Goals and Strategy of NCHR's Haitian Entrant Legal and Civic Education Program

At its core, HELCEP is a training program intended to strengthen the capacity of both the Haitian refugee community and the legal/judicial/civic system to interact in a more productive manner.   For the community to successfully integrate into American society, it is essential that Haitian entrants and this country’s legal institutions are informed, educated and held mutually accountable to the ideals of civic participation.  

In order to serve the Haitian community well, it is essential that legal/civic institutions can relate not only to what Haitians say but the meaning behind their words:  how they see the world and their place in it.  Many Haitians hesitate to approach organizations that are not explicitly Haitian.  In part this is because they fear making themselves more obvious to government authorities.  However, for those who have limited skills in English, fear of being misunderstood and/or ridiculed is also an issue.

Haitian entrants must be taught to understand that in spite of these challenges, as residents in America, it is important to learn how to engage these institutions.  Being responsible members of society requires a firm grasp of the concepts of civic engagement that guide the interaction between residents and this country’s legal system.  Equally important, appropriate services for the community must include linguistically and culturally appropriate intake and interviewing strategies that genuinely facilitate communication and reduce probabilities of misunderstandings. 

To achieve its goals, NCHR is pursuing the following strategies.

I.                     Institutionalization of New York City Project

Through LEAP from 1999-2002, NCHR had discernible success in fostering a better relationship between the NYPD and Haitian entrants.  We have used a number of methods in conducting our work – workshops in high schools and community centers, PSAs and radio programs intended to reach broad segments of Haitian society, some training of police officers, etc.  Because this program was the first of its kind to address these issues in the Haitian community, over the past three years we experimented with a number of avenues to determine the most effective strategies for working both with the Haitian refugee population and the police community. 

Having discovered some of these methods, NCHR feels that we are now in a position not only to build on and solidify those efforts with the entrants and the broader legal community.  Doing so requires implementing a structured legal education and assistance capacity-building component intended to institutionalize both formal and informal systems of routine, regular and long-term communication, conflict management and relationship maintenance.  This will entail:

-developing a series of intensive workshops and produce comprehensive training curricula for the Haitian refugee and legal/civic institutions;

-identifying, recruiting, training and enrolling various stakeholders as Program Affiliates for the purpose of (a) providing holistic legal education to Haitian refugees, (b) developing a structured referral system with NCHR-approved providers and (c) strengthening the capacity of the legal system to relate to the Haitian community;

-regularly convening and providing on-going support to Affiliates for networking and skill-sharing purposes;

- and composing an advisory committee of experts to assist in the overall planning and conducting of the trainings;      

II.                   Replication

As a national organization with reach in several Haitian entrant hubs, NCHR proposes to take the lessons and successes of this program and export it to the home of the majority of new entrants, the greater Miami Metropolitan area.  With so many new arrivals who have even less understanding of the American system, the challenges are much more stark in Miami than in New York.  We are confident that the training models used in New York can be adapted to bring about similar changes in the fundamental nature of the relationship between Haitian entrants and the legal community in the greater Miami area as well. 

III.                  National Strategy and Implications

While we seek to solidify the work in New York and implement a sister program in Miami, NCHR feels strongly that HELCEP has tremendous potential for helping to educate policymakers at all levels to formulate strategies that can ensure culturally and linguistically appropriate legal services and access not only for Haitian entrants but also other refugee communities.  To that end, we propose to:

            -conduct research of Haitian entrant legal needs across the country;

            -engage in the national debate on legal reform and marginalized communities;