The goal of Mando Foundation is to continue a legacy that started with our parents.
The illiteracy rate in Haiti has always been high, 65% to as high as 85%.
Grandmother, Mother, Teacher
In 1946, at the age of sixteen, using her impact, her influences, and her contact at that early age within the catholic community, where she completed her highest secondary education to becoming a teacher, with the help of her family as well, she embarked on her journey to alphabetize the different parts of her surrounding community and towns in Port de Paix. Port de Paix is the North-West part of Haiti.
She saddled and she journeyed weekly miles and miles away to provide this tremendous work that she had undertaken to teach these constituents and their children how to read and to write. She believed that educating a nation was a must and that illiteracy should be and was to her unacceptable.
ManDo and TanDo
During her trips, she met our late father, Mr. Francois Ludovic Saint Fort. Our father was in a similar journey promoting health and teaching the benefit of agriculture to the residents of these different suburbs and he was known as “Doc”. Seven years prior to meeting our father, our mother was known as Mademoiselle Valma. After marrying our father, she continued her work and was now called MANDO, a sweet combination of her now married name, to the peasants or country people of these different communities, paysans in French, verbalizing their love for the couple as she also entered married life and motherhood.
And After
Our father, at some point, did no longer find it safe for our mother to travel with their babies and she agreed to return to the main city Port de Paix to their home where we lived. She was going to continue her work, she changed her strategies, and she pioneered a kindergarten in her living room, turning it into a classroom during the week. The morning crew for the babies, and the afternoon crew where the adults would learn trade in broderies and crafts. We will also not forget the three months, during summer, where our family would travel with a group of young men and young women, Josiste Group, where all manual skills were taught. We would travel 14 to 20 miles away from the main city of Port de Paix and we would stay on campuses own by catholic schools and priests.