mindset shifts, tools and approaches, and power dynamics. Structured reflection processes, including monthly BDE coach check-ins, quarterly cross-diocese peer learning meetings, and mid-year learning checks, will directly connect learning to action, ensuring that evidence and implementation findings inform program adaptations across the Grand North and are shared across technical and non-technical fora.
 

Project Reach

Over its 29-month timeline, TML 2.0 will directly impact:

• 65,000 primary school students (including recently displaced children)
• 1,925 teachers and 275 school directors across 275 schools
• 16,400 parents and caregivers through Parent Awareness Meetings on SEL
• 3 Arch/Bishops, 3 BDE Directors, 20 BDE Coaches, and ~100 Master Teachers

“Using SEL to transform school culture is something we excel in,” Neil Boothby, professor and director of the GC-DWC explained. “By equipping local leaders across every layer of the Catholic education system, TML 2.0 ensures that safe, inclusive, and nurturing environments are sustained for children across Haiti for years to come.”

To learn more about the GC-DWC’s work in Haiti, please visit: https://iei.nd.edu/gc-dwc-haiti

About the Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child (GC-DWC)

The Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child (GC-DWC), housed within the Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame, collaborates with researchers and practitioners to ensure the well-being—physical, emotional, social, and cognitive—of children and adolescents in low-resource and conflict-affected settings. Established to serve as a coherent platform for the Institute for Educational Initiative’s growing portfolio of global child development and learning programs, the GC-DWC creates environments that foster resilience and encourage children and adolescents to thrive. Using an innovative Whole Child Development (WCD) approach tailored to context-specific needs, the GC-DWC translates research into timely and thoughtful action, adapts research tools to improve the development of learning programs and policies, and activates systems (families, schools, communities) to lift children and adolescents out of adversity.

Learn more about the GC-DWC’s work to transform child development globally: iei.nd.edu/gc-dwc