Final Report: 10-10-14

World Connect, with the financial support of the US Embassy, was able to hold a successful event in Haiti on October 10, 2014, the International Day of the Girl, to launch the book "Rising Up." Through this launch, World Connect in collaboration with the Center for the Arts in Port-au-Prince was able to create a platform for women’s voices and stories to be heard and seen through the arts. "Rising Up" is a book of photography and essays taken and written by the young girls displaced by the 2010 earthquake. The book highlights the girls' photography and writing skills as well as their resiliency in light of the challenges they have encountered. The book is being used to launch an empowerment agenda for the participating girls and girls in surrounding communities to increase opportunity for adolescent girls in Haiti. 

The publication of Rising Up was a huge success. From its initial rounds at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, where it found its way into the hands of the Haitian Prime Minister, Paul Farmer of Partners in Health, Stephen Kahn of the Abundance Foundation, Susan Davis of BRAC, and many others, to Port-au-Prince Haiti where it made the local press, debuting in Lakay Weekly, an English addition to Le Nouvelliste Haitian newspaper. The newspaper published a photograph of Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe holding the book.