Paula Prince, Deputy Country Director – June 7th, 2013
In English the community name means “ravine of sand.” This village in the South of Haiti is logically named after its most prominent landmark, an expansive ravine of sand and rocks that winds through the community. Resources are scarce. People here make a living off of subsistence farming, weaving straw to make bags and saddles, cultivating tobacco, and cutting down trees to produce charcoal.
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| Parent, Makiline, in front of her house, uses straw to make saddles for a living. . | Hope for Haiti staff member, Paula Prince, with students. |
Students line up for a procession in front of their school. |
Hope for Haiti has supported the school here since 2008 through teacher salary subsidies and school construction. More recently, we have added several new programs at the school including a school lunch program and solar-powered electricity, which help provide the school’s 447 students with a quality education.
In the fall of 2011, Hope for Haiti began implementing the Progress Out of Poverty Index (PPI) in the community. The internationally recognized indicator developed by the Grameen Foundation, has helped us achieve a global picture of poverty levels in the area. During the first round of the survey, we uncovered that 63% of the 206 households were living in extreme poverty, subsisting on less than $1 US per day.
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| A student returns plates after eating a warm lunch. | A grandmother of a student invites us in her house. | The Bertrand family in front of their house. |
After a year of programming, Hope for Haiti is in the process of re-administering the PPI survey to measure poverty in the area for a second year. During a school visit last week, I asked the school director a very frank question, “Do you think that this year’s results will show any progress out of poverty?” He chuckled. “Paula, I don’t know,” he said. “People here have lived in extreme lamizè (misery/poverty) for a long time. Hurricane Sandy only made things worse.” Then, he asked to take me to visit some of the parents’ households and see for myself.
A few days later, we walked down the ravine and into the wilderness to visit the parents in the community. We visited 10 different houses. In some lived aged grandmothers that are caring for their daughters’ children. In others lived full families, with mothers who had recently birthed their ninth or tenth child, all of which were born at home with no supervision from a doctor or a midwife. In the household of Mr. Silma, a tobacco cultivator, we saw the large collection of dried tobacco leaves that were hanging from his thatched ceiling. During our conversation he picked off a dried tobacco leaf, made a traditional cigar and insisted that we try it.
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| Hope for Haiti staff member, Paula Prince, with Micheline in front of her damaged home. | Mr. Silma smokes his homegrown tobacco. | Tobacco hangs from Mr. Silma’s thatched ceiling. |
The last house that we visited was the household of Micheline, who has four kids in the school. She lives with her young children in a house that was partially washed away during Hurricane Sandy’s flash floods. When we arrived, she recounted the horrifying story of Hurricane Sandy’s destruction. That night, she was asleep and felt her bed moving. She woke up as her house was filling with rushing water. She had to grab her small children under her arms and brave the violent waters to make it to higher ground. She is still living in the destroyed house. I encouraged her to find another place to stay before this hurricane season starts, knowing that her horrifying experience is likely to repeat itself.
The household visits were an eye-opening experience. The people are strong and resilient. They are also incredibly welcoming and kind. Almost every household that I entered said the same thing: “I’m so sorry that I don’t have anything to offer you.” The beautiful school that Hope for Haiti supports in this community, inspires hope among the population that, through education, these families can be lifted out of extreme poverty.