Although Rive envisions different developmental projects, education constitutes the main area of intervention. Rive believes that education is the key to social development, a catalyst for success, and the plenitude of human dignity. We believe that access to quality education is not a privilege but a basic human right. Denying access to education to a person or a human community is a waste of human resources and a set back for society. Rive strives to create educational and vocational opportunities to reduce rural exodus which has led to overcrowded schools and poor quality education in urban areas.We also believe that education can be the center of a development agenda in emergent communities.

We envision an education that is culturally relevant and that takes into consideration the multiple aspects of the development of the subjects and their communities in a holistic way. We are interested in education for the improvement of the material conditions of the subjects being educated along with their immediate and non-immediate environment (both ecologically and geopolitically) as opposed to education for the sake of education.

Rive is the fruit of a long partnership between a group of Haitians and Americans. Realizing large rural populations of Haiti have been totally forgotten, they decided to create this organization to address the pressing needs of education in these rural communities. Prior to the 2010 earthquake in which 300,000 Hatians died, it was estimated that only 30 percent of children living in the countryside of Haiti had access to education. In the rural areas the issue is compounded due to the severe shortage of qualified teachers. Those that do seek education often leave the region in search of opportunities in more urban areas. Any observers who look at the life conditions in the slums of the large agglomerations of Haiti, such as Port-au-Prince, may come to the understanding that these inhuman life conditions intersect with the neglect of the rural areas. The situation is such that, due to lack of education and economic opportunities in the rural areas, young haitians are compelled to seek educational and economic opportunities in the larger agglomerations that are struggling to meet the demand of their inner population themselves.

Rive is committed to working with the communities in order to provide not only access to education but also to an education oriented toward solutions to the serious problems these communities have faced for too long. In addition, Rive contributes to research in education and curriculum design so teachers and parents and communities can have the resources needed to provide an education that will turn the students into problem solvers.

Why does language play a role in our discourse on education?

Our rationale for plurilingualism as a framework that undergirds our educational perspective, is driven both by history and realism, in terms of the exigencies of conditions of the reality for the improvement of the material conditions of the people.

The Rive team understands that “The contemporary speaking subject can no longer treat plurilingualism as a mere survival strategy for some groups of immigrants in search of dealing with the burden of deterritorialization” (Jean-Pierre 2020). In terms of history, we understand that since the arrival of Columbus to the American Continent the Caribatlantic region^[1] has become the podium of multiple language encounters. The encounter between Columbus and his team and the indigenous people inaugurates an area of plurilingualism in the region. History reports that Columbus himself was born in Italy and spoke at birth a language called Ligurian, a Gallo-Italic language. He was later influenced by Portuguese, Spanish, and Latin. His adventures put Europeans in contact with several indigenous languages^[2]. The post-Columbus linguistic configuration of the Amerigo Vespucci’s America comprises a mosaic of European and African-based languages.

While the presence of the Spanish language starts with the adventures of Columbus in the region, throughout the 17^th century, the British colonized Bermuda (1612) followed by the colonization of multiple territories in the region including Jamaica in 1655^[3] and The Bahamas in 1649.

The presence of the French language started with the capture of Guadeloupe and Martinique in 1635 by the French. As for Haiti, which is our area of focus, following a fierce struggle between France and Spain, France took over the western part of the island. The treaty that France signed with Spain for the control of this part of the island in 1697, that is, the Treaty of Ryswick, marked the inaugural of the reign of the French language in Haiti.

We have observed that the plurilingual speech community of the European Continent became the greatest inheritance of the Caribatlantic Region. The history of the Caribbean region thus makes it an area essentially plurilingual. This is not a heritage that the speech communities of the region can take lightly, particularly when we consider language as capital, in the view of Pierre Bourdieu (). Today the most widely spoken languages of the region are Creole, Spanish, English and French.

In consideration to this history, Rive calls for an engagement with this history and subscribes its educational projects in Haiti into a productive process of re-appropriation of these linguistic values as we seek new development pathways. The exigencies of the contemporary, mobile, and increasingly heterogeneous world invite Haitian speaking subjects to develop proficiencies in the four major languages of the region - English, Spanish, French, Creole. Our goal is to value the Creole language in education while helping students to develop proficiencies in French, English, and Spanish depending on their respective pedagogical statuses