Integrated Development Project in Northwest Artibonite

Following Hurricane Jeanne, which hit Haiti in October 2004, AMURT sent a team to northwest Artibonite, thirty-five kilometers north of Gonaives, to provide cooked meals to the hurricane survivors. With food provided by the World Food Program, we opened five centers feeding over 2,000 people daily, primarily children and the elderly. The program lasted 7 months, and benefited 8 of the villages hardest hit by the Hurricane.

Given the deprivation of this area, we decided to commit to a long-term development program to help bring hope where there was little. Our surveys of the village of Point-de-Mangles indicated that 60% of the youth had relocated elsewhere, looking for opportunities that were non-existent in their native place.

AMURT has since undertaken the following programs:

• Rehabilitation of existing water supply systems

• Repair and construction of roads

• Setting up of local workshops to manufacture and install domestic bio-sand filters

• Reforestation, watershed management and organic farming

• Rehabilitation of salt mines

• Construction of new irrigation canals

• Set up and support of village cooperatives lending seeds and tools to farmers

Establishing a village base

Our first priority was to move into one of the villages to show our commitment to the area. AMURT believes that development occurs best when people enter into a dialogue that leads to mutual trust and respect. The leaders of Source Chaudes kindly provided us with two buildings, an abandoned soda factory and a smaller house that serve as a residence and office respectively. Every day we receive visits from many people in the area and also from the occasional chicken! A recent volunteer from Italy had this to say about our village base:

Women coming from neighboring villages would pass by AMURT’s “headquarters” on their way to the market riding their donkeys. They would stop to check us out: “How are you doing?” “When are you coming to our village, to do projects?” they would ask. Students organized in small voluntary associations came with nicely prepared proposals for social projects: latrines, a radio station, potable water. Teachers would come to promote their schools. All these people saw AMURT as a way to realize their own projects and dreams and as an inspiration to imagine new ones.

Working through committees

In order to provide more ownership to the community, AMURT’s policy is to work through committees once, of course, the original consultations have been made with the local leaders and opinion makers. We provide training to committee members so they are better equipped to undertake project implementation. This strategy has so far proven successful. Recently, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), one of AMURT’s major partners, provided us with an unsolicited donation of black beans, seeds and tools for the seed banks we helped set up through the local committees. According to FAO, AMURT’s project was one of the few projects undisturbed by the recent political upheavals in Haiti. Our beneficiaries have ownership of the project, and know that if they steal anything, they are stealing from themselves.

AMURT has established a regular system of community meetings and information forums to gather input and involve the local population in the management of its projects.  Such a grassroots involvement has been crucial in building a strong support for all initiatives, and ensuring their sustainability over time. This photo shows a community forum in Tite Place.

Water, the source of life

Between July 2005 and March 2006, AMURT worked hard with the committees of eight villages to improve water supply and water quality, with the following results:

• Established a bio-sand water filter production facility, building and installing 1,050 bio-sand water filters, and benefiting 8,500 community members.

• Built 1,800 meters of new irrigation canals

• Rehabilitated seven water catchment systems

• Completed eleven public water fountains, five washing facilities, six public bathing facilities, and two public toilets, benefiting 4,700 people.

• Built three water reservoirs, benefiting over 20,000 people.

• Installed 3.8 km section of pipe linking 5 communities to previously inaccessible water sources.

The bio-sand filters have proven to be very successful, as they purify water for drinking and other domestic use. Recently, a delegation from the village of Lagon walked more than 14 miles to submit a request for filters to AMURT. Following discussions, an assessment visit to the area, and a training seminar, AMURT has begun an experimental filter production operation which is managed by a local committee, with the objective of further decentralizing the program. Karen, our filter program coordinator, had this to share with us:

“We walked to Lagon, taking a scenic rocky path winding through gorges passing small beautiful villages. I forgot my water bottle, but somehow all I had to do was to ask in every village whether they had one of our filters. People would immediately lead us to the nearest house, and the homeowners would proudly offer us their water, and even some home-cooked food. The water was delicious, and I never got sick in an area where water-borne sickness is the number one threat to human health and life.”

Enthusiasm for trees

The Artibonite area has suffered from years of uncontrolled clear-cutting of trees, primarily to sell as charcoal. This has resulted in a barren landscape with subsequent soil loss, gully erosion and dust storms. AMURT’s agronomists have set up three tree nurseries and provided environmental training to the villagers. The program has been very successful with 25,000 fruit and shade trees planted in private yards, and along ravines, roads, and water channels. Less than 4% of the trees have perished. A further 32,000 tree seedlings are growing in preparation of the next planting campaign.

One of our volunteers had this to say about a participant in the reforestation program:

One old man, with a couple of months of school education in his entire life, when asked to explain why he wanted the trees, looked at me like I was a mentally retarded child, then exhibited a patient smile of a few spare teeth and said, “For the shadow.” And then, with a broad gesture embracing the surrounding dusty hills added, “Because they are beautiful.” As if it was obvious. And it surely was.

Celistene, from the village of Figuet, posing in front of the coconut tree which he received from the AMURT nursery in Tite Place. While AMURT focused its first stage of its reforestation on individual homeowners, the subsequent phases of the program emphasized community scale projects such as roadside planting and watershed protection.  In its third stage (from April to September of 2006) the project will create community forests protecting the water sources of 5 villages.

Economic Revival

The World Food Program is changing its strategies in Haiti, seeking to promote domestic production of agricultural products, rather than importing them. For example, the WFP spends an estimated $10 million dollars a year importing Canadian salt into Haiti. Now, the WFP wants to invest this money in increasing local capacity. AMURT is one of WFP’s Haitian partners in this program, developing the salt mining industry of the coastal Artibonite area. We are currently helping fifty salt mine owners rehabilitate their hurricane-damaged mines. In the next phase we will establish a pilot project to introduce the “rational” method of salt production, and finally we will set up an iodizing factory.

The Future (in the Villages and the Capital)

The Canary Island (Spain) Municipal Fund has recently funded our women’s programs in Port-au-Prince, focusing on creativity (dance and crafts), economics (embroidery skills) and hygiene (latrines).

AMURT is committed to working with the people of Haiti into the foreseeable future to help them live out their dreams for a decent life, which should be everyone’s birthright.

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