Martine Harris

Martine Harris is co-founder and President of Travel & GIVE, a non-profit organization that incorporates travel with addressing needs in local communities around the world. Martine received her Master of Science degree in Speech and Language Pathology from Adelphi University in New York.

In 2009, after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lehman College in the Bronx, Martine moved to Port-au-Prince, Haiti to work as an English teacher. She found herself struggling to provide instruction for students presenting with a variety of different learning styles and learning disabilities. Many of her students had learning disabilities such as dyslexia, receptive/expressive language, and articulation disorders. Due to the lack of professional development courses and resources for educators in Haiti, these students fell behind academically. Martine returned to New York to attend graduate school, with plans to return to Haiti to educate teachers and the community about people living with learning disabilities.

After 6 years of working as a speech and language pathologist servicing students with learning disabilities in New York City and Baltimore, Martine returned to Haiti with a group of related service providers and educators to provide professional development courses for teachers on how to create an inclusive classroom learning environment for their students.

Since 2016, Martine has been recruiting volunteers to travel to Haiti to support teachers in schools, and provide hands-on-therapy for children in orphanages presenting with congenital, physical, cognitive, and mental disabilities. Travel & GIVE is expanding their program to Nairobi, Kenya in summer 2019.