In small villages and shantytowns throughout Haiti, children can scrawl their names in shaky script.

Teenagers more accustomed to speaking Creole impress visitors with greetings in English and Spanish.

Adults find light industrial work in an arid landscape that has traditionally offered little else but subsistence farming.

This Caribbean nation of 8 million is more commonly known as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere than as the world’s first black independent republic.

Yet throughout the island a sense of community thrives, cultural expression flourishes and the resilience of the Haitian people can be seen in efforts large and small to change things for the better.