A Letter from the Executive Director

The School

Harmony Education and Life Partners (H.E.L.P.) is a community-based organization that provides integrated and comprehensive services, in a sustained way, to the children and families of Irvington, New Jersey.

Our goal is to design and provide effective programs throughout the lives of our families. Our services touch on every aspect of a healthful, positive, and successful life—including education, family, community, health, arts, culture, and recreation—and are designed to sustain young people as they progress into adulthood and independent lives of their own.

We hope to create a wellspring of community engagement and pride to break with the images of corrosive and desperate culture of street violence that, for decades, has been the description of the community in Irvington. We strive to bring awareness to this community that despite the evident lack of resources, that this community holds many bright and intelligent children with great promise.

H.E.L.P. brings quality services and mobilizes individuals and resources to create the necessary conditions to help people help themselves and their neighbors.

We also take an integrative approach to strengthening the community by organizing neighborhood institutions from the bottom up.

Our philosophy is to find the best practices and program models that address urban poverty and violence and adapt them to Irvington’s needs and particularities. We seek to partner with other organizations, when possible, to maximize resources. It is when we build pathways through our community and provide new experiences and resources that things will change.

Ketty Michel

Ms. Ketty Michel is the founder and executive director of Harmony Education & Life Partners. Ketty established the foundation of the Harmony Childcare initiative. Harmony’s first level of services began as a home-based professional daycare years ago. Identifying a specific need to help children from low-income families be prepared for school, Ms. Michel utilized her experience in operating educational programs combined with creative, multicultural, and innovative approaches to help children learn.

Today, Harmony serves over 200 children including its after-school and summer program. Under the leadership and care of Ms. Michel graduates have gone to gifted and talented academic programs. With the collaborative efforts of visionary educators, involved parents and concerned community leaders and organizations Harmony continues to develop intelligent, confident, self-sufficient and responsible children of today and tomorrow.

Harmony was amongst the 7% of early care and educational programs nationwide to become accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.  The center maintains its high quality and standards for early childhood education by emphasizing creativity, academic achievement, language skills, literacy, and family values throughout all of its programs.