Hello everyone,
I am the leader of the SOHA research-action project whose main
objective is to introduce open science and open access to
Haiti and Francophone Africa. SOHA is part of OCSDnet : http://ocsdnet.org/projects/universite-laval/.
For nearly 18 months,
a huge work has been done. One great outcome is the emergence
of young open access leaders in these countries. You can read
their blog posts (in French) at http://www.projetsoha.org/?page_id=60.
In Haiti in particular, as a result of our March symposium on
"open science and open access as a tool for sustainable
development", a group of undergraduate students enrolled in
the State University of Haiti have decided to establish an
association promoting open access and cognitive justice.
During the last three months, they made radio broadcasts,
published blog posts and organized two training workshops,
especially in northern Haiti where they gathered a hundred
students!
I organized with and for them two sessions on Open science and
cognitive justice at the next World Social Forum to be held in
Montreal (August). They will present their work, their
strategy and their arguments. Our hope is that they will thus
affect students and researchers of the Global South who will
also be there. The Association Science and Common Good that I
chair will fund in solidarity their accommodation and meals,
but we decided to do a fundraiser to pay for their air tickets
and visa fees.
I therefore appeal to your generosity to make that trip real.
It will both reward these students for their so effective
engagement for open science, it will boost their energy and it
may radiate into the network of the World Social Forum.
Please read the page that tells their story in more detail.
Counting on your commitment and generosity!
Florence Piron
responsible for project SOHA http://projetsoha.org
Laval University, Québec, Canada